15800 Tasting Notes
Discovery Tea Box – Tea Ten
I wanted to try this one because I’ve only ever had one other tea from Urbal Tea and it was a sample that VariaTEA gave me earlier in the year of a mango blend. I really liked it; so I was hoping this would give me a little more insight on the company’s offerings so that I might better determine if there’s enough from this company to actually have me interested in placing an order with them…
I’ve kind of fallen in love with a different strawberry kiwi blend earlier this summer, so it was hard for me to not directly compare this blend to that one when I was drinking it. I made this iced, and it was pretty good tasting. Way more strawberry than kiwi on the whole, and a little bit tart/sour. Like, it reminded me more of under ripe strawberries than the tangy tartness of kiwis. I didn’t not like it, but my other strawberry kiwi blend is just so sweet and juicy that the sourness of this blend wasn’t as satisfying/fulfilling.
The one edge that this _does- have, however, is the fact it’s a yerba mate blend. I really enjoy the energy boost I get from yerba mate, and it seems like there’s so few truly unique feeling blends that use yerba mate or guayusa. Just a whole lot of lemon blends and chocolate(ish) stuff. So, I deeply appreciated that this would provide another flavour profile/option.
It’s a blend I feel like I want to further explore before completely ruling out because there’s so much potential here that I don’t want to just assume that all cups of it would taste identical to this first one that I brewed up.
Iced with milk, but not “latte-d”.
This was good, definitely tasted of caramel with just an edge of something more salty/umami. The milk was nice; it added body and creaminess. However, it definitely could have used some sort of sweetener because it really leaned into the umami of the matcha and wasn’t as rich as I was craving in the moment. Plus, I over leafed a bit which only exaggerated the quality.
Discovery Tea Box – Tea Nine
Pulled this one from the box largely because I just needed to clear out some space to fit in the various teas that people had requested and something needed to come out to do that; but also because I was slightly curious to see how creamy this oolong would actually be. I mean, it’s not a flavoured oolong so I figured it has to be pretty naturally creamy to warrant the name “Creme de la Creme”…
It looks, smells, and tastes pretty much exactly like an average/mid quality milk oolong. However, it’s not marketed AT ALL as being milk oolong so I really can’t confirm with certainty that’s what it is as much as my taste buds are telling me it’s so clearly that. Very buttery though, kind of creamy, just a bit floral, and pretty sharply green/grassy in the top of the sip. Milk oolong.
I found it pretty average overall.
Discovery Tea Box – Tea Eight
Nabbed this one because I wanted something that would be a bit of a mid afternoon “pick me up”, and matcha is pretty energizing. I had to take it up a notch though, so I made this as a matcha shot. A pretty potent matcha shot, because I’m dumb and I measured wrong. The matcha was already in the chawan though, and it was wet from recently being rinsed out – and I didn’t really want to commit to a full glass of matcha, so potent matcha shot it was…
It actually was REALLY good for being hella strong. The finish, after shooting it, was a touch bitter but not anywhere near as much as you’d except given the concentration. Yeah; it was just a largely creamy, grassy sort of flavour with a good built up of froth.
Sipdown (643)!
This was a VariaTEA share – and it smells really good; like DT’s Forever Nuts with sweeter and maybe a little caramel tinged!? It made me super excited to try it! I’m sipping on it now, though, and it’s not bad but compared to the dry/steeped aroma I’m finding the taste somewhat disappointing. It’s just sort of bland/watery; like a weak cup of Forever Nuts – that same sort of cinnamon/apple/almond combo. No caramel sweetness either. It’s not bad, just lackluster.
Made this one hot yesterday on my way out of the mall/right after work. I steeped it a little bit strong, and added in some milk and then I made a pit stop at Laura Secord. Now, what might I be getting at Laura Secord? The obvious answer is chocolate – but no, instead I managed to talk the cashier into scooping some Pecan icecream into my travel tumbler of tea… and holy shit it was heavenly.
So, I’ve done the “tea float” thing before where you top a hot cup of tea with ice cream and it melts and cools down the tea and then gets all thick and creamy/delicious. However, I haven’t ever done it with anything other than straight up vanilla ice cream or matcha flavoured ice cream. This pecan icec ream!? I mean, it’s good ice cream all on its own; however it was the perfect pairing for this tea. It was just this explosion of sweet spices (cardamom/cinnamon) and SO MANY NUTS. Notes of almond, pistachio, pecan! Then, just a hint of apple in the finish. It was sooooo good.
