TeaTaxi

First review, I feel so nervous.

We got our order of 20+ samples from TeaTaxi last night and I am so excited to dive into all of them. The box was so pink and cheerful, and there was a very nice little note inside that I had to have translated by my francophone coworker this morning. With an interminable staff meeting looming in front of me, I brewed this hoping it would live up to its name.

This is a strong black tea, very tasty, but just that – black tea. The delicate flavours of the almond and calendula disappeared completely. Maybe a shorter steep with the second half of my sample package would fend off that dark rich black flavour. It was very tasty, and so far seems to be living up to expectations of not letting me fall asleep on a pile of meeting notes. But I don’t know if I would be able to pick it out of a line-up, so to speak. So it’s not a restock.

2nd verse, same as the first! The second steep is just as good at the first, and the post-sip is even better. It kinda tastes like sour water melon slices mixed with sour grapefruit slices (which I adore) without the overwhelming sweetness/citric acid bite of the candies. The oolong shines through a bit more, but the watermelon isn’t lost, especially in the iced version.

Full disclosure: I live for watermelon. I’m the only one in the house who eats it and it makes my stomach hurt but I still buy about a dozen every summer. I love it. I wanted Lucious Watermelon from DavidsTea to be my watermelon tea, but it just doesn’t measure up.

This tea does. It does taste a little artificial, but I don’t care. Sweet watermelon and fresh oolong, this is summer in a mug for me. I’m trying it both iced and hot and both are delicious, but I prefer iced.

Our first tea from TeaTaxi! My wife and I split a sample package and it is a tasty tea! It does taste a bit like carrot cake and if you enjoy rooibos, this is a wonderful blend. Nice and cinnimony, leaves me craving cream cheese icing XD.

Sipdown! How has it been nearly two weeks since I’ve written a tasting note? I suck. I also sip down teas as a means of making room in my tea box. I wouldn’t get more of this since it seemed to lack something, plus I wasn’t crazy over the base. I still have to try a s’more sometime, someday. Some glorious day?

Ugh, I’m also trying to finish up some panettone I bought the other week. It’s probably the worst one I’ve had to date. Tastes almost dusty with a hint of something chemical in the background. Should just throw the rest out instead of forcing myself to consume all these calories.

This loser has never had a s’more in her life, but I can only imagine what one would taste like based on its components. Based on my imagination, I’d say this represents a s’more very nicely, if I do say so myself. This is the fourth time having it before reviewing it, and I’ve noticed that the base can change based on parameters. There’s a subtle campfire smokiness that comes out if you brew this more strongly, for example. Otherwise, there’s a consistent gooey marshmallow taste enrobed in chocolate. Graham cracker? Not so much. Maybe a touch at the end, but I still feel like that sweetness is just that marshmallow again and not necessarily graham cracker.

I used to love Della Terra’s S’mores tea. Like obsessed. As in ripping through a couple hundred grams of it, but I found with that one, as time went on, it started getting sweeter and sweeter to me. The liquor was murky from the chocolate or whatever else and I just wasn’t enjoying it as much. This one doesn’t have that murkiness or overwhelming sweetness. Overall, this is worth checking out if you like s’mores and s’more-related food and drink.

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So I hate pu-erh which means the dirt quality stands out to me above all else. Consequently, to me, this tastes like dirty candy. Blerg. I could see others who enjoy pu’erh or at least tolerate it, liking this but it’s just not for me

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So plain greens and puerhs and chais are not my favourite and those flavors comprise about 4/10 of the teas in the monthly subscription I got so I decided to bite the bullet and try one instead of reaching for all the tastier sounding teas first. This seemed like the lesser of evils so I made it my tea of the day.

As I sip, it’s like drinking hay. Hay and grass…and peas. Essentially it’s like a bunch of other senchas I have had. It’s pleasant enough to drink but probably not something I’ll remember when im done and definitely not something I would order for myself since I barely drink flavored green teas, let alone straight ones.

Sipdown! I suck for not being around much lately, and that’s largely due to the fact that I’ve been slacking on the tea-drinking front. I need to get back into making cold brews and/or enjoying some hot tea whenever I’m home. I polished off the rest of this with some milk and while it was good, it won’t be worth a repurchase.

