16847 Tasting Notes
Holy tea! The lovely and incredibly generous Lala sent me a package of teas to try out (mostly straight green and whites, among a few others) and now I just have so much to try out! I wasn’t really sure where exactly to start, so I let my roommate make the first pick…
So, starting out with some unflavoured MATCHAccino. I had to look up how I’m supposed to make this – so fingers crossed I’m doing this the correct way. I guess I have enough that I can try another cup in different proportions if I need to.
I’m making some in “iced cap” format for Tre and I.
On it’s own, the dry MATCHAccino mix doesn’t smell so bad – very sweet, but definitely green tea. I want to like green tea, though! So of course I’m excited to try this.
All mixed/blended up now. It looks… Well, lets just say that typically I’d be pretty cautious about drinking something so green. Unless we’re talking vegetables, there’s some sort of instinct that I feel most people posses that talks them out of eating suspicious green foods.
It smells really, really sweet. Fingers crossed?
First few sips… ICK. YUCK. NOPE. It tastes like horribly sweet grass. NO. NO. NO. I do not want to drink more of this. Seriously, I LOVE the smell of actual sweet grass – you know, the type used in First Nations ceremonies. It smells so good, and that’s why the dry powder form of this smells like. But, ewwww. It’s too sweet and too grassy. I’m sure it’s not the tea or sample’s fault – but I just DON’T like it.
On the plus side? Tre does. He can drink the rest of my cup for me.
Dala also sent some Black Cherry flavoured Matcha for me to try, and it smells REALLY good too. It was going to be the next one I tried, but now I’m not so sure. I want to like it, but I’m not sure. Maybe it’ll be like other green teas – much more palatable flavoured as opposed to straight.
I’m gonna try and use up the last of Lala’s sample of this one though – in a hot format. Maybe it’ll be better that way? She sent lots of green teas, so I’m really hoping I find at least one type that I like. If nothing else, her generosity will lead into a great learning experience & further proof that green tea just isn’t my thing.
Had an amazing cup of this and then promptly resteeped it to have some more. Not really gonna comment on the initial cup because it was pretty much the same as the cup I noted last night.
The resteep was decently good. Dominant tastes were lemon and white and green tea. Basically no notes of bergamot, which is a shame.
This was my summer treat to myself! I absolutely love pineapple, in almost any form, and I also really enjoy coconut too – so it’s no surprise that Pina Colada is a favourite flavour of mine.
The dry leaf smells exactly like it should: a pina colada! The smell of the pineapple and coconut is really quite strong, and you can’t really smell any of the other ingredients. The little sugar hearts are a cute touch as well, and it’s hard for me to resist picking both them and the pineapple bits out of the tin for eating.
I drank a lot of this iced over the summer – it’s just delicious and really flavourful, and SO refreshing. I really should make the effort to go to my local DAVIDsTEA to refill my tin before they run out of this one! The leaf in my tin is pretty sparse and although I probably won’t be drinking this one as much now that it’s getting to be fall, I still want to have the OPTION of drinking it.
This is actually my first time drinking it hot, and I’m not totally sure what to expect – this tea is delicious cold brewed but I somehow just can’t picture drinking a Pina Colada hot. It just seems so… Contradictory.
Steeping, it’s a very sweet and aromatic pina colada smell with some creaminess to it that can probably be attributed to the coconut. I think I can very lightly smell the apple, but it’s not a strong smell and it’s mostly buried under the very dominating pineapple and coconut.
I gave this a long steep time: the full seven minutes. There’s a lot of flavour in my first few sips (well, more gulps really). Pineapple is the first flavour – very sweet and slightly tart. The pineapple then develops into a very full bodied coconut with a HIGH level of creaminess. This is leaving my mouth watering, but I still feel very refreshed. It’s a very smooth tea with light floral notes from the rose, safflower, and marigold.
Even though I prefer not to add anything to my tea, I bet with a bit of rum or a splash of cream this would be heavenly – maybe worthy of a perfect ‘100’. To my list of things to try out, I’m adding both of those additions to this tea! I’d also love to try adding some leaves from DT’s Buttered Rum. Has anyone else done that yet?
As a hot tea, I honestly like this as much (if not more) than I do as a cold tea. Probably an unpopular opinion, I know. I think I’m going to attribute that to the fact that I prefer hot tea in general. I really, REALLY need to buy more of this.
