New Tasting Notes

2025 TTB #7

I’m a sucker for tea blends with “cookie” in the name, so this one called to me immediately! Orange was an intriguing addition that I don’t often see in cookie-inspired teas, but I’m honestly not tasting it in this one. I mostly get the robust, malty base tea with subtle hints of almond and vanilla. If I had more to play around with, it would be interesting to see how the flavor would change with milk and/or sweetener. As it is, it’s enjoyable, but nothing particularly special or memorable.

2025 TTB #6

This box is heavy on flavored blends (not that I’m complaining!) but this straight black tea jumped out to me, as I haven’t had many “red” teas (not even sure of what defines that?) and Jesse’s Teahouse is also a new brand to me. The dry leaf was pretty! Tight little curls of mahogany brown leaves and a nice winey aroma. Unfortunately, I ended up on a 40-minute work call while drinking this, so wasn’t able to give it as much attention as I would have preferred. From what I recall, it was bittersweet and fruity and a bit drying on the palate. I tend to prefer a more robust, malty black tea, so I’ll probably be putting this one back in the box for someone else to enjoy.

2025 TTB #5

I haven’t tried much from Neccessiteas and their blends always sound delicious, so I was eager to sample this one! Although I could see dried blueberries in the leaf and smell a bit of berry sweetness as it stepped, all I could really taste was the maple. It was a pleasant, natural-tasting maple…but based on the name, I was hoping for more.

Very nice cold-brewed! Smooth and fruity and refreshing.

Sipdown! I do love the combination of ripe puerh and ginger – very comforting.

I needed to add more powder than usual in order to get a strong enough flavor. Even then, in many sips this didn’t taste like much. In one or two sips, this tasted like marzipan, which was nice and desserty. The second time I had it, I tasted more nuttiness, which was fun. The marzipan flavor was definitely there too. The last time I had it, I tasted a bit of grassiness and another indistinct flavor that I didn’t love. This hasn’t turned out to be one I want more of.

I have an old box of this in teabags, which I have decided to drink down over the next few nights. One Royal Albert 1990 – Bouquet mug of approximately 400ml, two teabags at a time, just a way to keep my mouth busy so I don’t snack or drink Sprite all through the evening now that my caffeine sensitivity’s gotten a tad too high to allow for anything caffeinated after four.

The bags, I must say, smell lovely. Vanilla and winter spices are balanced and all this needs is a hint of pine to smell very much like an ideal Christmas, at least to me, a very overenthusiastic-about-Christmas sort of person. Another of my interests is perfumery, and although I don’t usually go in too heavily for gourmands, I could see myself wearing this a lot in winter, if it was a perfume. Since it’s a tea, though….

I’m going to blame the effects of the decaffeination process on the leaves for why I struggle a bit with it as a tea. If I drink it straight, it tastes a bit harsh. If I put some milk in it, it tastes too thin, as though I were just drinking 1% milk with the ghosts of some spices in it. Neither experience is what I hope for when I smell the teabags. It does serve its function of keeping me out of the Sprite and the food, though, and there’s only a couple of more days worth left in the box, so it’s all right.

Since a Harney and Sons sample bag contains more than just one serving of leaves, I got to perform a second experiment on this one back on Monday. I had to drive for a really long time on Monday – 140 miles round trip; it was supposed to take three hours, and I was very proud of myself when it really only took four, as I am not exactly God’s gift to vehicle usage – so I decided to make up the rest of the sample and try it out with a very light drizzle of honey in my glass water bottle I just got.

Brewing went well, pouring went well…and then I merrily sailed out of the door without picking up the bottle. Naturally. Ah, well. I guess I get to find out something of what it would taste like as an iced tea, then!

My first thought was “milder”, though I can’t say whether this was due to the honey or the temperature. The honey did seem to stay mixed, though, so I’m confident I at least didn’t overload it. It was pleasant and not as dramatically flavorful as the original, hot version, but would have made a nice thing to sip on during the horrors of my attempt to get both into and out of Atlanta alive on the same day. On the swallow, it also assumed an interestingly spicy note that it hadn’t had before. Still wouldn’t buy a full tin, I don’t think, but the next time Harney has samples of black Gulou available, I might grab another to compare, just based on the breadth of behavior seen from this one sample bag.

