New Tasting Notes

Know how little sample packets sent by friends get woodged down in the bottom of a container? I un-woodged this morning! I am a roo lover and this mix of sugary, boozy flavors blends in nicely. A previous note from Michelle mentions that this resembles butterscotch. Absolutely.

DIY Herbal Infusion Advent Calendar 2024 – Day 15
Name: Orange Spice
Ingredients: kuki-hojicha, orange, cinnamon, clove, allspice
Movie: Jingle All The Way

Yay, more hojicha ha ha! This one is an orange spice blend, with slices of dried orange, slivers of cinnamon, just a touch of clove, and some allspice, because why not? The base is Suzume Hojicha, a kuki-hojicha from Obubu. It didn’t come out as orange-y as I would’ve liked, but I also didn’t break up the orange slices before steeping, which I meant to do… Still, it was a lovely warmly spiced and toasty hojicha with a dash of orange!

Devon Bartholomew Advent Day 15

Purple is my favorite color, so I’ve ordered a number of purple teas from different companies over the years. I was excited to see this one in the advent calendar! The leaves were a deep brown color and were tightly twisted and curly, looking more like a black tea. But it steeped up to a pale honey color and sips more like an oolong…super smooth with a nice buttery mouthfeel. The flavor is also oolong-esque: a nice balance of vegetal and mineral. Not my personal favorite profile, but it was definitely fun to try!

Advent Day 15

Another okay blend. Mostly getting cinnamon, not getting any apple. Slightly cakey.

Advent Day 14

Interesting to have this included in an advent, especially when S&V has so many festive blends. It’s fine. Not a huge fan of the fake chocolate flavor, but it’s not too egregious. I do like that it’s distinctly raspberry, rather than the usual chocolate/strawberry blend. The aftertaste is quite tart from the hibiscus. Slightly astringent.

Sipdown

December Sipdown Challenge Prompt – A tea you don’t drink in summer

I don’t drink this in summer because it is always already gone, as I only get it in the advent! Otherwise, I think I drink everything in summer!

First Advent sipdown from the Fortnum calendar! Make a carafe of iced tea for Ashman to take to work.

This was delicious with a bit of brown sugar and cream. It has a slightly floral or perfume flavor in my opinion that I did not like but my daughter seemed to love it.

I found this to be a delightful tea. The smoke notes were rich but not overpowering. I would definitely try it again although I might not go out of my way to purchase it alone.

While I enjoy turmeric, that enjoyment is typically based around the accompanying spice blend, which often times is far too ginger-heavy for my liking. But this tea is quite nice, with a sweeter cinnamon coming forward on the nose and in the flavor, so the tea isn’t an annoying cup of mouth-burning. The rooty/earthy turmeric note is there and is definitely an acquired taste, but there is a nice orangy note in the background and the cinnamon and licorice root tame any aggressive spiciness of the turm or ginger without being too sweet. And though it may not be marketed as such, this is a pretty effective sleep tea, with lavender, valerian, and passionflower, and it works pretty well for me. It’s both a good and a bad… bad if I just want a turm/ginger-heavy tea for tummy troubles but don’t want to be knocked out, but great for a wind-down before bed (and tastier than I often find “sleepy teas.”)

There’s probably too many contentious ingredients in this blend to really recommend it, but I’m that weird person that likes most contentious ingredients and have been pretty happy with this tea, as a non-aggressively spiced turmeric blend and as a sleep aid.

52Teas 12 Teas of Christmas: Day 2

Sipped this one on a morning drive to attend an open house that wasn’t actually happening. I misread the listing… XD

At least I had good tea en route! This is very cozy and comforting, with clove and cinnamon predominating over a bright base. I didn’t really pick up on any cookie elements, but that’s OK. Still a very seasonally appropriate blend, especially with the super festive sprinkles!

Advent Day 15

Hibiscus ruining another cup for me. The tea wasn’t even that red, so there wasn’t as much hib as in other blends, but I got that murky alkaline taste and was done. :/

Day 14 of the Tea Thoughts winter countdown box. Savory and lightly sweet, with a very mild goji note. Interesting cooling sensation after the sip, which I wasn’t expecting. I did the first steep at 3 minutes and that was a bit light for me, but this 5-minute second steep is working for me. I might try for a third…

ETA: Got a third solid steep out of this today.

Day 2 of the 52teas advent calendar. I made this as an oat milk latte because, well, “cookie” in the name always makes me want to latte a blend. Not sure I’m getting any cookie/pastry notes, but it’s possible they’re getting drowned out by the oat milk. I am getting spices though – cinnamon, maybe a hint of clove? There’s something here that isn’t just cinnamon, and the spice blend is different than that in yesterday’s gingerbread tea. It’s got some depth and big wintry cozy vibes. The snowflake sprinkles are adorable. Very seasonally apropos. Respectable showing, but I like gingerbread a lot so I still like that blend more in the spiced-winter-tea match-up.

