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Sipdown (130)!

Yay, more teas from A Quarter to Tea!!!

So, I picked up the seven tea sampler but only six teas really stood out to me so for the seventh I just asked Lauren to surprise me. This is the surprise tea! I have to say, I’m not totally sure why it didn’t catch my eye given that I’m a fan of everything in it. Especially the cranberry and cloves!!! It’s a stinky, stanky tea though – not in a bad way but in a “you’d probably need to triple bag it to keep the intense aroma in” sort of way. My entire package smelled super strongly of this bad boy, so I thought I’d best finish it off quickly so as to not let the aroma contaminate the other teas.

Of course I cold brewed it: it was really lovely! The cranberry could have maybe been just a touch stronger, but I’m also totally a cranberry fiend when it comes to my teas so for someone who only likes cranberry and doesn’t love it I imagine the proportions were probably reasonable. I felt like I could taste a bit of everything though; and that’s exactly what you want out of a tea: proportional representation of all ingredients! It was lively and fruity (the tangerine was a super nice touch), but with a perfectly balanced spice backdrop that made it seasonally appropriate for the Autumn/Winter transition. This is exactly what I wanted, but didn’t get, out of DAVIDsTEA’s Cranberry Orange Muffin tisane. So good!

And God Bless Lauren for not including ginger.

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Out with the old, in with the new!

My Camellia Sinensis order came today and I just had the best time unboxing it. Three new yixings, a replacement Gaiwan, a small tea tray (just the perfect size for one person), some cups, and a pitcher plus 25g of a Pu I ordered and two free samples they added in! A Mao Feng and some kind of Chinese black; I don’t remember the name off the top of my head. I didn’t take pictures, but I’ll try to for tomorrow! I want to show the new pots off!

I realized though, as I was trying to find a place on my shelf for the new teas, that I’ve got a couple where I only have one serving left that I’ve been hoarding such as this one. What was I waiting for before drinking it? There’s no reason I shouldn’t just finish it off tonight so that’s what I did! There’s not enough leaf left for a proper Gong Fu session so I just made a larger Western styled mug of it and did a few separate infusions.

I’m really, really tasting the woody, more ‘nature’-esque notes of the tea tonight: wood/bark, minerals, smoke, that kind of thing. I also taste cinnamon, butter, and of course dill. I always taste dill with this tea! It’s really wonderful and I’m happy I treated myself to it tonight. This was such a perfect introduction to aged oolongs – which are something I’ve become increasingly more fascinated with. I don’t feel bad finishing it off tonight though because I’ve got two others waiting to be tried!

Cold Brew!

Not as creamy as normal; instead definitely more of a sharp, vaguely tangy apricot flavour with more of the lemon/lemongrass notes coming through than I’ve probably ever noticed. It was still good, but not truly satisfying as it was the coconut/apricot pairing I was ultimately in the mood for when I started brewing it up.

My first few times cart building on August Uncommon I totally glanced over this tea, and I actually don’t remember what it was about it that made me taste notice eventually maybe Sil’s review? but I’m so happy I did because this was incredibly unique and so tasty!

On their own, I’m a fan of all the things used in this blend, but together? I used to really enjoy DT’s Pink Flamingo mixed with Peppermint Amour which is grapefruit and mint together among many other ingredients, and while I find the pairing of mint and vanilla fairly overdone you have to admit that’s because traditionally it goes together quite well. This was better than any of those things.

The sweet and just slightly tart/bitter red grapefruit notes were probably the most natural and authentic grapefruit flavour I’ve ever experienced with tea. I bring one of those Del Monte type fruit cups with Red Grapefruit to work every day in my lunch, so even though it’s not a flavour I’m typically seeking out when it comes to tea I’ve very familiar with it and thoroughly enjoy it as well. Of course, the mint plays well with the grapefruit and the two provide such a harmonious contrast of flavours. The mint brings out the sweetness of the grapefruit and the grapefruit makes the refreshing and kind of “tingly” menthol part of the peppermint much was noticeable as a mouthfeel on the tongue after you’ve finish the sip. And the addition of vanilla is genius: it just smooths out the whole mug and provides a creaminess that I never knew I needed with grapefruit that I’ll probably be missing in every grapefruit drink that doesn’t have it from now on.

