15662 Tasting Notes
Just a feel good cup of tea.
I made this one at work to enjoy on my break, shared it with a few coworkers though none of them liked it. They just found it too anise heavy, and struggled to get the pear notes. I mean, I kind of agree with them – this can sometimes read as very weighted towards the anise in the blend, but the pear is there! It likes to roll in and out of the sip, and is very dewy and floral when you pick up on it.
If you don’t mind anise, it’s good shit.
Song Pairing: https://youtu.be/xbw4Av4gbYA
Using up this lower-ish quality yellow tea from Teavana while it’s still pretty fresh…
This time around I tried adding in a little splash of pumpkin agave with a quicker than usual steep time. The resulting brew was actually really good, smooth and enjoyable! Basically, I got the toasted nut notes I generally associate with yellow tea and a bit of a straw/hay flavour alongside this nice semi-sweet pumpkin flavour. It made me think of carving pumpkins and the smell of the pumpkin guts but also harvesting the seeds and toasting them in the oven along with some chopped up nuts.
Yes; a toasty/roasted pumpkin seed and nuts flavour with pumpkin gut undertones! Might not sound the most appealing, but it was super smooth and relaxing!
With just a hint of milk to temper the smoke oh so slightly.
This tasted absolutely delicious going down; but apparently I was enjoying it a little too much because I slurped back enough of it in one go, with enough air to give myself the hiccups. Man, let me tell you that was a BAD THING to have happened. The flavour going down may have been smooth, smoke and leather but with each hiccup the sensation coming up was that of a pissed off dragon breathing fire up my throat.
It was terrible, and it made me quite sad and this cup of tea pretty hard to enjoy.
Iced!
Made this one at work, but before realizing we were out of store use vanilla agave – so I ended up drinking this one straight instead of mixed with the vanilla agave like I usually opt for. It 100% just wasn’t the same. Too tart/cider like for my tastes, and without the sweet creamy flavour that actually reminds me of muffins. Still drinkable, but that flavoured agave completely makes this tea in my opinion.
I just tastes totally different without…
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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
Sipdown (410)!
This was my morning cuppa today, with some orange infused honey.
It was a very tasty cup of tea; the Darjeeling itself was quite brisk and full bodied with some heavy hitting notes of muscat and malt, and then some more delicate floral undertones. The sweetness of the honey was great ’cause it softened the astringency, and the orange notes really complimented the muscat and floral notes of the Darjeeling. It also just felt more winter-esque in general paired together.
Overall? I was satisfied with this cup but the Darjeeling itself is a pretty ‘meh’ quality one, and I have better on hand so it’s not one I’m sad to sipdown at all. It’s a welcome departure, actually.
So, I REALLY enjoyed this one.
There’s something that’s really familiar about it in terms of taste but I still can’t put my finger on exactly which tea it’s reminding me of. Regardless, it’s got a very lovely medium bodied profile with SUPER aromatic and fresh clementine/mandarin orange notes. It tastes exactly the way the air and your fingers smell right after you’ve peeled a really juicy, ripe mandarin orange. Like, that very natural and sweet orange oil/essence kind of quality. The white tea itself is also really smooth and floral, with notes of cucumber skins, and fresh hay as well as some really light lemon undertones. It’s quite enchanting.
Because of the mandarin orange quality, this is something I feel especially into around the winter season (Christmas oranges!) but it’s an amazing flavour that I’m sure would be equally as impressive year round. This may, in fact, be my favourite tea from Silk Road to date.
It was just SOOOO good.
Made a pot of this tea to share with my mom.
There are just so many things about this one that rub me the wrong way, though. For starters I’ve realized that the word Flan is a ‘trigger’ word for me the same way that the word moist is for some people. It sounds too similar to Phlegm to me, and when I think of that word in association with drinking tea it just sends chills running up my spine in all the bad kinds of ways, and makes me feel really skeeved out.
Plus the dry leaf smells like off milk to me.
Finally; we have to add the frustration of associated memories. The first time I had this tea was at a repelling event DAVIDsTEA was doing downtown over the summer when I was still dating my now ex boyfriend. It stands out because it was a really good day for me. I mean, all summer I was the happiest I’ve been in a really long time and just everything about that day was so fun, and positive – from the event itself, to lunch with the boyfriend and his HELLA adorable reaction when he saw us setting up for the event. It’s one of those memories that, now that we aren’t dating, leaves me feeling really sad ‘cause it’s just a reflection of how much I’m NOT happy right now compared to how happy I was then – and just how much I’m still not over this breakup even though I REALLY want to be.