I think I’ll definitely be doing this again, but with different tea and icecream combos.
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.
We had a new tea guide start at work a few days ago, and I was doing her first training shift with her – one of the first things we do for a training shift is teach the tea guides how make all the different types of drinks we carry so everyone on shift basically picked something to drink and I walked her through how to make everything.
This was my pick for myself, and because no one else had chosen an iced drink I decided to get mine iced so that she could learn how to do iced teas. I’ve had this iced a few times, and every time it basically surprises me how tasty it is iced. I mean, I enjoy this tea a lot – it’s sweet and really leans into the anise and clove which are 100% the best spices. It just channels such wonderful Hard Cider vibes, though. Like a trio of sweet apple, anise, and clove – potent and so tasty.
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.
Revisiting this one (cold brewed), since it was re-released with the anniversary teas recently…
I used to love this one SO MUCH, but honestly I just feel like I’ve been too exposed to it in the last few years and that’s caused me to feel pretty sick of it a lot of the time. That’s sort of what happened here; I loved the first half of the mug because it was really robust and had such saturated black currant notes. However, halfway through it was just so sweet and too much and I felt a little overworked with all those currant/berry notes. And the stevia does, eventually, catch up with you and it’s just kind of ‘bleh’.
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 (644)!
First tea of the day; probably should have picked something with caffeine but I really wanted to get in another sipdown and this was the first thing I saw when picking out tea that I could actually finish off in one sitting. It’s very sweet today; the strawberry notes are popping and although there’s a tangy/tart edge because of the lemon in the blend mostly it’s reminding me of a strawberry compote/dessert topping made from macerated strawberries. The kind that you would ladle onto big, fluffy Belgian waffles.
One of the best versions of this tea that I’ve ever brewed up, which makes for an especially perfect time to be sipping it down. I LOVE when I’m able to finish off a tea on a really positive note.
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.
Discovery Tea Box – Tea Seven
So, when I first pulled this out of the box I actually thought that it was a shou with blended in chrysanthemum, and it wasn’t until I was actually measuring out the leaf for my session that I realized it was a black tea and not a shou. I pulled this one for a couple reasons; I’ve had chrysanthemum tea but I don’t think I’ve ever had specifically snow chysanthemum and I wanted to try that out, I’d really like to experience a wider range of what Yunnan Sourcing offers because I’ve never been blown away by one of their teas, and if I’m being really honest with myself the biggest reason I pulled this was just because it looked really fucking pretty.
So, I steeped this one Gong Fu – my gram scale’s battery died and I couldn’t find a new one in the house so I had to eyeball my measurement. I aimed for about eight grams for this 150ml gaiwan – though when I was steeping I tried to only fill it to roughly the 125 ml mark. I was trying to leave 7g in the package still so that I could get a second session if I decided to keep this one or, if I passed it along, someone else would still get a reasonable session. I’m pretty good at eyeballing grams – after all I do generally spend a good chunk of my eight hour work day just scooping out tea by weight. It’s one of those “special skills” that I’ve gotten scary accurate with. Very helpful at bulk barn…
Man this tea was different than expected. I really thought I’d be getting full bodied and dark/heavy with floral elements from the chysanthemum but instead it just felt very bright and lively all throughout the session – and sweet. Like, my big take away over all eight infusions that I did was just how much this reminded me of a really sweet, clean tasting shou with a whole lot of chenpi in it. So much sweet citrus notes, and then undertones of things like figs and dates which, while they aren’t weird to taste in black tea, are things I feel like I more commonly experience in shou. Near the end of the session, it did taste a little more floral/conventionally like chrysanthemum but the ride until we had reached that point was just wild – and tasty. So, so tasty.
I just really enjoyed this one and now it’s got my ass browsing through the YS site. I’m happy to see this is actually still in stock; and it’s pretty affordable too. I feel like I want a cake of this, at the very least – but also it’s got me all hot and bothered to the point where I just keep thinking that grabbing a tong isn’t so unreasonable at all…
(Side note – I was picking through the leaf in my gaiwan a little bit after taking some photos for instagram, and the tea/chrystanthemum stained my finger tips orange!)
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bmwl31QHuh4/?taken-by=ros_strange