Tasting Note 3,500!

I think it is really fun that a benchmark note is landing on a special tea – in this case, my birthday present from my bestie, Melissa, a little early.

We are big strawberry tea fans over here, with black and green versions usually on shelf. I don’t know that I have ever had a strawberry oolong, though.

This is a great tin for gifting because it is so festive looking. The front of the pink tin is rather fancy and ornate, posh if you will. The back is very cute, featuring a simple strawberry milkshake topped with whipped cream, blushing and smiling with eyes closed. Would this be called kawaii?

The aroma is almost confusing because you don’t expect the authentic smell of scented milk oolong mixed with strawberries and cream. Well, I didn’t.

I had this with breakfast and decided to do several tests. How is it as a true resteeper, not combining steeps? How does it best pair? I usually pair with contrast rather than similarity. I had Good Seed bread by Dave’s Killer Bread, toasted and buttered. A small bit was plain, and bit was smeared with Fortnum & Mason Strawberry Jam, and a big portion was smeared with Bonne Maman Chocolate Hazelnut Spread.

First the tea – unmistakeable that this is oolong, you are not going to be fooled that it is a green tea with strawberry. The ingredients list milk flavor so I am assuming this is a scented or flavored milk oolong. First steep was 190F for three minutes and the strawberry is fairly light. Taste is unchanged when having plain buttered toast. Strawberry jam just sort of carried that berry sense across without enhancing it. Hazelnut chocolate spread was the winner by far. The chocolate contrasts sharply with the tea and added flavors making the strawberry AND the vanilla pop much more. At this point, I feel like there is surely a bowl of strawberries and cream somewhere on the table because that is what my brain is interpreting this as now.

For the second steep, which was without food, I kept the same steeping parameters. The tea is definitely strong enough to resteep even if you are not combining and the milk oolong personality comes out even more. There is still a hint of strawberry and the vanilla may be showing up a little more now because of the fading of the strawberry.

Don’t expect a KAPOW thick and sweet strawberry shake. I don’t think this would make a good dessert-replacement latte. If you add sugar it might enhance the strawberry shake vibe but we generally don’t add sugar and I liked it as it is – a subtle strawberries and cream milk oolong is my best description. Marvelous with chocolate.

This tea, I fear, did not receive care nearly as good as it probably deserved. Specifically, it sat in a Harney’s sample bag for…???? I really have no idea, but it’s longer than it should have. Still, at least those things are opaque and pretty airtight, so such a bag is hopefully not the worst storage the leaves could have endured.

When I opened the bag, I was immediately hit by a rush of nostalgia. I don’t know how to describe it, but whenever I’ve ever opened one of those little black Harney and Sons sample packets containing any sort of unflavored black tea, there’s always initially been virtually the same smell. Good thing it’s a pleasant smell! The dry leaf, as you can see in my not-quite-seven-ounce glass teapot pictured in the tea image, was pretty but not especially distinctive.

I was making this tea on my ‘day off,’ away from my usual setup, so I had to time the three minutes on my phone. At first sip, all I could think of was “Keemun.” It wasn’t as winey, and lacked as strong of a certain indescribable note I call the “Keemun Edge,” but it was strikingly similar to my memories of Keemun. Keemun with less wine and Edge is, for me, a good thing, since I dislike wine and the “Keemun Edge” makes me feel inexplicably queasy after about one cup, but the resemblance to Keemun – a certain multigrain bread note underneath something sharpish and liquidy; yes, I know this is not a great description – was strong enough that I decided to do a little quick-googling to find out if they were from the same province. This specific Gulou is long gone from the Harney and Sons website, but they had some other Gulous, so I was able to confirm the tea is probably from Hunan Province. Another google, because I really have forgotten almost as much as I ever knew, revealed that Keemun is from Anhui Province, so nope, they aren’t from the same province. Time for a bit more google….