This has been the first BF, well, ever (as a Canadian) that didn’t result in crazy tea orders. I swear I couldn’t find anything interesting? Or perhaps I missed out? I have, however, been going crazy on cosmetics and skincare. Ugh. A lot of the money I made at my previous job has been going to that stuff.

Did I mention that my last job was a management position at Sephora? Some days I still regret leaving, but it was the cattiest, most passive-aggressive work environment, unsurprisingly, that I have ever experienced. It would have been the most perfect, temporary job before finding a career-oriented one had it not been for the way that damn place is ludicrously run.

Anyway, another tea bites the dust.

Oh, this is quite nice both hot and cooled down. The blueberry really comes through in this tea, while the chocolate note is a little faint. As this cools, the blueberry is even stronger. Still not my favourite blueberry tea, which is 52teas’ Blueberry Cream Cheese Danish, but it’s yummy, alright. It’s nice that they didn’t put any stevia in this either (I’m looking at you and your Blueberry Jam, DAVIDsTEA).

Smooth base and juicy blueberry. Would I buy more? Probably not, but this 50g won’t be sitting around either.

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The chocolate is strong in this one. White chocolate is what I am getting mostly. There is also a lot of coconut flavor here, that is bordering on lotion-y when mixed with the other ingredients. This reminds me of something, and I want to say White White Cocoa by T2, but I am not sure. It is also very sweet and rich, which is not bad by any means but also means this is not a tea I would drink regularly. It was fun to try though.

Cold brewed my sample of this (which by the way, doesn’t include much, only around 5g, so not sure if I’ll bother with samples considering the price next time) and it’s quite good. The leaf smells like pear candy, and that flavour is very prominent in the cold brew. I get mostly pear candy, followed by apple, with a touch of strawberry trailing at the very end. This one is on the thinner side, but it may also be because of the ratios. I like when cold brews have that thinner mouthfeel, anyway.

This is the kind of tea that would have been ok had I blindly grabbed 50g but at the same time, I’m not entirely sad that I have no more either. I’m leaving the rest of the jug, which I only filled with like three cups worth, to my mom since she’s only allowed to have cold liquids and smooth foods like yogurt after her surgery for a while. So this order has arrived at a great time because it’s helping her feel better!

Oh yeah, I managed to get down to 32 teas before making this order so despite my cupboard nearly doubling in size, I’m still quite proud of my accomplishment. Now to go for a post-gym shower and try to get ready for bed because I have to be up before 4am for work tomorrow. Ugggghhh.

Whoops, I sipped this down last week. Haven’t been around because work got really busy. Crazy Christmas rush, as expected! I wasn’t crazy over this. It had a weird undertone and the flavours just didn’t mesh well together.

My TeaTaxi order landed a couple days but I’ve been too busy to log any tasting notes (I’ve tried about six already), plus it took me forever to enter the 20+ into the system here yesterday.

Don’t let this first review scare you off because so far, all of them have been quite delicious, and this one so happens to be the only disappointment thus far. This one seems to not know what it even wants to be, if that even makes any sense. Tasting it blindly, I could never guess that there is supposed to be strawberry or kiwi in this. Maybe strawberry, but it’s weirdly chemical and sharp. Hmm. This is sharp, thin, flat, and generically fruitily flavoured. My mom can’t even make much sense out of it too. Too bad that this is one of the few that I got 50g of as opposed to a sample. Ugh!

With that said, I’m looking forward to finishing this off but I’m still looking forward to trying the rest of my TeaTaxi teas. The shipping box, by the way, is so cute and pink with a collage of multiple languages on the inside, plus their packaging is very similar to DAVIDsTEA’s in that they use not only the same kind of pouches, but their coding system is similar. But that’s ok. Speaking of that, I need to skip over to DAVIDs on the way to the grocery stores to check out their fall collection. I have six days straight starting tomorrow, with a crazy random schedule with shifts starting as early as 7am and ending as late as 10pm so needless to say, not looking forward to that.

I also need to find time today to apply to more jobs. I keep saying that but it seems like most of my time during my days off ends up going towards running other errands and trying to learn more about stuff pertaining to my current job to make the job slightly easier. But damn, can’t get out of this mess of a job unless I apply to others! Kind of a paradox.

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I am trying to drink up some of my teas before my dad shows up Friday with more teas I have been sending him in California. This was a pretty easy one to finish because I know I wanted to send some to Roswell Strange so I made myself a cup and packaged the rest up.

