Usually I can’t do this one on its own; it’s just a bit too harsh and astringent for me, and the spice notes are REALLY prominent/drying. However, I think I may have stumbled upon a way to make that a lot less of a problem.
It really was a happy accident too; my mom was making herself a cup of tea and I asked her to make me one too. She was skeptical because she didn’t want to mess it up and not have it live to my ‘high standards’. I walked her through it though: 2 tsp of leaf, 85 degree Celcius water, for four minutes. She brought the cup of tea over to me, and I took a big, confused sip and went…
“This is really nice, but it tastes nothing like Jasmine Creme Brulee!?”
I had been picking a tea from her tea shelf, and I pointed to the tin of Jasmine Creme Brulee only she saw me point to the tin of Cardamom French Toast directly beside it. Easy enough mistake; I just wouldn’t have generally speaking used such a low temperature for this blend, which is a black tea. Had I know this is what she was making I would have said 95 degrees, or just under a boil.
I guess a lower temperature is EXACTLY what the tea needs to not come off as astringent to me though because this was blissfully smooth and sweet with brown sugar, custard, cream, cardamom, sweet lemon, cinnamon, and nutmeg notes! It actually really did remind me of French Toast once I wasn’t trying to mentally figure out why my Creme Brulee was so spiced/full bodied and weird.
Definitely, 100% noted – if I’m not adding milk I need to steep this at a lower temp for it to work out for me! Gotcha!
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.
A nice pleasant surprise. Mom refuses to make me tea anymore. Although she loves my Breville variable temp kettle for her hot drinks. It’s funny because she teased me about spending so much on a kettle…now I have to pry it away from her.