17330 Tasting Notes
Cold Brew!
I drank so much of this on Thursday. Someone recently gave me what is essentially one of the big Stanley Cups (but not Stanley brand) and I’m honestly not super sure how I feel about it. I decided to make this cold brew in it to give me something to drink throughout the afternoon while I was working and turns out that 40oz of one tea is just a lot. Maybe too much?? I mean, I adore the smooth and buttery coconut notes of this oolong on its more delicate, floral base. Like, a lot. But I was prettttyyyy sick of it by the time I’d finished it off.
I’m gonna give it another go or two, but right now I’m not suuupppeerrrr sold on the vessel. Maybe I just need to try it with a different flavour direction of tea!?
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.
I’m drinking it Western style today in a big ol’ mug, and it’s been interesting. A little bit of a lighter body than expected, with top notes a little on the more dark and fruity side but with a bit of molasses in the mix, too. Raisins, dates, fig jam, and jujube. The body is smooth almost to a fault, with clean earthy notes and a woodiness that makes me think of the pine-y sawdust smell of my grandfather’s workshop. It’s not bad at all, but I am finding it just a little bit flat. The fruit could be richer or more syrupy, and the earth and wood notes more dank or mineral-rich. Instead, everything comes off a touch too polished. Perhaps it’s the brewing method, or maybe it needs to keep chilling for a while before it’ll come into its own. For right now, though, this ripe pu’erh is really just leaving me rather “whelmed” feeling. Has anyone else tried this? What were your thoughts?
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DGRRdTaSmlF/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc1MzpV1XcI&ab_channel=IndiETrap
Gongfu!
I’ve been really into Taiwanese teas lately, and Ruby-18 was one of the first styles of black tea I truly fell in love with, so it’s been especially nice surrounding myself with them as of late. This is an exceptionally smooth and full-bodied one that practically feels like it’s dripping with that hallmark refreshing and ever so slightly cooling wintergreen note. It makes for such a round, mouth-coating brewing experience with carefully interlocked notes of sweet malty breads, candied yams, lush but darkly sweet red fruits, and just a hint of carob after the initial wintergreen passes. I do very much love though that, because of the lightly cooling menthol finish, you really get this sort of “wintergreen sandwich” that bookends the sip. I’ve purchased from Cha Gloriette the last few years, though usually oolongs. This is the first black tea of theirs to make it home with me, and I am nothing short of impressed!
Also, I know I’ve had a lot of TO Tea Fest posts lately, but I’m really committed to sipping my way through everything I picked up, which was, frankly, a lot! So thank y’all for coming along on the post-festival tea review journey!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DGT6vb8yrsT/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHtkrEwk8ps&ab_channel=ToneTreeMusic
Gongfu!
Such a soft, silky mouthfeel with a flavour that sits on the line between creamy fresh churned butter, White Rabbit candy, and coconut milk and more cooling, crisp cucumber pulp and skins. With a bit of age on it now, I find this brews up with a bit more body and some deeper, slightly brown sugar tinged peachy and nectarine-like stonefruit notes in the mid sip. It’s still that irresistibly smooth and milky flavour that stays with you post swallow, though, and makes for such a calm way to ease into the day. But seriously, how has it been four years already!? It feels like just a few months ago that this white tea was pressed…
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DGWhDJ3SSQy/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrkAfTz2iYk&ab_channel=CoolBand
I really wish I would have had honey with me in office to add to this, but even still it was such a fantastic cup. Lemon and ginger at its most simplified, but there’s so much else interesting happening with this tea starting from how fresh and zesty both the lemon and ginger notes are but also from the deeply aromatic and camphor-rich complimenting notes of cardamom and such complexity and playful savory notes from the thyme.
The combination of everything almost leaves a light tingly or “buzzing” sensation on the bed of the mouth. If I can get ethereal for a moment, it taste/feels the way I might imagine it would if a bunch of fireflies were dancing across your tongue.
I find it a little too nuanced/sophisticated to be the “right” lemon ginger tea to drink when I feel sick, but for a pure flavour experience it’s very tough to top.
It’s blood orange. It’s spice. It’s really good iced.
