16396 Tasting Notes
Cold brew, with the tiniest touch of peppermint agave.
Also from my day of just white tea!
Peppermint agave may seem like a really weird addition to this one but mostly I just wanted to add something to give the crisp, cooling feeling in the finish of this one more ‘punch’ and just exaggerate those vegetal cucumber water notes. It worked, mostly. I mean it had a VERY SLIGHT peppermint taste which was weird, but mostly I just wanted the cooling feeling of peppermint and not the taste itself.
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.
Had a day of all white teas last week, and this one was one of ’em.
It wasn’t bad; but I found it a little more disappointing than the first time I had tried it. I think my big issue was that the clementine/orange essence seemed much lighted and flatter tasting in this cup than when I first made it and honestly I’m not really sure what the reasoning for the difference is? I mean, it still tasted quite nice but it was a lot more weighted towards the hay and vegetal, crisp/cooling cucumber pulp notes of the white tea with only a subtle hint of orange essence in the finish.
I still have another cup of this left though; so I’ll try that before I completely make my mind up on this one. I’m looking for consistency; ideally something consistently good. So we’ll see what that last cup brings…
Sipdown (512)!
Finished this one off last night. This still definitely isn’t my favourite tea, and I do think it was one of the weaker/more disappointing offerings from this past winter collection but I’m happy I reached a place where I could still finish a cup of it and not find it terrible tasting. This last cup was buttery and nutty with strong almond notes, but also equally strong sweet, tart raspberry/cherry top notes. I just think there’s such a huge disconnect between those two profile, and I feel like I’d enjoy either of them separately a lot more than together.
So not a sad sipdown; one that had to happen eventually.
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 (513)!
Finished off the last half of the free sample I got from Citizen Tea.
I definitely over steeped this one though, and it came out really bitter tasting with very, very drying/astringent nutty notes. I tried drinking it as it was but I just could not get into it – so I ended up adding some Irish Cream flavoured sweetener to it, and that definitely made a world of difference. It almost tasted like a completely different tea so maybe I did add a little much of it, but the sweet, creamy flavour did compliment the almond brittle notes nicely and it definitely masked the bitterness from my crappy steeping.
Overall though, I think even steeped up properly, this one just isn’t a tea for me though.
Another tea cocktail!
This one was actually really fun to make, but I feel like it may have ruined this tea for me in any other context apart from boozey deliciousness – I just don’t think drinking it plain will suffice anymore. I started with a cold brew though, and then muddle some fruit in a glass added some booze and topped up with the cold brew. Here’s a more detailed breakdown of what I did and the ingredients I used though:
1. Muddle two decently sized (de-stemmed) strawberries in the bottom of a glass
2. Fill with crushed ice or ice cubes
3. Pour in a 1/2 ounce of white rum or vodka (I went white rum)
4. Pour in an ounce of peach schnapps
5. Top with cold brewed or iced sweet tart tea! In this case I used cold brew.
6. Garnish with a strawberry!
Flavour wise it was amazing! Total explosion of fruit flavour; and surprisingly equal parts peach, strawberry, and cherry from the Sweet Tart as well. If anything, I kind of thought the peach would dominate the rest of the drink so I was glad when it didn’t. It was pretty sweet, but not overly. The tea has a tartness/sourness to it that I thought balanced the sweetness of the strawberry and schnapps. If I owned strawberry schnapps I probably would have just used that instead of peach though, tbh.
Anyway, I really really liked it. I may revisit it closer to Valentine’s Day…
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/BeZLWKxFGyb/?taken-by=ros_strange
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.
Welp, I have the next three days off which feels weird. Not sure what to do with so much time off, honestly. I guess enjoy a lot of tea? And probably get started on the massive list of tasting notes I’ve got to write from this week…
This one is actually from my last day off, like a week ago. It started off as a cold brew, but then I ran that cold brew through my soda stream and made it all fizzy. From there, I tried a couple different sort of ‘cocktail’ combos. My favourite was sliced lime and strawberries in a cup with some ice, topped with a splash of white rum and then just filled with my fizzy tea mixture. Kind of like a very lightly alcoholic “spritzer” of sorts.
Flavour wise it was very, very crisp and refreshing with cooling notes of the white tea and cucumber in it, but with a very soft brightness from the citrus in the blend and the lime I had added into my cup. It had the same light but still flavourful, and mightily refreshing quality of either cucumber water or lemon water. Not a whole lot of berry this time around. Very simple, and despite doing a lot of things with this drink it felt very stripped down and basic. I greatly enjoyed it.
Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/BeYqd5CFhAQ/?taken-by=ros_strange
Lazy Saturday Latte!
I feel like it’s been a while since I had this tea; I was craving something light and with vanilla and I mean what’s better than this? It was very, very light and airy with fresh vanilla notes and hints of fresh floral overtones. I added lots of foam to this as well so it was kind of like the best, smoothest and most natural tasting vanilla infused whipped cream. Yuuuummmm!
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.
Hmm…
Kind of like a floral, sweet cinnamon and clove sort of thing? Once again I definitely did not get plum from this one in terms of flavour. Weirdly, though, I did get a surprising amount of elderflower and elderberry flavour!? Not a damn clue what in the blend made it taste like that but it was actually pretty nice.
Very average tasting cuppa overall though.
Got this one as a free sample a little while back with an order.
I didn’t know much about this apart from the fact that it’s a super big favourite of Dexter’s but that alone was more than enough reasoning for me to be excited to try it out. It certainly smells lovely though; like toasted nuts, vanilla, and caramel. Mmm!
Steeped up it’s not bad, but not as smooth as I expected it to taste. Primary note is definitely nuttiness – but it’s a very heavy roasted nut kind of taste with some slight char/bitterness. Really almond dominant; but I feel like a bit of hazelnut too? It’s not bad; a little bitter in my tea definitely isn’t a deal breaker for me but for a tea that’s supposed to be a “creamy” nut flavour it was definitely a touch unexpected. Other notes are caramel, though a very heavy and rich version rather than light and creamy. Kind of simple? I expected notes of, like, vanilla or something? It feels weird that there aren’t any.
Kind of just an average tasting tea to me overall.
SIpdown (514)!
Big thanks to Kittenna for the sample! I don’t actually remember this one at all from the good ‘ol Butiki days – I think it was just something that at that time I just wasn’t that into. My tea world has since expanded and I just looked over the reviews for this one and it seems like something I’m gonna be quite into!
Steeped up and… wow! It’s really good!
I’m actually surprised how incredibly accurate it tastes to Stacy’s description of it – especially after so much time has passed. It has some really bright, sweet and juicy Bartlett Pear notes. So succulent, and smooth with floral undertones. The rest of the profile is very autumnal and malty; with a sweet and nutty finish that reminds me of hazelnut. It’s so put together and I LOVE the juxtaposition of the orchard fruit notes in the top of the sip against the nuttiness in the finish.
Wow.
