1473 Tasting Notes
I am not a pu-erh drinker, let me say that right out. I have one or two I like, but overall I don’t reach for it. So read this review with a grain of salt, because I really don’t know what I’m doing.
The directions on the sample said to brew for 3-10 minutes in 17 ounces of water. So I got out my 16 ounce nordic mug and brewed it for 2 minutes, but first I let it brew for 30 seconds and threw that out as a rinse.
The smell of the brewed tea is very earthy. Reminds me of when I’ve just opened up Pao’s cage and the smell of the wet soil hits me. Not a bad thing, just different. I smell hay too.
Now, don’t shoot me. I added two teaspoons of sugar because that is how I take every tea I drink. Without the sugar, I am guaranteed not to like it, so I’d rather add sugar for a tasting note so I’m not just sipping it, thinking “this needs sugar, I don’t like it”.
I don’t really know how to describe what I’m tasting. It’s earthy and nutty and sweet. I…I’m enjoying, but I’ve not become a convert by any means. It’s alright, but not something I could ever see myself reaching for. I’m not rating it because it’s not fair for me to negatively rate something I knew I wouldn’t enjoy.
Thank you, TeaVivre, for letting me try this tea, you are extremely generous!
Preparation
I was playing with our tortoise, who is named after this type of tea, and talking on the phone to my mom about my brother, who lives near The Whistling Kettle, so it seemed like fate. Pao also discovered that the face of my phone is shiny and kept burrowing under my chin to play with her reflection and tap her beak against the speaker…mom loved that XD.
Anyway, I deeply love this blend. When we named Pao, neither of us had actually tried the tea, but we’ve since become big fans. It’s roasty, toasty goodness. We have three different brands, maybe we should try them all next to each other. The dry leaf on this is gorgeous, twisty and long and unbroken. I couldn’t bring myself to use a tea spoon out of fear of breaking the leaves, so I just picked a few out of the bag.
Preparation
This has been coldbrewing in the fridge for the few days. It’s the leaves leftover from the day of great burning when I got too cocky with my hot and sour soup and made a dish that made me see through time! It was so freakin’ hot.
Anyhoo, this wasn’t hurt at all by the extended steep. It’s fruity, burny goodness.
uuuugh. We leave for the States in exactly a month and it hit me in a rush around three this morning. I woke up in the middle of the night completely dried out, it felt like my mouth was full of cotton, so I got up for water. Then I got to thinking about Pao, our tortoise. If I’m feeling this dried out, how must she be feeling? I remember my in-law’s house being very dry, and she’ll be staying with them while we’re gone. But they’re going to be gone the second week we’re gone, but my mother in law is supposed to be lining up someone to watch them while we are all away. Has she done that yet? Everytime I ask, she laughs it off like I’m silly for worrying. Gah. And we still need to make care sheets for the girls, they need to know that Earlie needs to be kept away from Bella and Pekoe, they can’t just throw them all in the same room. And you can’t leave glasses of liquid on tables when Pekoe is around, she will go out of her way to knock them over.
…see? My brain, when it gets to running all anxiety-like, it don’t stop. But then around 6 I had a huge sneezing fit and now I’m all stuffy and need to unstuff so I can get shit done. Thank goodness for this tea. We need to restock ASAP, we only have enough for 2, maybe three cups at the most and that is unacceptable.
So we recently went through our tea stash and set aside all the teas we didn’t like or we were just “meh” about. It has been kinda nice to go to our tea-filled expedit and know that whatever I grab, I’ll enjoy. I don’t have to force myself to sip down something I don’t like, I can enjoy the teas I love.
This is one of them. I love the strawberry and the grapefruit. It’s caffeine free, which is great tonight, because I am exhausted and I need to be able to sleep tonight.
All in all, this is a hit for me.
WANT! Both the tea and an Expedit for my tea.