I mean, when I actually brew this tea up I enjoy it a fair bit – it’s a very nice, smooth vanilla/caramel flavour and though there’s nothing stellar about it in terms of flavour there’s nothing wrong with it either. However, it still takes so much pushing to get to the point where it’s actually steeped up – there are just so many stikes against it…
TASTING NOTE 5555!!!
So, I 100% wanted to do something really special/unique for this tasting note since it’s a pretty monumental number but I realized that while I was waiting to find the perfect tea for this tasting note I was also racking up a pretty substantial queue of things to write about – and I just wasn’t happy with any of the teas I had brainstormed for this note. So, I’m just biting the bullet and writing in the order of things I have queued…
Which means tasting note 5555 is for this Turmeric Latte Blend that I picked up because I was surprisingly really into the Turmeric tea that DAVIDsTEA released this year (Turmeric Glow), especially as a latte. I thought it would be worthwhile trying something similar but new, and I got a coupon code for this company through my Sipsby subscription service, so that made ordering a little more reasonable for me.
Basically this is a powder similar to matcha in preparation – you can make it into a bowl/cup of tea like matcha, but it’s definitely intended as more of a latte sort of thing – hence the name. I’ll definitely try this both straight and as a more traditional latte but the start I thought I’d try this one just cold frothed into some eggnog as more of a holiday type thing. I realize that’s not gonna let me taste the “pure” flavour of the powder right off the bat because the eggnog has such a strong flavour, but it’ll give me a good enough idea I think.
Visually, it’s very interesting looking – REALLY yellow in colour because of the turmeric, but then there’s also tiny, tiny little black flecks which I assume are the black pepper in the blend. Taste wise, I found it quite enjoyable. It’s definitely got some spice to it; and tastes of turmeric but both the ginger and cinnamon come through pretty strongly as well. I don’t actually know what ashwagandha tastes like though so I can’t really speak to that element of the blend. I also thought that the spice really complimented the creamy, sweet eggnog quite well. Even though this isn’t a Chai in the typical sense, I was getting really good chai vibes from the flavour though.
I did let both my mom and little sister try a bit of this one and they both hated it though, for what it’s worth. My sister because of the spice; like me she’s generally just not into things with spice. I don’t think the spice was the issue with my mom – she just didn’t think it went will with the eggnog.
I was scooping this one out for a customer the other day and I caught the “Oh, I could go for a cup of this” cravings as I was smelling the scooped tea/tin.
So, immediately after I was finished ringing in said customer I went and myself myself an iced cup of this. It was tasty; I think ultimately it was the coconut that I was craving and that I found the most satisfying in the brewed up tea. The pineapple and mango were nice too though. I also still definitely wish that there wasn’t chamomile in this because it totally detracts from the flavour, in my own personal opinion. Ultimately, it was a very refreshing cup although I actually think I could have gone for a touch more sweetness.
This isn’t a tea I normally reach for or would ever buy for at home, so sometimes it’s nice to have those weird cravings just so I’m re-experiencing a tea that I otherwise wouldn’t think of steeping.
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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
Sipdown (408)!
Finished this one off a few days ago. Mulled Cider is actually a pretty good name for it; that’s basically what it is. There are things about it that could be improved upon though; like, I actually wouldn’t mind a significantly stronger apple flavour. I mean, those apple notes were there but not to the same degree that I’d expect from a cider tea. The hibby kind of took over and masked some of them, too.
I also didn’t like the ginger – but I realize that’s largely just a personal preference thing since I don’t like ginger that much in the first place. My favourite part was the cinnamon, it was such a nice top note and from there it really seamlessly transitioned into this super smooth, satisfying undertone that really, really complimented the apple. The two together actually reminded me a lot of apple pie.
Overall, this was pretty satisfying. The other “mulled cider” tea that I have a lot of familiarity with is DT’s Spiced Apple and I spent the whole time sipping on this trying to decide which of the two I liked better. They are quite different, but honestly? I still can’t decide which was the better one!