EDIT: Got a really good second steep of this one! I’m not really sure how long it was steeping – I lost track of time. It was definitely longer than 10 minutes though. This steep tastes nearly identical to the previous cup, but with a very sharp note of tart and sour apple on the end of the sip.
Preparation
Final cup of the night? Probably…
Enjoying ANTM and catching up on the last few episodes. I don’t know why, but I’m rooting for the guys this cycle so much more than the girls. Only guy I dislike at this point is Marvin (though, I still like him more than most of the girls) – but I’m seriously supporting Chris, Phil, and Nina.
I keep coming back to this tea though! It really is perfect for all moods.
Preparation
Trying out the last of my DT purchases from today! Of the three I bought, this one was my Dad’s favourite. He really has a thing for white teas, where as I usually lean towards a good black tea.
I really like Earl Grey teas in general, so this was my sort of “experiment” on the Earl Grey front; I’ve never tried an Earl Grey with an non-black base. My expectations of this one were for it to be much lighter.
I didn’t really make any notes while I was drinking this one – I was too preoccupied with cooking my supper and flipping out at Tre for filling the whole apartment with smoke and the really nasty smell of burnt charcoal. He decided to make himself one of MY mini pizzas – without asking, I might add, when he had no idea how to cook them; basically he cooked a miniature one person sized pizza at 600 degree temperatures for somewhere between five and 10 minutes. Of course the entire thing was completely burnt and a solid black colour. He was going to make himself another one, but I guilted him into not wasting one of my pizza shells and instead eating the disgusting burnt mess he made himself.
If I’m recalling correctly, the dry leaf for this one smells pretty strongly of bergamot, with a really nice light lemon smell. The only reason I found this one was because I was searching the DT website for teas with lemon in them – my cupboard is pretty lacking of lemony teas (other than the God awful Lipton tea I have for when family comes over). And I swear, my little yogurt bits were sparkling. Like – a full on “Twilight Vampire” shimmery white.
I have to admit, I’m not entirely sure how long this cup was steeped – like I said, I had a little bit going on that distracted me. I’m sure, at the very least, that it was less than five minutes. Steeped, the liquor is sort of a peachy yellow. The smell was pretty much just bergamot – the lemon scent I think had been pretty much lost.
The bergamot in this is pretty strong (which is fine – I like bergamot), but the lightness of the lemon and the creaminess of the yogurt bits manage to keep that from making this a heavier tea. It still remains light and fresh. I remember there being an almost grassy aftertaste, so that was probably the green tea added in to this. I didn’t realize until I’d gotten home there was green tea in this mix (not really a green tea fan) – but I think I’d have still made the purchase even if I’d known there was green tea in it.
Overall, I like my Cream of Earl Grey from DT better – but this is still really good. I can see how there’ll be days when I’ll crave this over my other Earl Greys (or just crave it in general).
I’ve been eyeing this one up for a while, mostly because I want to find a really good pear flavoured tea for my cupboard. The first time I smelled it was in store in my old city – and it smelled alright, but not great so I passed on it. Today, in my new city, I took the opportunity to smell it again and see if my thought had changed, and they certainly had.
For whatever reason, it just smelled totally irresistible to me today. I wasn’t sure what it was that had sold me today until the salesman pointed it out; not only does it smell like pears and cranberry, but it smells CREAMY. It’s a very rich creamy smell too, but I can’t really figure out WHY it smells so creamy; none of the listed ingredients are things that really make me think of creamy teas.
Dry and steeping, this one smells like pears, but the cranberry factors into there a great deal too. The tartness of the cranberry really plays of the sweet juiciness of the pears. There are apples listed in the ingredients, and even though I can SEE them I can’t smell them at all. I’m ok with this – I’m not really interested in this tea because of the apple.
Steeped, the liquor is a very pale reddy brown sort of colour. I don’t know – it’s a weird colour, but it’s light. First few sips and it sort of tastes weak, and pretty watery. I don’t think it’s a matter of understeeping since I steeped this one of the high end of the recommended steep times. What it might be is a case of too much fruit in comparison to the actual tea leaf? The sample I got was almost ENTIRELY large chunks of fruit (Holy Cranberry! The cranberry chunks in this are MASSIVE!) with black tea leaves pretty sparse among the fruit.
