16396 Tasting Notes
So I bought this one for a Secret Santa gift exchange at work over Christmas; my ‘giftee’ is/was a huge fan of raspberry teas and green tea and this seemed like a good mash up of both those things while also being a tea I was positive she’d have never tried.
Of course, I hadn’t tried it either so I may have stolen a couple teaspoons out of the bag of it so I could give it a whirl too. Oops…
It’s actually surprisingly good though; I’m always apprehensive towards blends with a green tea base but I found the base quite light/mild with only the slightest touch of grassy quality to it. On the flip side, the fruit notes were anything but light. Instead they were vibrant and rich, with very, very juicy flavours that popped from the moment you took a sip all the way up until the last few seconds after you swallowed. It was like the orange was just perfectly ripe, and the raspberries just a bit overripe. You know the type; so soft and juicy that they literally fall apart in your hands and practically melt in your mouth. That’s perfection right there!
I just… I get the name/inspiration and I enjoyed the flavours. A lot. I would maybe, potentially, buy some of this in the summer – I’m sure it would make a WICKED good iced tea! Or, taking it a step further, a tea pop as well?
Cold Brew Sipdown (511)!
I think I thought I’d be a lot more upset by this sipdown than I actually am. At the start of last summer, when we were just releasing summer teas, this was definitely one of my favourites but I think as more things were released it definitely slid onto the back burner for me and I got a lot more interested in other blends, like Frozen Raspberry or Orange Passionfruit. And many others, too. It just started tasting… more generic.
I mean, I still really like it! The combo of orange, raspberry, and pineapple really works for me because it pulls from so many different sort of catagories of fruit flavour. It’s lovely. Truly. However, it’s also not as exciting as some of the other things that got released, like Passion Punch or things that played on more exotic fruits. Like, I could probably find something similar to this from another company if I really wanted to. That would be harder with some of the other blends. I’d still be happy if this one was a return this year during the summer, though. Or, at the very least, I wouldn’t be disappointed if it came back.
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.
Hot cup, from the white tea themed day I had last week.
I’m really glad I bought some of this one for at home even if it’s not a lot. I think it’s a really good/enjoyable tea with a very unique lime flavour but when it comes down to me picking out a tea at work there are just so many other ones that are either more compelling whites or just speak to me more often in terms of fruity flavour. Lime just isn’t something I want to experience all the time; but when it is then THIS is the lime that comes to mind for me!
Sometimes it reminds me of lime skittles or other lime candy, and sometimes I get more of a sense of the fruit itself just without as much acidity/tartness – this mug was one of the ones that tasted a little more natural to me and less candied. I think part of why it’s not as acidic tasting as you’d expect lime to be is that the other fruits in the blend (apple/mango) are so naturally sweet that it just does a really good job of keeping that potential acidity/tartness in check. I actually tasted the apple a lot in this cup alongside the bright lime notes – the mango not so much.
Very 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.
Gong Fu Session!
I didn’t really take thorough notes of this session, and instead opted to focus more on the aesthetics of the session and tea itself and just let the mood, tea, and environment take me where they felt I should wind up. I did measure out the leaf I used though; I decided to split my 10g sample into two 5g amounts so that I’ll still have another session of leaf for another time when I do feel more inclined to do a more documented session.
Dry leaf for this one through me for a loop initially; it smelled SUPER potently of dandelion – the flower, and not greens. In that degree of concentration I wasn’t sure that was a flavour I wanted to experience throughout a session. I pushed through though and it wound up being fine. First infusions definitely did have a strong dandelion taste/quality to them, but it mellowed/leveled out into a more pleasant, smooth and generic floral taste throughout the session all the way until the end.
I didn’t track infusion numbers either, but my best estimate would be somewhere between 12 and 18; I drank this one for a long time. It had a lot of staying power, and every time I felt like I was reaching where I thought the ‘natural decline’ of flavour would start I was surprised by that not being the case.
Other notes throughout the session, though in lesser amounts that the overall floral vibes, were; raisin, wood chips/cedar wood, grass, timothy hay, sap, and the faintest hint of something vegetal like cucumber skins – not the cooling pulp/flesh of the fruit. Mostly with a general sweetness to the sips, despite some more savory/umami elements overall. It was very pleasant; relaxing flavours and a viscous soup from the tea that just made it very easy to relax and enjoy myself.
I look forward to comparing the two other years of this tea that Healthy Leaf offers.
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bens-0yledG/?taken-by=ros_strange
Video: https://www.instagram.com/p/BenpfR9lj5l/?taken-by=ros_strange
Iced, with a tiny spot of honey.
I felt like iced you could really, really tell this was a tea with red currant in it. It was just very bright as a flavour overall both in the top notes and the body notes, with such a lovely ripeness to it. Lots of cranberry notes as well, but more in the undertones and providing a bit of ‘baby crispness/tartness’ in the finish. Nothing unpleasant, but just enough to diversify the overall profile and give this a nice clean finish. Malt notes from the black base.
This continues to be a very solid red fruit/berry black tea option for me that I’m happy to have in my stash.
Tried this one hot for the first time,
Iced/Cold brew is definitely the way to go when making this one. It didn’t taste bad/was perfectly drinkable on the whole but I think brewing it hot drew out a lot of tangyness and exaggerated the tomato notes in the tea quite a bit to the point where they were actually the main flavour. And I can get on board with tomato tea, but when you have things like lime and hibiscus notes I think that more umami/savory aspect works much better as like an undertone supporting the fruit notes and keeping them from feeling over the top cloying. Definitely not as the primary taste.
Probably gonna switch back to drinking this one cold brewed in the future.
Revisited this one earlier in the week.
Added some milk and honey, ‘cause I just can’t seem to get into this one at all when I drink it straight up. It wasn’t bad this time around, save for a very present licorice root finish that was cloying and unwelcome, but it very much also does not remind me of carrot cupcakes/carrot cake in general. More of like a sugary sweet cinnamon and applesauce ‘spice cake’ sort of thing. More generic, anyway.
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.
With a bit of milk.
Basically, spot on creamy deliciousness! I’m very in love with this tea; it’s yet to even come remotely close to disappointing me on any facet. And I know that holding it in such high regard is only setting myself up for disappointment in the future but I can’t help it, it’s how I feel about this one and I don’t think I can change that.
Also, I think I want to try and figure out a way to make this into like an Italian soda sort of thing? Like, probably make this into a simple syrup, and then add it to some club soda and top it off with a fresh whipped cream. Something fancy, and sweet and refreshing that takes advantage of both fruity and creamy aspects of the tea…
Hmmm, this last mug of this one had a weirdly soapy undertone to it all throughout the mug and it was a big distraction for me. The rest was nice though; a mix of coconut notes, citrus/lemon, and herbaceousness with a good overall sweetness. I wonder if the soap thing was from the coconut and that’s a sign to me that I need to be fasted finishing this one up? It’s been a while since I’ve had a tea with coconut in it for sour on me…
From my day of only white tea.
I added a little bit of vanilla agave to this one, on the hunch that maybe that would be the creamy push that I feel like this tea really needs to be at its best/tie together the tropical passionfruit and custard-y components that are both already present but not completely linked together. It actually worked, too! None of the flavours that are already in the tea were lost but it definitely pushed that creme element a little further and, in doing so, in a way forced it to match the intensity of the passionfruit which just made the flavour combo work a lot better for me overall.
It’s not that I don’t like this tea as is, but this worked better for me.
