17072 Tasting Notes
This is the last of this past week’s new Spring releases and, honestly, the name sums it up quite well. It’s a coconut tea on a white tea base. Well, actually a blended base of white and green tea. A very simple, pure take on coconut – something we get requests for a lot.
I think what I like most about this tea is its flexibility. It’s not really sweet, nor is is particularly a coconut cream flavour. Instead it’s refreshing, lightly buttery and sort of more light to medium bodied. It makes for a really smooth and still flavourful brew when you have it hot and plain, but with room to add sweetener or milk/alt milk to amp up the richness if that’s what you’re looking for. As a latte, it can be quite indulgent but if you make it iced (or as a tea pop) it’s more on the refreshing side and almost more comparable to a coconut water. So, something you can for sure play around with the suit your mood.
Plus, I just HAVE to call out the coconut shreds in the blend. In my opinion, they are visually the most beautiful coconut pieces we’ve ever used in a tea. Thick shreds with a bit of the husk on the end. They just look amazing, and as they steep that coconut fat adds a subtle sort of silkiness to the mouthfeel of the blend that I like a lot.
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.
Probably my personal least favourite of the new teas, but really just because I’m not as into chai/spiced teas typically. I think this is a well balanced blend though, and surprisingly not actually all that sweet even though it has both real maple and brown sugar in it. Actually, of all the maple teas we have currently (Manoomin Maple, Simply Maple Breakfast, Maple Matcha) this is the least sweet tasting. Instead it’s more aromatic with a bit of heat primarily from the cinnamon and ginger with undertones of clove and then the maple coming through in the finish.
I would say the spice composition is pretty similar to DT’s older Maple Chai which was a black tea, however there’s a little more ginger in this one and no cardamom. I think the maple is slightly stronger too – and it’s naturally flavoured instead of artificially. In my opinion, this tea definitely shines best with an addition of milk or as a latte, which just rounds out that melange of spices really nicely and brings out a little more sweetness to the cup. It’s so cozy regardless, though!
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.
Another new tea!
Moroccan Mint is one of the most common in store tea requests we get and, though we have North African Mint in our assortment (which is our more twisted take on Moroccan Mint), it doesn’t seem to always meet the ask for a more simple, “pure tasting” mint…
We’ve actually carried a traditional Moroccan Mint before too with the gunpowder green tea base, but having North African Mint and Moroccan Mint both in the green tea category feels a little too close for comfort in some ways. So, this tea was developed to meet the spirit of the request for a simpler, more straight forward caffeinated mint blend which being juuuuussst different enough. Walking a fine line, for sure.
The oolong tea that was used is a ball-rolled style, and we actually tried to find one that was not only a visual nod to gunpowder green but that had a few overlapping tasting notes too. So, it’s on the lighter oxidation side but still with some more grassy, mineral and ever so slightly smoky tasting notes. I think it pairs really well with the nana-mint (aka “Turkish Mint”) which is quite naturally sweet and refreshing, with a similar taste to spearmint. If you were blind tasting this tea you might even mistake it for a traditional Moroccan Mint and not an oolong. Definitely a nice way to keep it classic, but also maybe introduce some people to oolong who aren’t familiar with it!?
And I like that the oolong kind of leans in to both the more communal aspect of Moroccan Mint and the functional/digestive aspects of the nana mint. Moroccan Mint is historically served to guests as a sign of hospitality, and oolong just makes such a good big teapot kind of tea that can be resteeped multiple times as the conversation continues. Oolong, of course, also has some traditional use as a digestive (as does mint), so it works on another layer of being a refreshing and feel-good tea after a heavy meal with guests too! And, don’t sleep on this blend iced/cold brewed either. That’s also really smooth, refreshing and delish.
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.
New name, same great flavour.
Y’all already know that I really adore the incredibly smooth, classic vanilla taste of Christmas Morning Blend. What you might not know is that for years I’ve been pushing to carry this incredible vanilla black tea outside of the holidays. I’m so, soooo excited that we’ve recently updated the name and are now selling this tea beyond just Christmas. I think it deserves to be more available because it’s just such a beautiful and straight forward vanilla flavour, and that’s something that’s really been missing in the year-round assortment.