The more I drink it, however, the better it tastes. The pear is very predominant with a subtle cranberry flavour. The description on the little baggy describes this tea and juicy and tart, but I don’t taste any tartness. Instead this tea is really smooth and creamy with a lovely light cranberry and pear taste. Like I said, the black tea base is very light and almost not present at all. I read the reviews commenting on how this tastes like bubblegum, and I understand the comparison.
Once I get my Della Terra order in I’m going to have to do a comparison between this tea and the other pear flavoured one I got (The Perfect Pear) to see which I prefer. Both use a black tea base. Hmmm…
My cup is all gone now, and I find myself seriously craving another cup. Both this tea AND Blueberry Jam (the other black tea I bought today) are teas I’m going to have to buy a tin of. I’m sure I’ll eat through my sample of this one quite quickly.
If it was only a little less weak, this tea would be perfect! And as soon as it was done steeping I went and ate all of the fruit bits! They looked too good to resist. Next time I’ll have to try over leafing it for a stronger flavour.
Preparation
Today my Dad and brother came into town for a visit, and to bring me up a new bed. I swear, my bed is FINE and perfectly comfortable, but my Dad insists on buying me new, well, everything. Sometimes I really appreciate it – and other times it’s frustrating because he tries to replace things that don’t need replacing at all.
We went out for lunch at Fuddruckers with my roommate Tre, and then as a sort of ‘house warming’ present we stopped in at DAVIDsTEA so he could buy me a couple new teaballs (I always seem to be short on tea balls). Initially he had expressly forbidden me from buying anymore new teas, but at the last minute as we were leaving he caved! Yes!
I ended up walking away with three new teas that had been on my “to try” list: The Earl of Lemon (which I served to my Dad later in the day – he has a thing for white teas), Cranberry Apple, and Blueberry Jam which is what I’m having now.
Normally, I hate blueberries! When it comes to the fresh fruit there’s something that I just find totally repulsive about the texture (it’s the same idea for me when it comes to tomatoes – NASTY texture), and artificial blueberry just tastes funny to me. So hopefully this will work out for me – real blueberry taste without that nasty blueberry texture.
The dry leaf smells very much like blueberries. Nothing artificial – just sweet blueberries.
For my first cup, I steeped for between four and five minutes and let me just say that this tea changes colour really quickly. I think my tea ball had been in the cup maybe 10 seconds and already the liquor was black. Not just like darkly coloured, but a solid black where I couldn’t see the bottom of the cup.
Steeped, it smells like blueberry pancake syrup! Mmm! My brother made the same observation, and this enabled me to convince him to actually try some. For whatever reason, he claims he can’t taste tea – every tea he’s ever tried tastes like water to him. He loves the smell of tea, but he can’t taste it. I’ve given him herbal teas in the past in the hope that he’d taste the fruit but the only luck I’ve had is him tasting hibiscus and hating it.
But after trying this one I think I’ve opened him up to giving tea more of a chance – he could taste the blueberries!
That made me really excited to try it – if he could taste blueberries when he usually tastes nothing then I bet I sure could! Sure enough, this tea tastes like real blueberries without any artificial aspect to it at all. It really does taste like blueberry pancake syrup, and that’s a very pleasant taste to (and kind of nostalgic, which maybe makes this tea better).
The black tea base is good too, and still present even though blueberry is by far the most dominating taste. Overall, I really enjoyed this tea but I did find that by the bottom of the cup it was starting to taste kind of… soapy? I think that’s the best word for it.
Preparation
Hmmm, how do you like DT’s teaballs? Do you use them at home a lot? or for work/school/travel? I’m trying to decide between tea bags (the filters that dt sells) and a teaball to take to work to use inside my timolino.
I’ve never tried DT’s teabags, so I guess I can’t give a fair comparison of the two tea products. I really like the tea balls though! I use them at home daily since I prefer to brew a mug at a time and drink many different types of tea all day instead of one or two types resteeped throughout the day. I have another tea ball that was a gift from someone (I can’t remember where they bought it, but it wasn’t a DT product) and it’s nowhere near as nice – the clasp comes undone quite easily and there are small gaps in the edge that let finer bits of tea out. I guess my recommendation would be to just pick up one from your local DT or add one into your next online order to try out (they’re pretty cheap), and then buy more if you like them. I have five.
Yeah, I should probably get a few of those. I have a few of dt’s perfect infusers, and they’re absolutely wonderful, but I always feel as htough I need more immediate tea-brewing options, because I don’t want to spend forever at the sink washing my teaware.