It’s 2 blocks by 4 blocks, and 6 of the blocks have two drawers. One block is just perfect/nordic mugs, and the last block is whatever doesn’t fit in the others. Every block is full to the brim, and that doesn’t even take into account the other 2×4 expedit full of teapots >.<
Hah wow! That is a lot of tea and tea wares. I could probably fill a 2×2 Expedit quite easily, and keep all my tea ware (aside from cups & mugs) on top. Some day I need to get a china cabinet for displaying all of my tea cups, which have been in storage for at least a decade.
Alas, it looks like we’re going to have to move soon, since I just can’t handle paying this much for an apartment that can’t even provide consistent heat in the winter and cold running water ever. So no more furniture buying until we get a new place.
I’ve done the same thing, only with 2 doors instead of drawers lol
Sil, we have a door on our teaware expedit, it’s our Teadis. It has a flashing blue light on top with our TARDIS teapot and says “POLICE BOX” on the front and the door has the “pull to open” sign.
We are ridiculous.
Anlina, I so feel your pain. We could not wait to get out of our last place. Good luck finding a place! We were house hunting around this time last year, so happy to be settled.
Hahaha that sounds awesome…not ridiculous!
That is amazing. Can you post a picture of the TEADIS pleeeease?
I’m so grumpy about having to move again. This place is really great in so many ways, and it’s the first place I’ve had a chance to really settle into since I left my spouse five years ago. I’ve moved way too many times in that span and I wanted to be done with it. But I know that I can do better for this price, and I don’t feel happy paying a lot and not getting good basic services. I’m hoping our next place is awesome and I can stay there for at least a few years. Like, at least two – that shouldn’t be too much to ask right?
We’re going to stick it out for the winter, since the lease expires in spring and seriously, fuck moving in winter :P
I will poke the wifey when she gets home and make her take pictures with her pretty camera!
I feel you on the moving during winter part. We moved during the big ice storm last year, it suuuucked. We have pets and we lost power very quickly, so we ended up going to stay with the inlaws, moving everything into their garage, and just staying until our condo was available in early January.
I still hate how much I love this blend. But oh, I do. It got the depth and strength of a breakfast tea, but then it has a sweet fruitiness that just works so well.
It’s keeping me company on this snowy night. My poor, poor wife is caught out in the snow. She left work three hours ago and she’s halfway home. It’s usually a two hour commute. Gonna have the kettle ready when she finally gets here!
Brewed this up in the hopes that it will kill my cravings for both hot cocoa and ice cream. Dairy is the enemy, and while this does contain dairy, it is considerably less than a cup of cocoa or a bowl of ice cream.
And surprisingly, it does. YAY. It’s creamy and chocolatey and does remind me of an ice cream cake.
How have we never reviewed this tea? It’s so, so good. Easily one of our favorites. It really, really does taste like a blueberry crumb cake. This is part of a tea of the month club my brother signed us up for one Christmas. I really enjoyed it! It came with two big bags of tea, which is great in the case of this blend, but for the ones we didn’t like, well, it’s not so great. And I wish it said somewhere on the bag just what is in these blends, because they are no longer available online.
Regardless, this tea is an absolute gem of blueberry cakey goodness and it’s my hot toddy of the night with Jack Daniels Honey.
It’s storytime!
Picture it, DAVIDsTEA, October 2014. My darling wife, De, and I go shopping in store for the first time in a while. She looks up at the tea wall in shock.
“There are so many I haven’t tried!”
“So get some and try it.”
“Okay. 10 g of this, 10 g of that, 10 g of Currant Affair…”
“Seriously? You won’t like it. You don’t like black currants. You hate rooibos. In what world is the combination going to be tasty for you?”
“I think I’m going to like it!”
Cut to a few days when she finally made a cup.
“This is not good. It’s awful. It tastes like cough syrup.”
“intense side-eye”
Anyway, I am loving the smell of this brewed up. There’s a little Asian grocery store we like to go to and pick up these huge bags of assorted gummy candies. The purple ones are black currant and I love them! My dad can be blamed for my enjoyment of black currant, it’s one of his favorites. I hope it lives up to the smell.
Meh. It’s okay. Nothing worth stocking up on, but I wouldn’t turn down a cup.