I actually really like the blueberry in this blend. I find it lingers on the tongue even after the sip ends. It really is the main flavor I get. Every now and then I get just a touch of astringency from the base but unless I concentrate on it, it sort of blends into the blueberry element. Chocolate isn’t very detectable as a flavor but I think it helps make this a little rounder and just a touch more complex with an added richness.

I don’t know if I need to restock this since I don’t usually reach for blueberry teas but I probably wouldn’t turn down a cup in the future. Hopefully Roswell likes this too.

Made this as a smoothie and it was rich. Very, very rich. The chocolate pudding and berry mix were highlighted by this tea so the entire thing was a chocolate blueberry flavor punch to the face. Depends how you feel about the flavor combination. For me, I am on the fence about it so I need to be in the mood to enjoy it. Today, though I can appreciate this, I would have preferred more banana or some other fruit (although that is a reflection on me, not the tea).

Sipdown

The leaf for this has little graham cracker crumb marshmallows and you can taste them. This is definitely a good s’mores tea, up there with the likes of the Della Terra one, if not better. The base is mild but thick enough to support the heavy flavors of S’mores. The chocolate is smooth and milky which compliments the marshmallow sweetness beautifully. The graham also pops up making for the complete package. Delicious!

One of my friends posted a facebook chain thing about the zombie apocalypse and I guess that planted a seed because I was somehow drawn to this tea. It is a weird choice for one of the hottest summer days seeing as it is definitely a fall/winter blend with its orange/vanilla/cinnamon/apple mix but sometimes there could be a bit much and this is one of those times. The flavor mixture in here is so convoluted that it is a little bit muddy. It’s hard to pick out just one taste so instead you get a touch of each on a bland base. The leaf is cute though, what with the little ghost and pumpkin sprinkles. This might make for an interesting latte since milk occasionally highlights certain elements.

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This is another I was passing on, making for an easy Sipdown. Alas, this one isn’t as enjoyable as the last cup. I find the rooibos base takes over and though there is a bit of a honey sweetness, the chocolate only comes through in the aftertaste and even then it’s a bit dusty.

Hopefully others have better luck with this blend than I did. Perhaps changing the brewing parameters might help so for reference I steeped 1 perfect teaspoon in an 8oz mug for 5 minutes at 200, as per the instructions on the package.

I made a smoothie using a tropical fruit mix and this tea. It was a bad choice. The fruit and this didn’t blend well and I got what seemed like a lot of base from this. I will wait until I tried this more clearly before I rate it but so far I am not impressed

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I have an interview tomorrow so the last 2 days I have been shopping for interview clothing/shoes. Unfortunately, it has not been going well. Apparently if you are plus size, it is impossible to get plain black dress pants or a professional looking dress. Seriously, it was impossible. Plus, the saleswomen I encountered were rude so that did not help the situation. Then today, I went in search of a sensible work shoe and apparently those don’t come in size 10. Yeah, it was not a fun experience but in the end I found enough to scrape together a decent ensemble. Hopefully the interview goes better.

With that said, when I came home, this tea seemed necessary. I iced the blend and as I sipped on it, I did get a nice caramel chocolate flavor. Alas, the rooibos base was just as present as the flavors. It was a battle in my cup and no one was winning. Also, the picture for this tea shows chocolate and blueberries while the description says chocolate and pineapple. Not getting any of those fruity flavors.

Bah…forgot to add this to my cupboard so boo on no sipdown. Another one from variatea and i have to agree….this is largely a rooibos blend. I get hints of the peppercorn in this, but they’re so muted, you could swallow and miss them.

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Finished this off iced because it’s about a year old and it just seemed like it was time. This is a soft lemon tea but with age the flavor deteriorated. The hibiscus is still present though so this is tart and artificial lemon.

This smelled amazing, like a lemon bar. From the smell, I expected lemon and cream and pastry and just yum. Alas, that’s not exactly what I am getting in taste, though there is a sweet creaminess, almost reminiscent of marshmallow, the apple flavor sits on top and really distracts from what I think could be an awesome tea. Also, there is a lemon tartness that sits on top of everything, fighting with the apple while simultaneously remaining completely distinct from the pastry/cream part. I just wish the apple mellowed out so it wouldn’t act as such a divide between the promising lemon bar elements in this cold brew.