I’m still holding true to my sentiment that this is not really a unique profile, but it was very good iced – probably better than it was hot. That deeper and almost berry-like but still juicy and citrusy blood orange note is really well done and so refreshing, and it felt a lot more “correct” with the notes of clove, cardamom, and cinnamon which I struggled with ever so slightly when I had this hot since I felt those cozier spice notes were a bit strangely juxtaposed with a brighter orange note. No problems here!
…It’s definitely growing on me.
Oat Milk Iced Latte!
I feel like it’s really being a “chocolate raspberry” kind of Spring this year. Particularly with Valenetine’s Day I was seeing this flavour combination what felt like everywhere. Maybe that’s what influenced me to whisk this one up. It makes a mean iced latte though with such a rich, decadent and truffle-like profile. Chocolate leading with that jammy, thick raspberry note in the finish. Kind of does make me think of valentine’s chocolate in a really unironic sort of way. My only kind of complaint is that the matcha itself does get lost, but the other flavours are so good I feel like it makes it up.
Sipdown (2789)!
It’s so interesting that I ended up drinking so many more “Christmas themed” or wintery feeling teas this week coinciding with the blizzards we were having. I didn’t really clock that until just now writing tasting notes, but just goes to show how much the weather really does influence cravings…
Anyway, this was a sipdown a long time coming. It’s a fine tea, and in particular I think the chocolate note is really nice. European chocolate flavours tend to lean a little more fruity than the chocolate we get in North America, but it works well in this context with the citrus notes. It really is the orange I have slightly more mixed feelings about. It’s bright in a way that’s both a little juicy but also a little sharp and pithy. Somewhat at odds to have that abrasive quality in a decadent profile. Almost a little too realistic for the taste of orange peel in an uncanny way.
Ultimately I’m fine with this sipdown though because I know I have similar enough teas in my stash from other companies. No reason to be holding onto this one in particular.
So I drank this one yesterday at work. We had some pretty freaking intense snow storms over the weekend, even by Canadian standards, and so a lot of the city was “snowed in” and working from home. I, however, left my laptop at the office over the weekend so I was kind of forced to come in. I was so cold when I got in that the first thing I wanted to do was just drink a gallon of chai. I settled for the mug, though…
I have to say that I think I agree a lot with Kaylee. I really enjoyed this tea, but I didn’t really get distinct notes of chestnut and the overall sweet brown and molasses-y sort of flavour with the spices (the cinnamon/ginger in particular) really made me think of gingerbread. Gingerbread with a bit of a peppery kick to the finish, perhaps. It was exactly the warming, aromatic flavour I was looking for though!
I’m curious to taste it again in the future to see if slightly different context brings out more of those nuttier flavours for me. But even if it doesn’t, I still think this is a really rich and well balanced chai profile regardless.
Iced Tea Sipdown (2790)!
I’m going a little bit crazy right now because I finished off a bag to make this iced tea and I think it’s my last bag which makes this a “proper” sipdown, but I’m actually not 100% sure it’s my last one and I don’t have time to carefully go through my GIANT BIN of black tea samples to make sure…
Regardless, I think it was time to finish this one off. It is a blend that has very much grown on me with time, but it was an older sample and I am also trying to be better this year about not just holding onto the last serving or so of teas. It was a refreshing tea to start my work day with today with not just a solid cola flavour but a pleasantly bright and sweet cherry note, too! Cherry cola, essentially. But flat and in tea form. It’s better than it sounds, I swear.
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.
Speaking of big insulated metal mugs… I just have to admit, whether drinking tea or coffee (or frozen daiquiri), I don’t enjoy the beverage as much from metal as I do from porcelain (or glass). It’s probably in large part to do with how the vessel feels in my hand, but somehow I feel it just tastes better. I don’t know why. Do you think a similar effect may be at play here? I mean, long ago I began to simply refuse martinis unless presented in a stemmed martini glass! The experience matters to me.
I had to get a work thermos that has a ceramic “core” on the inside and is only metal on the outside for that very reason. The metals and/or plastics made the tea taste funny to me. Now I have the benefit of the heat retention from the metal layer on the outside, but the inner part of the thermos where the tea goes is the same ceramic you’d find in a standard coffee mug.