Just pulling up a provincial political map of China, I…initially took a really long time to find Hunan, to the point that I had to check that it didn’t have any alternative spellings. Eventually, though, I found it, and it is not adjacent to Anhui Province. Anhui is further north, and parts of two other, side-by-side provinces – Hubei and Jiangxi – stand between it and Hunan. Since the resemblance between the two really was striking, though, I googled around some more to find an elevation map. I couldn’t immediately find one with the provincial lines laid out over the topography, but by using the Sichuan Basin and the coastline as guideposts, I managed to make what felt like a reasonably plausible guess about which bits of the topographical map were Anhui and Hunan. If I’m right about where they are, then they share almost the exact same, very low elevation, just above sea level, so I suppose that plus proximity could contribute a lot to the two teas’ similarity.

I drank this a few days ago, so I can’t comment on the exact color, which only survives in a photograph taken for a tumblr review which the Internet ate. Thanks for that, Internet. It looks like it was a pretty, clear medium brown, though. Since it was a Chinese tea, I decided on a whim to try resteeping the leaves for a while, which is when I noticed that the wet leaves smelled remarkably much like Cadbury Egg! This was a good thing from my point of view, as I am very, very partial to Cadbury Eggs every spring. For this second steeping, I left the tea to its own devices for as long as it took me to walk around the house to the basement, unload the dryer, reload the dryer with wet clothes from the washer, and then put more dirty clothes in the washer. This was at least five minutes, probably a bit longer. When I poured the second cup, the color was exactly the same as the first, though now with bubbles around the edges for some reason. As I drank the tea, it retained strong flavors that were pretty distinct from each other – more distinct from each other than they were in the first cup, really. I got a bit of chocolate (sadly, not the sweet Cadbury kind, but chocolate) and a lot of that multigrain bread impression. Unfortunately, I also started really tasting the Keemun Edge on this one, so I didn’t attempt a third steeping. The leaves felt like they were close to ‘done’ anyway, though, and 12oz of a Keemun-like taste without feeling sick seemed like a reasonable amount of tea to get out of one spoonful of leaves. It’s not something I think I’d buy a whole tin of, but it was pleasant enough for special-tea Saturday, anyway.

Confession time – on my first journey through the world of tea, Adagio somehow flew completely past my radar. By the time I even heard of them, I was a bit of a tea snob, in fact, and so I’d never ordered anything from them. This time, though, the journey was kicked off by another member of the Gravity Falls fandom, who made a number of unofficial custom blends around characters from the show, all of which I decided I ought to sample all eleven of them. There was only one I flat-out disliked and I considered most of them above average, but only three drew me in enough for full-tin purchases. This is one of those teas.

For those unfamiliar with the show, Stan is the tritagonist of Gravity Falls. He’s the great-uncle of the two central characters, has become their caretaker during their summer vacation in either 2012 or 2013, and is a former jack-of-all-criminal-trades (Sovo Night, who blended this tea, described Stan as “a man who’s held many names and heard his own the least”) turned operator of a tourist attraction, along with hosting the county fair and occasionally dances for the youth of the town – all, of course, in the interests of getting yet more money. He’s a massive personality who I cannot properly describe here – I’m working on a monograph on the subject, actually – and whose tragic backstory is about one-fourth of the reason the show even has a plot, which therefore makes him also quite a lot of the reason why it has such a large adult fanbase despite being, er, originally made for Disney XD.

It’s clear enough how the elements of the tea are meant to reference Stan’s personality. Ginger – he comes across as quite prickly and has an extremely hot temper, so much so that he nearly ends the world by accident due to it. I couldn’t find any references to Wuyi black teas when I was adding the ingredients to this description, but they and Yunnan make up a blend Adagio calls “Mambo” – fitting enough for a guy who spent a decent chunk of his life in South America and also can break out the dance moves every once in a while. Lapsang Souchong could refer to one of two things – either the recurring theme of fire as a destructive force which surrounds Stan in general, or the fact that he apparently liked smoking cigars a lot, before having a couple of twelve-year-olds dumped on him for three months made him feel obliged to give up smoking, drinking, and the freedom to “swear for real” all at the same time – teaching them to be card sharks and run scams, that’s fine, but he wouldn’t want to encourage substance abuse or bad language in children. And as for caramel…‘burnt sugar’ isn’t the worst analogy in the world for the man. Sweet kid, but life put him through it, which both resulted in sweetness sometimes manifesting in a different way than it originally did and also made him a lot clingier.

