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Sometimes I kind of feel like I get tea related stockholm syndrome just from constantly working around teas I’m not initially a fan of but that we end up carrying for a long time. Like this one…

Really was unimpressed with it when I first had it, then made it into a cocktail and really enjoyed the cocktail. After that? Just slowly it grew on me to the point where I’ve genuinely had a few moments at work where I’ve found myself craving it. Like last week, when I steeped it up as an iced tea because I found myself just intensely in the mood for it following scooping some for a customer.

And it was good. It was sweet, and just a little tart/crisp from the cranberry with a surprisingly creamy undertone from the melted down white chocolate. It tasted like fruity red gummy candies, in a really good way. But do I enjoy this now because my tastes have actually changed? Or is it more from forced exposure to it? I genuinely don’t know…

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.

Last little ‘nugget’ from my sample of this.

I’d be very, very sad about this sipdown were it not for the fact that I caked this one! So, there’ll be many many more cups of this one waiting for me in the future.

It’s delicious though! I’m still very, very much getting that ‘candied orange peel’ vibe from this one when steeped up, but also a caramel like sweetness in addition to soft, smooth earthy notes. If you’ve ever had orange flavoured caramel/toffee before you’d know that’s some pretty fucking decadent stuff, and I’m kind of picking up on those vibes too. Just, so rich and sweet with such a dynamic mix of flavours overall. It’s honestly very unlike other Shou I’ve tried and I just love it.

Finally tried my Sugar Glider!

I was so excited to try this/get my hands on it that I built a whole order entirely around getting a sample of this tea because I knew so badly that I needed to experience it. Of course, when I did finally get it I definitely had to give it a proper photo op!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BeTwxQDFI2l/?taken-by=ros_strange

It was really nice drinking a pot of this one out doors in the crisp spring air in my backyard. That crab apple tree is so pretty; but this time of year all the fruit just kind of rots off and scatters around the ground. It’s sort of gross, but also very pretty? I don’t know – weird aesthetic vibes. We’ve got a picnic table right under it though, and that’s where I sat and drank my tea. It just felt nice to be outside the house – I really enjoyed brewing in the front yard over the summer, but it’s been a while since it was nice enough to do that.

Taste wise this tea was delicious though! It was very, very smooth and though I didn’t find it horribly intricate/nuanced the mix of flavours I did experience were all very lovely and well represented. Mostly, notes of malt in the body of the sip but some sweeter red fruit undertones; kind of like a jammy pomegranate/raspberry kind of thing? More of a cocoa and honey top note, in addition to the malt.

I feel like drinking it Gong Fu would maybe reveal a little more layering and evolving flavour but this was just a straight forward pot. Tasty, though! Super, super tasty!

Fuck yeah, Sugar Glider!

So, I felt inspired the other day to do some sort of matcha and white chocolate kind of creation/baking – and I’ve done chocolate covered strawberries before and I just kind of felt like now that I’ve done it it’s also kind of overdone? So what I ended up doing was sort of a “reverse” chocolate covered strawberry – but with raspberry.

If you’re not following; I pretty well melted down two bars of Lindtt’s Vanilla White Chocolate and stirred in a tablespoon of this matcha powder until it was smooth/even and I had a Raspberry and Cream flavoured white chocolate and matcha mixture. Then, I filled the ‘cavity’ of raspberries with the chocolate and let it set. Here are some photos:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BeJoMZ6lZf1/?taken-by=ros_strange

They were great though; tiny little morsels of delicious raspberry. You got the sweet, tangy flesh of the fruit first and then were hit with this really velvety, creamy raspberry and vanilla ‘filling’ (of sorts) that kind of offset some of that raspberry acidity. The perfect size for snacking on/just popping a few in your mouth – hard to just have a few and not just plow back a few dozen!