So yeah; right now I’m 2/2 with my August Uncommon teas. It’s a good thing I’m on a forced hiatus too because I’d snatch up a full 50g of this in a heartbeat otherwise, and I haven’t even tried the rest of my order yet.

Also: I had to look up “Cocteau” because for a company with such unique blend names I knew it must be representative of something. I sort of thought maybe it was a French word or a place? But after my quick Google Search it looks like this was named after a band I’d never heard of: The Cocteau Twins. Anyone familiar with them or possibly know what the significance is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3diz8I0AVVk

Not 100% my sort of music, but definitely quite interesting. Maybe I’ll drink my next mug while listening to more of their music?

EDIT: Apparently reading the description more thoroughly would help me understand the significance of the music better because after listening to that song it’s definitely obvious where AU was coming from…

Sipdown (129)!

I definitely wasn’t a fan of the “tea pop” version of this tea from Scheherazade but this cold brew version tastes like a nearly completely different tea to me. Instead of whatever funky flavour I was experiencing with the former this has a robust, sweet honeydew flavour that miraculously manages to still taste at least halfway natural and still not be cloying. I mean; I’m no where near impressed enough to go out and buy it or anything but as someone who’s kind of been dreading this sipdown because of how bad I thought this would be based on that first impression I have to admit I probably could have easily gotten this out of the way a while ago.

I seem to have a “phantom” message here on Steepster.

According to the little mail icon someone’s sent me a PM but when I click on it and go through each page of messages I haven’t received a new message and no matter what I do I can’t get it to clear. It’s not a big deal; it certainly doesn’t effect my Steepster usage. It’s just kind of annoying ‘cause every time I see it I get that feeling like "Oh, I’ve got a message" and it takes a second for it to mentally click into place that no, I don’t.

Anyway, had this one hot the other night. It’s one of those teas I’ve had what feels like a billion times now: I pretty well always have it on hand but never drink it unless I really have a craving for it. Which I did, last night. I went through like 20 oz. of this one hot while watching a movie called “Circle” which was super interesting, btw, it’s like a drama/psychological thriller or “light horror” with an interesting concept. I totally recommend checking it out because it’s so unique.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAlpm2oRzy8 (It’s on Netflix)

As for the tea: buttery with a distinct kettle corn flavour and a mild apple/nut taste!

Sipdown (130)!

My laptop is fixed! I dropped it off yesterday morning, and got it back this evening. The hard drive was, indeed, shot but thankfully because it’d only been a year and a half since I replaced it I was still covered under warranty so I didn’t have to pay to replace it. Also, because it hadn’t completely failed they were still able to recover all of my information/files so when I got it back this evening everything was exactly like it’d been before all of the issues. And it’s running super smoothly now!

Plus, the whole headache cost less than $100 in total so I’m a happy person right now.

Because I had no internet last night, I took advantage of that and drank a lot of tea. More than I normally would in an evening since I didn’t have the distraction of Steepster, Tumblr, Facebook, or Youtube. Part of that mass tea consumption included a plain, Western-style sipdown of this tea. Admittedly, it’s kind of nice to be clearing out more Camellia Sinensis teas since I’ve got more on the way as well as many I’ve yet to taste at all. Plus, they’re always so generous with the free samples when I order. The last order I placed probably had close to 50g of freebie tea.

This was definitely the worst cup I’d brewed up of this blend though. Would it make sense if I described it as kind of “hollow” tasting? Like, the initial top notes of the sip were fruity raisin/lemon type notes and the finish kind of malty but the body of the sip was just very lack luster with a really, really neutral/plain sort of mouthfeel and no defining flavour notes. Not awful but just so boring. It was a disappointing way to finish this blend off, to be perfectly honest. If I had more leaf left I’d be sticking with Gong Fu: while the cold brew was nice that’s definitely the most delicious way this one tasted.