Kelmishka Homemade Advent Day 15! I love trying carrot cake teas! Most of the ones I’ve tried have been herbal, so it’s interesting to sample one with a black base. The spices are pretty accurate, and I even taste something that makes me think of cream cheese icing! I get subtle pastry/baked vibes, though I don’t notice the carrot specifically. I prefer other carrot cake teas, but this one does quite a nice job!

Kelmishka Homemade Advent Day 14! I rated this sort of low when I received it as part of the subscription. Trying it again now, it’s really not bad. It’s a berry rooibos, and it’s refreshing cold. Not my favorite sort of flavor profile, but enjoyable enough!

*The 2nd Tea of Christmas . . . *

YUM! I really love this tea. I’m not always crazy about a Ceylon base (I usually only use Ceylon in a blend with other teas to help round it out) but sometimes, a Ceylon can be wonderful. This fine chop CTC is really strong & rich in flavor for a Ceylon but it works beautifully here, offering a bold flavor that pairs really well with the vanilla bean & cookie-ish essence as well as the spices. The cute little snowflake sprinkles do relatively little to the overall flavor except to add some whimsy to the appearance – but it is – as I say – whimsical & fun.

The cup is so pleasant & cozy, the kind of cuppa that I enjoy curling up to, especially on the chilly mornings we’ve been experiencing as of late!

Adventaggedon Day 15

Gongfu!

I adore a really good Moonlight White, so this tea session was quite special. That tea had a surprisingly quite high resteep value and the infusions were soft and creamy with crisp vegetal notes of snow peas, cucumber skins along with fresh linens, honeydew, peach skins, and just a touch of wintergreen. I’m really glad this one popped up on the weekend so I was able to take time brewing it up. I would have felt really sad if this had been a day where I was busier and more rushed.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDnXG-LSVmP/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30NiaDUiemA&ab_channel=MichaelMorella

Adventageddon Day 15

Just a straight up mug of hot, frothy matcha today. Nothing fancy or altered about it, and honestly that was a nice choice because all of my other advent teas today had something more elaborate about their either through drink additions or preparation methods. Instead this was a juicy and bright mid-afternoon pick me up with that succulent sort of ripe peach note balanced out by the freshness and umami undertones of the matcha.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDnXG-LSVmP/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdZ53o5lMRQ&ab_channel=Haute%26Freddy

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.

Adventageddon Day 15

As far as lemon ginger teas go this is a very average feeling one to me. Smooth and grassy green tea base that accentuates the grassiness of the lemongrass and the brightness of the lemon oil. I don’t taste a ton of ginger though. Just a whisper. It could be bolder or more evenly balanced but lemon is what they chose to put in the name and not lemon ginger, so I feel like the emphasis on the lemon is pretty intentional.

However, this tea was the perfect vessel for a brand new and pretty out there flavoured honey I recently got. It’s got propolis in it along with lime, thyme, juniper, and peppermint essential oils. You’d think that would be a lot and it would be challenging to distinctly taste each flavour, but you would also be wrong. The honey starts off very bright, zesty and just a little bit sour before the golden sweetness hits along with very herbaceous and pine-y notes from the thyme/juniper combo. Finally, it has a really nice cooling sensation afterwards from the mint. I don’t know if I’ve ever had honey with a menthol effect, but I am in love with it. The overall combination actually reminds me a lot of gin!

So, obviously all of those flavours work really well with the green tea and lemon. I felt like it really elevated what was just an okay cup of tea otherwise. I’m STOKED to try this honey with more things!

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDnXG-LSVmP/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66lb0Tp232k&ab_channel=ChanceEmerson-Topic

Adventageddon Day 15

Now this is a throwback! I’ve seen a lot of people on IG/TikTok who’ve been posting advent reviews who think this is a new blend, but it’s actually a very, very old one. Eight years old, in fact. We brought it back specially for this year’s advent as an exclusive blend.

If you’ve missed it, snickerdoodle cookies and snickerdoodle flavoured products have been practically everywhere the last year and half. Something about that sweet, cozy cinnamon sugar flavour is just really resonating with people right now. I think probably in large part because of the nostalgia factor, but it’s also just a cozy and comforting profile. I decided to brew up my little tin today as a latte with some caramel cold foam to enhance/lean into the butterscotch undertones of the blend.

I ended up drinking that warm, cozy and richly cinnamon flavoured drink with my breakfast today, which was a complimentary bagel pairing with marscapone, bananas, and fudge shavings on the cinnamon bagel “base”. It worked very well. Like snickerdoodles crossed with banoffee sort of vibes!

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDnXG-LSVmP/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUP5VT-8NC0&ab_channel=OliviaDeanVEVO

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.