Would not be surprised if this becomes a much more frequently consumed tea for me now that it’s not something I have to ration as much.
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.
Quite a few new teas just launched for the Spring, along with several returning blends such as Blackberry Jasmine Blast, Coco Mango Chai, and English Toffee…
Of the brand new tea blends, this is my personal favourite. It’s an incredibly simple blend with a really robust, full-bodied “breakfast style” black tea base and a pop of fresh, juicy red apple. I was really inspired by the idea of “global breakfast blends” when developing this tea: particularly concepts like a New York, Tokyo, or London Breakfast that would me majority black tea with a subtle flavour inclusion that nods to the city of inspiration. I’ve had many New York Breakfast blends and it always baffles me that they’re never apple flavoured as a riff on “The Big Apple.” So, now an apple flavoured New York breakfast tea exists!
I’ve said many times before that, personally, the blends I tend to favor are ones that are incredibly flexible with their preparation – and I think that’s why I love this one so very much. It’s great hot and plain with its bold and malty black tea profile mixed with that sweet, crisp red apple note. However, a splash of milk and some sugar isn’t so bad either, like how you might take a typical breakfast. It’s also really refreshing iced or cold brewed! I actually had a cold brew of it today, and I find the apple comes off a little sweeter and more forward in taste, with the brisk black tea rounding out the end of the sip. Finally, it’s a really lively and refreshing tea pop too! Just a tea that’s super fun to play around with.
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.
Iced!
Even though the lychee is usually the flavour in this tea that I fixate on the most, this time around I really felt like the bright, lively peach notes were stealing the show. Just a little bit sour leaning, with a strong citrusy edge from the lemongrass. Not as sweet or lingering on the palate as Just Peachy, but still mighty refreshing with this tropical sort of undertone. I was drinking it in a travel mug, so colour kind of became a moot point…
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.
All of the snow here in Montreal is really starting to melt and go away, and it’s just so much warmer, brighter, and more fresh feeling outside. Definitely really starting to show some serious signs of Spring! I’m feeling that reflected in a lot of my tea choices too, which are erring more floral and soft lately. This is a really beautiful blend that leans into this lush, sweet floral note of lilac and violets that is just really refreshing and uplifting. One of the better mugs I made this past week!
Sipdown (2783)!
I was excited to steep up the last bit of this blend, but I forgot it was steeping and as a result this got a long, loooonngggg infusion. That resulted in a cup that, while really aromatic with such a rich cardamom flavour, definitely had a bit of a bitter, sharp finish and aggressively floral note to the point of being almost chemical-y perfume tasting. It was a really disappointing way to say goodbye to this blend that I’d otherwise really enjoyed…
It’s really starting to feel like Spring this week, so I’ve been pulling out and brewing a lot of my more floral blends this week, and this one in particular is such a smooth one with deliciously malty black tea balanced by fresh, aromatic rose and vanilla bean. Plus, look at those stunning golden tips! It’s really hard to go wrong with this combo of flavours!
Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHWJF3qpNHZ/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXHVn8xi1Wc&ab_channel=BigCrownRecords
Gongfu!
From a taste perspective, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this tea. It comes off more like a rather thin tasting and lightly bodied ripe pu’erh with to me, and as someone who typically enjoys their ripe sessions very heavy-handed and intensely brewed, it’s hard not to immediately perceive this as somewhat watered down. The notes of the sheng is rather lost to me, as well. With that said, I came to two different conclusions the longer I sat with this session and continued brewing. The first was that there was a very strong and grounding body-feeling to this session. Taste typically trumps all for me, but I just started feeling really GOOD as I drank this despite the milder tasting notes.
The second thing I landed on was this sense that this tea would actually probably be quite accessible to a new pu’erh drinker less familiar with shou or who had been turned off in the past by really intense earthy or woody tasting notes and “funky fermentation”, as weird as that might sound for such an experimental blend. The tasting notes I did get were really, really smooth and inoffensive with a bit of a sweet brown notes I’d characterize as carob or date-like. Probably a pretty safe way to dip your toes into the pu’erh world from a flavour standpoint!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHZbpXMSLun/?img_index=2
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y993yWQUOfc&ab_channel=UnderTheRug