I had an awesome evening yesterday!

Since moving back to Regina I’ve reconnected with a couple friends I’d drifted apart from when I moved and for the first time since getting back we all had the day off work so we went out for supper and then hung out afterwards! I also got to know my friend Kandyce’s boyfriend who I’d heard a lot about and met briefly right when I first moved back (he’s the receptionist at the place I got my nose pierced). He was really fun and very easy to quickly get along with.

We started off going out for supper at these neat place that specializes in gourment poutine. Because Taylor is way too generous she paid for my meal. It was really fun, and we ended up being those asshole customers that stayed until the place closed. Probably a pain for the employees but just a great chance to catch up with everyone else.

Afterwards we stopped at my house; Kandyce works at DAVIDsTEA and is very into tea so I let her raid through my tea stash and grab samples of anything she was interested in trying. Mostly, she’s only ever drank Teavana/DAVIDsTEA so I tried to give her samples of good stuff from places like Lupicia, Butiki, Dammann Freres, RLT, What-Cha, and Camellia Sinensis. Her boyfriend Seth was more than happy to just go along with whatever she wanted, but the one thing he picked out for himself was Lapsang Souchong! I’m hoping he likes it; they only live three blocks away from me so it’d be cool to do a Gong Fu ceremony some time with them using my yixing dedicated to LS because no one in my family will drink it with me.

Afterwards we headed to Kandyce/Seth’s house and watched some Bo Burnham and laughed our asses off. Of course, since she works at DT, Kandyce has a LARGE stash of DT blends. She wanted to save the fancier teas for special occasions so we each picked out a DT blend. I wanted to drink something I couldn’t have at home which led me to picking this blend! I was sure I’d had it before, but apparently I’m confusing it with something else because I’ve never logged it here on Steepster and if I had tried it I definitely would’ve done so.

It was pretty tasty; I’d never buy as much as Kandyce has of it (like 200g) if it ever made a reappearance in stores but I’d probably buy at least some. My cup was hot, and this is obviously a tea intended for cold methods of prep. It had a very watered down grenadine flavour though. A mix of cherry and pomegranate actually which is hilarious because traditional, authentic grenadine was made with pomegranates and more “modern” grenadine uses in cocktails is now often cherry. It was also citrusy (orange) but that wasn’t the focal point.

But seriously though: just what a great night.

This review is for the Cardamom French Toast infused milk chocolate bar currently carried by DAVIDsTEA for the winter season:

https://www.davidstea.com/ca_en/chocolate-bar-8

It’s worth noting I haven’t tried the straight up tea yet (and probably wont) but I aim to try all of the tea infused chocolate that DT puts out so I grabbed this anyway. Mostly, I think it just tastes like chocolate but with a noticeable cardamom test. I really don’t get a lot of “French Toast” although I do recall having one bite that tasted exactly like eggnog. I must have hit a pocket of flavour or something. I don’t know; this is enjoyable but not awesome. I’m so picky about sweets I think it takes a lot for chocolate to impress me.

However, this is now the second newer DT chocolate bar I’ve had where the tea leaf was more finely broken up/ground up and infused so I’m hoping I can interpret that to mean DT is listening to customer complaints about such large “bits” in the tea and them being unpleasant to bite into. We’ll see if this trend holds up…

From my brother Liam’s stash…

He hoards this tea religiously, which is fair given it’s no longer carried by DAVIDsTEA and it’s only the only tea in his, uh, ‘stash’. He doesn’t drink tea unless I make him; but this blend he adores. I don’t know what it is about it he fancies so much but to him it’s magical stuff.

Don’t worry; I didn’t steal any of his prized leaf: he asked me to make him a tea soda using the leaf which I happily did for him because he doesn’t ask me for much when it comes to tea. In return, he gave me a shot glass worth of the “precious brew”. It’s more peachy than pineapple, IMO, and very light with a subtle tangyness. In my opinion, it’s lost a lot of flavour over time . He loved it though and that’s what counts.