All that, though, is character analysis, not tea analysis. The flavors seem to work pretty well together as a description of Stan, but do they actually taste good together?

Yes.

I have the vague idea that I have mixed caramel or vanilla with lapsang souchong myself, back in the day, and that it was good, but it wasn’t quite like this. One can just taste the smoke and just taste the caramel, but they come together in such a way, presumably along with the base notes and the ginger, to taste…well, the first thought that comes to mind is that it tastes fun. Fun is not, of course, a proper tasting note, so I’ve tried to analyze it properly and come up with things close to various sweets (I started off on ‘candy corn’ and moved to ‘maple syrup’ before settling on ‘butterscotch’) but the overall impression is just of…fun! Which is good, because now I have five ounces of it.

This is from the “I Can’t Believe It’s That Old and Is Still Viable” collection here at Shabby House. Little peach, little rose. No doubt not as potent as in its heyday, but I added a bag of decaf Red Rose and it’s not a bad little secondhand cup to keep me company while we’re waiting for the owl concert. We’ve got one camping in the knothole in the tree in our front yard and he’s due to wake up in about ten minutes.

From my newest order from LP! This one is not too bad. Definitely pleasant, but a fairly chill tea without much volume. It keeps itself hidden, and yet is a bit tantalizing. Hard to pick out any notes really other than a bit of sweetness and that classic sheng flavor. Definitely won’t be picking up a cake, but was glad to try it.

A cuppa that I had at work today! Pretty neutral tasting black tea with a medium-ish body and then an otherwise smooth, fruity and tropical profile. Mostly tastes like mango to me, with a sort of gummy-candy vibe without all the sweetness associated to a candy. That’s hard to put into words, but it’s just like a particular mango flavour that I feel is more common with gummy candies. I enjoyed it nonetheless though!

Sipdown (2786)!

This is a pretty middle of the road hojicha all things considered, but for a bagged tea it’s actually fairly solid. The most defining trait is a sort of metalic/mineral top note, but that aside it’s smooth and nutty with a lighter leaning roast. Good, as the name implies, for a midafternoon cuppa.

I’m on a BIG matcha kick right now, and I’ve really been enjoying going through some of my older flavoured matchas and revisiting them. To be honest, this one was a little flat. Not unpleasant, but the raspberry note is a lot lighter compared to DT’s other matchas even when this is fresh so I think given the age it was just especially gentle/muted. I did kind of like the floral undertone, though. I think I would have liked a thicker, jammier raspberry note even better though.

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.

Upon opening the pouch of “Organic Pomegranate Raspberry” tea, I immediately noticed two things: an incredibly pungent aroma and major stratification of the ingredients. So I tumbled the pouch around a bit to re-blend the contents to uniformity. The dry aroma was so very artificial, and it took me a while to identify it as the exact smell of Wrigley’s Juicyfruit Chewing Gum! Now I happen to like the smell & taste of Juicyfruit Gum, regardless of the artificiality of it, so I was optimistic. Note this contains no Camellia sinensis, so it is not actually tea, but rather is a tisane. Also, it contains papaya with added sugar.

