Featured & New Tasting Notes

additional notes: Revisiting this one. The B&B sale went QUICK again. I managed to grab a few things. No really big sales like past years. The only 70% off item was the santa tote. I did manage to grab the Strawberry Nutella Pancakes which I’m thrilled about. Having this with cookies because I just read Mastress Alita’s note about cookies. Anyway, probably said if before but this one is much like their Chocolate Digestives tea which is almost the same and I like that one more. (Cardamom instead of only licorice.) I always expect this to have bee pollen but luckily does not! Lowering the rating a couple points because Chocolate Digestives was at 83.

Finally! Flavoured black tea in subscription!

Okay, I had it in the morning, now it is an evening.
It was delicious creamy coffee-like tea. Unfortunately there wasn’t much of the chai in my two tea spoons I have used. I noticed the vanilla in and I liked that as well.

But somehow I was really enjoying it and looking forward getting more.

Personal: We are redoing a bathroom for my grandma completely, so we are covered (people, not the tea) in dust. No mood to drink hot drinks as it is quite hot. Not today though. Luckily the company will do it later, but we do the most dirty jobs :)

Second thing: unfortunately it seems I won’t be able to get my degree as I have failed last exam and it seems there is no way to re-do it. Long story short, I was cheating. I didn’t had to, but probably because of stress and others doing it, I did that as well.

Third: I had an job interview on Monday and Tuesday. First company will let me know if they want me to the end of this week, the second will write me next week, probably on Friday, if I pass to the second round. None of them is tea industry.

Thanks so much amandastory516 for this sample. What a tasty, marshmallowy genmaicha. This is a great balance between toastiness and marshmallowy softness. The resteep was only toastiness. And I love that this blend uses vegan marshmallows!

Sipdown (191)

I didn’t feel like doing the alphabet teas today because I didn’t really feel like having tea at all today. Then I got a craving for Starbucks and rather than spending the money, I decided to try and recreate my order at home. I have been going to the iced chai latte topped with vanilla sweet cream cold foam. Since I’ve been making the cold foam anyways, I figured it wasn’t that hard to make an iced chai latte.

My attempt actually wasn’t bad. The chai, being double spiced, wasn’t the best since it was strongly peppery and cardamom heavy until the cream mixed with it. It also wasn’t as sweet as the Starbucks drink but given I used actual chai rather than a syrup or concentrate, that’s not surprising. The cream is the real star here though because it adds sweetness and tames the overbearing spice of the tea.

Check out a pic of my dupe here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRkJmfshgZ3/?utm_medium=copy_link

They got the flavoring just perfect for this one! I had it cold, and it tastes quite like root beer with that sparkly hint in there too somehow. The rooibos is the ideal base for it, really adding to the root beer flavor profile. I do a cold resteep each time, which turns out basically just as tasty. This is going to end up being yet another one to reorder in my annual S&V order.

One of the few hot cups of tea that I’ve managed to steep up since messing up the tooth that’s been bothering me since Friday. I thought this might be a safe option since it’s a very simple lemon black – and relies more on a soft lemon flavouring versus any kind of acidic lemon. However, I oversteeped it so the taste was brutally bitter – and then on top of that the heat itself seemed to be touchy/unpleasant. My tooth went from a dull pain to a sharp pain by the end of the cup, so I haven’t repeated steeping up something hot since.

The spices here are much too mild. The main flavor reminds me of the flavoring Adagio uses in their honeybush pumpkin chai. It’s just such a strong, fake fruity flavor that doesn’t work for me at all. I tried my final cup of this with some milk, and I feel like that helped cover up the fruity sweetness and bring out a slightly more chai-ish element. I wish I’d done that with all my cups of this!

Additional notes: Sipdown but sad to see this go.

It was a very cherry-tasting yancha. A nice and strong presence of dried cherries with wet wood notes, lots of minerals, floral, and barley. Extremely complex, changed every infusion. As before, it was smooth, a good mouth and throat feel. Although complex, the cherry was present throughout all the infusions… Always ending on a fruity note with a hint of barley.

I’ve had to significantly cut down my tea consumption the past few months due to GERD. I’ll be going into surgery in a couple of weeks. Sucks but… I can continue when I get out. :P As always, I keep reading your reviews, working on sipdowns.

Stay safe out there. Delta variant is a nasty one.

(DavidsTea 132)

Stoked that this one came back for a bit, as I’d missed out the first time (and when I saw it on the website briefly after it had been discontinued, it was gone again before I managed to place my order). However – I didn’t enjoy this nearly as much as I expected to, and I’m not entirely sure why. It could very well have been my prep, but it just didn’t have much flavour (I drank it as a warm “latte”, which is my preferred prep for most matcha – hot matcha mixed .) Only tried it once since picking it up, though, so lots left to play with. And it wasn’t bad, I just expected more. It’s possible that I had some notion in my head that it would be more lavender-earl-grey, which is silly, but it might be that that’s where my lavender niche is?

I’m enjoying this one more than I expected. I taste the lemon verbena mostly. I don’t really get turmeric. It doesn’t need sugar. It’s mostly fresh and herbal and a little savory. I wouldn’t want it all the time, but I like it. It’s a pleasant tea box find.

Notes are still the same, but it’s faded a little bit. I thought it would hold up since it sat in rye and it’s newer, but it’s lost some lustre. The flavors are still there, but I had to amp up the leaf a little bit to 6ish grams. One of the sessions had lingered a little bit too long at minute instead of 35 sec like I intended, but good. I’m not ready to rate it yet since I’m hovering between 90-100. I am a little disappointed it faded somewhat-still good.

