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Sipdown (631)!

Finished this one off Western style; it was perfectly average. Somewhat medium bodied, with malty and mild red fruit notes with a touch of a honey-esque quality to it. Nothing to write home over, or particularly distinct in flavour. To be fair, this was old leaf – but even when it was fresher I don’t recall this being something particularly spectacular.

Contrary to the last time I had this, most of this flavour in today’s cup was sweet and refreshing Spearmint – just a little bit of watered down/weaker strawberry in the finish of the sip, and then hints of apple. I wasn’t super into it today, but you bet your ass I still finished it – it’s SO FUCKING HOT outside today. Currently it’s like 40 degrees Celsius, but we reached about 44 degrees during the height of the afternoon. For my ‘mericans tea friends, that’s 111 degrees Fahrenheit!

The last of my T by Daniel haul (from earlier in the year) that I hadn’t tried…

Not really sure what makes this tea “snowcone” inspired but, regardless of the fact that imagery seems like a stretch to me, I still really enjoyed the overall flavour of this blend. It just seemed so amazingly fresh and juicy with these really sweet peach notes that dominated the cup. I definitely wont go so far as to say it was a natural peach, because it had a bit of a candied/somewhat syrupy quality to it, BUT it was still very rich and bright. The ginger wasn’t as strong as expected, but still present. If the peach was the lively, vibrant top note of the sip then the ginger was the warming grounding element creeping in from the back of the sip, and lingering after the swallow on the back of your tongue.

Obviously ginger and peach go together really well – or, at least, enough people agree that they do for that to be ‘a thing’. I think this is just a really well done example of that. A little heavier on the peach, but I like it like that.

Iced.

A VariaTEA share, and one that I actually requested to try since it’s been so long since I last had this one and I wanted to see if my opinion on it had changed at all over time. Unfortunately, I really don’t think it had because this tasted dreadfully of soapy pineapple and strawberries and was pretty artificial. It’s a shame because I’ve always REALLY wanted to love this one – however I never seem to like it, let alone love It.

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 (621)!

Finished this one off at work today as an iced latte. I was initially unexcited about this one because I imaged it would likely just be a boring black tea with chocolate, however I was delightfully surprised by it. Of course, it WAS a really strong chocolate flavour however there were quite a few additional ingredients in the blend that broke up that chocolate flavour a bit but still paired well – and for me, at least, that’s what made the blend so good. The main one was the vanilla, but also the marshmallow (of which there was an abundance). It just made the chocolate so creamy and smooth tasting that I almost forgot that there was so much chocolate in the blend/that I don’t usually get into chocolate. The barley and apple were nice too; just added a touch of a toasty quality and some sweetness that differed from the chocolate (respectively speaking),

This is definitely not the kind of tea that I would ever stock up on – but I came into this one with very low expectations and they were just completely smashed. I’m not sure why VariaTEA and I had such drastic differences – but I’m sort of glad we did.

Sipdown (622)!

Finishing off this VariaTEA share as a cold brew, which I sipped on primarily outside underneath our big crap apple tree, until I started to feel sleepy and the sunlight began to hurt my big, dumb troll eyes. It’s my last day of my vacation, and I’ve basically spent all of it in my basement – which is fine because it’s been SUPER relaxing, but I am starting to miss the outdoors a little bit…

This is pretty good – better than the last two tisanes I’ve had from Bird & Blend (Strawberry Lemonade and the plain Lemonade). Like the other two I’ve recently had, I do feel like it’s a bit heavy handed on the lemongrass in the blend. However, this doesn’t taste solely of lemongrass so I suppose I can forgive it: instead it’s a primarily mellow and sweet generic fruit flavour with stand out orange and apple notes and a bit of hibiscus familiarity. I thought, originally, this was meant to replicate actual fruit salad but reading the company description just now I see it’s more based on an Fruit Salad candy? I’ve never had the candy though (not sure if it’s just a UK thing) so I can’t directly compare the two – but if the candy is just sort of generally sweet without a super specific fruit note to it then I can see this probably being a good likeness. I wish I could, personally, taste more of the raspberry and pineapple though.

Sipdown (623)!

Acquired this one from Starfevre a little while back; finishing it off now as a larger Western pot of tea. I’m about halfway through the pot now, and it’s been nice but not really much of a wow factor here either. Top of the sip is pretty malty, but it moves into a sweeter and more fruity body flavour – definitely muscatel/raisin notes but also some stonefruit/more plum like elements too. Finish is a little bit tannic, but only slightly so. Reminds me a little bit, on the whole, of Easter Bread – you know, sweet pastry with mixed in candied fruits and raisins. Also a little bit of cinnamon, but I’m not really getting a whole lot of spice with the tea…

Biggest thing is just that it feels very thin, in terms of mouthfeel, and also a little watery. There’s just no body to the tea, even though the taste is pretty nice. I’m enjoying it more as it cools, though.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMUbmiXlHww&index=6&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ

Morning cuppa.

Very, very thick and creamy mouthfeel with a rich but not sweet pistachio flavour. I think it’s really important to make that distinction that even though the pistachio was a strong flavour it wasn’t a sweet one; if anything it was more salty and the entire cup leaned very much towards the umami side of the taste spectrum. Also a bit of a “meatiness” to the earthy pu’erh base tea. Very full bodied though and a good tea to sort of start the day with – very ‘bold’/present.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41CchibIF74&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ&index=2&t=0s

Early evening cuppa.

I’m wondering if making this one in the evening was a mistake; I’m having some troubles falling asleep again. I mean, I know this has caffeine in it but it’s not supposed to be a large amount and I’m usually pretty immune to caffeine so I don’t know…

Taste wise I greatly enjoyed this one though; it was different than having it Gong Fu because the flavour seemed a lot less nuanced/layered but that doesn’t mean that it was less good. Mostly a sweet earthy profile; most comparable to a very lightly roasted green yerba mate. I think. By which I mean it has the underlying sweetness of mate and that green/grassy quality but with the earthiness/nuttyness that sets mate apart from green tea. I think I made this comparison with the Gong Fu session, but it still stands. The sweetness reminds me of sugar cane juice. The very fresh stuff.

Yummy.

Cup from much, much earlier in the day today. I needed something a little sweeter to balance out the lunch I was having, which was very garlic heavy and savory.

Maybe it’s because what I was eating was so savory but in addition to the strong maple flavours in this blend I also seemed to hone in on the sweetness of the apple. So, overall the profile was very creamy, sweet and rich maple/toffee with a bit of roastiness from the oolong/chicory but then a sweet red apple finishing note. I added in some milk, and that muted the fruit elements a bit and made this more like the maple syrup pancakes it’s supposed to be a recreation of. Really tasty either way, but I think I actually liked it a little bit better when it was more maple/toffee apple flavoured!?

Gonna have to revisit again without milk, and without super garlic-y food to see if that’s a taste that this just normally has or if it was actually heightened by the food pairing.

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.