I brewed it up as directed, western style: 1-2 tsp tisane with 8 oz boiled spring water, in a stainless micropore infusion basket for 5 min. The resulting liquor was golden colored and the juicyfruit fragrance had been driven off and replaced by a rather offputting vegetal scent, likely due to the papaya and drumstick tree leaves (Moringa oleifera). As it cooled, the fragrance shifted toward pleasant raspberries and apple, which remained through the rest of my sipping and lingered in the empty cup. While hot, the taste was reminiscent of apple dumpling (without cinnamon), and though inoffensive was not my favorite. As it cooled, the berry flavors reasserted themselves and I enjoyed the improvement! I never really noticed anything like pomegranate flavor, nor pomegranate flowers. I will prepare iced tea with my next infusion and report back on it. Overall, I would give this a Rating of 68, and recommend it to those who like strong fruity flavors. I’m not sure why the ingredient lists both raspberries and raspberry! Maybe for the same reason the description uses the word “perfect” twice in the same sentence?!

One other issue I note: The tea is labeled (but not on the website) as “organic”. I do not believe it, because of the papaya content. Virtually no papaya in commercial global production can be correctly labeled as USDA Organic. Same under EU regulations. (Though the package omits the term “USDA”.) Personally I don’t give a rats tail about organic foods, but I do care about misleading labeling. So take that label cum grano salis.

I almost never drink this tea hot, but I had it steeped that way a couple nights ago and it was fine. Definitely a very different feeling to the iced or cold brewed teas that I usually make, with a little more sharpness from the hibiscus as well as a more discernable beet note. I couldn’t stop smelling the warm mug of tea in between sips, though. That part was really nice. Still, I much prefer this blend chilled.

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.

Had a mug of this over the weekend and it was nice! Smooth, bright and citrusy with a bit of a gentle spice undertone to it. I felt like I could really feel the chili building up in the last few sips. I’ve been hoarding this tin for a while, but I don’t feel so bad finishing it off now since I have DT’s new Lemon Kick herbal blend to fill that void. They’re pretty similar!

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.

Cold Brew!

I know a lot of people my age grew up in “Chocolate Milk” households with Nesquik’s instant chocolate milk syrup, but we were decidedly more of a “Strawberry Milk” family. So, it’s coming from a very visceral place when I say that this cold brew hit me with just a rush of nostalgia for that sweet pink drink . What’s crazy is that it was so rich, creamy and jammy tasting but there was zero milk added to this cold brew! It was just delivering that strongly on that delish flavour. Still one of my all time favourite teas I’ve gotten to work on!

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.

Grandpa Style!

This tea is thick and oily with a slick mouthfeel and bold aroma that’s both buttery and a little more savory and brothy. The heaviness of liquor is really satisfying with a subtle, more medicinal undertone and slight salinity to the more woody finish. However, there’s also a creeping sweetness that seeks to build sip over sip. Quite bread-like but more of a brioche or sweet bread, in the way a hot cross bun or Hawaiian roll would be with notes of honey tightly weaved in. It’s still buttery as well and combined with the aforementioned notes of brioche, it’s sort of giving laminated pastry!? Like, as if this ripe pu’erh was some type of savory leaning croissant. It’s unique, and tasty, and very well suited for a day spent cozied up indoors!!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/DGq_K8SS-Yh/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhP2-qYmfjg&ab_channel=DavidDeanBurkhart

Gongfu Sipdown (2787)!

I took a bit of a pause this last week on drinking through the teas I picked up at Toronto Tea Festival, but I’m back to working my way through them. Generally speaking, if I’m given the choice between a Bai Mu Dan or Bai Hao Yin Zhen (aka Silver Needle, like this one), I’ll actually pick the Bai Mu Dan. I’m a very big fan of the creamier, cooling cucumber pulp notes that I typically find much more prevalent in White Peony. However, this Silver Needle was actually very creamy tasting with a thicker, more velvety body. Notes of almond milk, vanilla, delicate honey, freshly whipped cream, and just a bit of that cucumber pulp note I love so much along with a subtle fruity but not-so-sweet mix of honeydew and horned melon. The horned melon is interesting because it also has a bit of a cucumber sort of note to it, but a little greener and with a slightly underripe banana taste, too. It’s quite complex, and I think it’s a really nice way to jump back into sipping through this Tea Festival haul!!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DGti0w5yJRr/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y38aGZXMvKY&ab_channel=MollyAnnelle-Topic