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge Saturday, July 17th: National Lottery Day Tea #1

What a fun idea!  I used the random number generator on cupboard page plus another number between 1-18 while it was organized by ‘recent’.  This randomness way of picking teas is a good way to drink forgotten teas or teas I haven’t had in a while.  I might pick teas this way on indecisive days!   Still a good one here!  Frank’s version of a white chai.  I always liked the mix of spices. And marshmallow root which I will never not be happy to see in a blend.

H is for…Himalayan Golden Black

I thought maybe this was astringent but it’s not. It’s just brisk. Brisk and a touch floral maybe.

This is an award winning tea and I’m super underwhelmed. That said, I got Invisalign yesterday and everything seems wonky so maybe it’s that…

Oh fuck yeah!

I steeped this one up for myself after I got home from work yesterday – it was largely a wash of an evening as I was sore and tired and really just sleep through most of it. However, this cup was a delightful shining light in between all the grey of the day. Really rich and flavourful with deep notes of sarsaparilla/wintergreen that came together into this rich rootbeer flavour, with a full bodied malty black tea base and a creamy mouthfeel and undertone of vanilla to the sips. Complete in every sense.

Sipdown 134-2021
Can’t say I really loved this. Very strong seaweed flavor. Not super pleasant to drink. Steeped the last cup nice and strong and poured it over a bowl of rice topped with some umeboshi furikake. That was quite delicious, but can’t say I would purchase this tea again.

Sipdown! (12 | 380)

I got a sample pouch of this from the Tea Thoughts summer countdown box that I did last month, and decided to cold brew it (since that’s all I drink these days…).

It’s so lovely and refreshing, with a subtle creamy stonefruit note as well as fresh cucumber and honeydew melon. There’s also a sparkling minerality present, which is sort of a given for me with green oolongs. Perhaps some light starchy vegetal notes, like edamame or lima beans. I taste a definite floral character as well, though not enough to ruin it for me. It’s a lighter floral, like honeysuckle. Honestly, I would love to do some sort of workshop on floral notes to learn to distinguish them better…

Anyway, it’s lovely cold, and so refreshing for these hot summer days in Austin. Plus the name makes me smile!

With milk, this has a pretty nice, mild banana flavor. The rooibos itself is super strong and not the most pleasant of rooibos, so unfortunately it steals a lot of the attention. The coconut leaves a fresh, tasty coconut flavor that goes well with the banana. If the rooibos could be toned down, this would be a pretty great blend. And as usual, I wish the banana could be amped up even more!

An Ode to Tea challenge #2– E

Oh wow, I think I just found my very favorite Davidstea blend in recent memory.  Thanks for sharing, AJRimmer!  This is perfection in a blend right here. First, I made sure to get a slice of cucumber and a big ol chunk of what I’m assuming is aloe in the infuser, along with all these other goodies.  The flavor just WORKS.  It’s soothing, crisp, minty, refreshing, cooling.  I’m tickled to notice now that the blend has dates.  I specifically drank another tea today with dates because the book I’m reading keeps mentioning dates.  (Though I wouldn’t say the dates are really showing up in the flavor.)  Hard to describe but this particular mix of ingredients, the flavor combo is just dreamy.  It’s almost to be enjoyed as more of a ‘feeling’ tea than ‘flavors’ tea if that makes sense, though the flavors are amazing too.  I didn’t steep this one up thinking I’d like it at all, so I was surprised to love it! Went for a third delicious steep to really get as much as possible out of these leaves, and glad I didn’t miss it.  And darn it, looks like it’s unavailable for sale anymore.  I have one steep session left! I don’t think I rated anything this highly in quite a while.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for full mug //  50 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 30 minutes after boiling // 2 min
Steep #3 // 17 minutes after boiling // 3-4 min

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge Sunday, July 11th: National Mojito Day Tea #2

additional notes:  well, I have a third mojito tea, but I won’t go full mojito crazy today.  Two is fine!   Mostly spearmint and syrupy now, but I love the overall flavor of this.  A great couple of cups but nothing new to say.

It’s called Atlanta Tea but I actually had this at a diner in Pensacola as an accompaniment to a breakfast they called a New Orleans Napoleon. While a black tea does go great with a hollandaise-sauced puff pastry, egg and andouille dish (topped with a hearty helping of DaT sauce), if I had had my pick, I would’ve gone for something different. Anything else. Except maybe Lipton. I was served a standard 10oz mug of hot water and a pot of hot on the side but the tea flavor was so weak I didn’t consider topping up. Needs two bags for a mug. At least it didn’t taste like the paper teabag!

Side note: if you ever get a beignet, do yourself a favor and squeeze a lemon wedge over it!

A tasty coconut milk latte!

The orange was a bit stronger in this that I remembered but in that sweet orange sherbet sort of way, so it was perfect! As a super whipped and frothy latte, this was a lot like drinking a cloud of delicious matcha or even a melted Creamsicle. Really tasty.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CQ9d5caBfGg/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhn-qeklaas&ab_channel=TimAyre

Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

This tastes about how you’d expect. It’s low quality black tea, but the mango does taste pretty juicy and authentic. You get some orange too. I sort of like it, but I only tried it because it was in the tea box.

This one is more toasty than chocolatey but still an enjoyable cup. I’m on the second brew but it might be able to go for a few more. Caramel, hay, butter, and toast. Pretty yummy, but I don’t know if I’d go out of my way to purchase.

EDIT: I dumped the leaves in my go cup for grandpa style brewing. still toasty warm bread to the last sip. This tea sure goes a long way. Thanks Shae for sharing!

I usually don’t love mate, but actually, here it totally works. I get some toastiness and some nice fruitiness. I can’t really identify which fruits, but it all combines together pretty well. I would have never purchased this, but I’m glad I got it as my free sample.