Grabbed this one to drink on my way home the other night from a convenience store because I was otherwise without tea. It was actually pretty good! I thought the lemon was really bright and smooth, and I didn’t find it tasted artificial/‘disinfectant’ like or overly sweet/cloying! So, that’s a pretty good success right there just in terms of canned lemon teas. I’d probably actually really happily drink this one again; it’s not the world’s best tea by far but for sure one of the better canned options that I’ve had in a long time.

Next up in my ‘quest’ to try every flavour of bubble tea offered by the Sushi place in the mall food court where I work; this time strawberry!

Honestly? Strawberry seems like it should be a really easy flavour to nail/do well and like it should kind of be a staple flavour!? But, this is probably the worst flavour I’ve had from this store to date. I mean, it didn’t taste terrible and was totally still drinkable but I just thought it was so syrupy and sweet, and it almost seemed a little more generic red berry to me rather than strawberry specifically. I think I’m gonna do raspberry next and try and directly compare those two because if this tastes more generic to me than maybe that one will too? And if it doesn’t, then that just seems like further evidence that this one in particular just isn’t a stellar option.

Made this one yesterday in a carry mug with some vanilla agave.

I thought the pear and vanilla would be a really nice combo; and it definitely did taste really nice and rich – sweet, juicy pear with peach undertones. I felt like the agave gave everything more brightness, but vanilla? Yeah, couldn’t taste the vanilla at all. It was still delicious but not the pear vanilla combo I was going for. Meh.

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.

Valentine’s Day Tea!

This one sounded really nice to me, and the dry leaf actually smells really good to me – like cherry candy! It actually reminded me a little bit of the floral, sweet cherry candy notes in the Des Roses et Des Bonbons black tea blend that Camellia Sinensis used to carry. That was a good blend, and I was really sad when they stopped making it!

I steeped it up iced for my first tasting – and it’s not bad. I mean, the top notes of the drink are definitely really piercingly tart and sharp – like a sour cherry note. I mean, totally makes sense this tea literally has the word tart in its name. For some comparison, it’s probably more tart that Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait but less tart than Queen of Tarts. The finish is sweeter though, and more like sweet cherry candies with floral rose undertones. I actually expected more florals for the amount in the blend, but I’m happy with the amount that I found came through.

I don’t know – I don’t generally tend to love the overly tart teas/blends so I’m probably not the demographic that would likely be really into this one, but I do really like that finishing note once the tartness has subsided. Currently undecided on this one; I want to try it a few more times iced or cold brewed and see what I think of it after that.

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 this one last week;

I know I’ve had this one before back when Butiki was still open but I honestly don’t remember what I thought about it/what it exactly tasted like – but based on my Steepster rating for it I’m guessing I enjoyed it a decent amount.

I made this cup at work, and I started to drink it and it was pretty nice! Kind of full bodied and brisk, with a lot of dry nuttiness. I was enjoying it, but then it got busy and I had to walk away from my mug of tea for a while. When I came back to it the mug was gone! One of our tea guides was trying to clean up the drink station post lunch rush and ended up tossing my mug of tea out thinking it belonged to someone who was working earlier in the day but had already left. So that sucked.

I’ll revisit this one another date though; and hopefully get more than a few sips of it.

Sipdown (515)!

Thanks for this one Kittenna!

I got the impression from talking to Kittenna that back during Teaopia days this was a pretty popular blend? I must have missed all the hype though because the first time I’d ever even heard of it was during that conversation with her. I mean, it totally sounded lovely but I definitely wasn’t struck by the large overwhelming feeling of “shit I’ve been missing out!”.

Steeped up? It’s fine. It actually does remind me of S’more – oddly enough right down to the the graham cracker keeping everything together. And I say ‘oddly’ because I didn’t really see anything in the dry leaf that would make me think of graham cracker. So, you know, points for accuracy. Biggest issues with the blend as a whole is that the overall profile just seemed weak/watery for a flavour that should be really robust, rich and sweet and then also I got a whole lot of apple notes in the body and that felt a little bit out of place. Still a good tea overall though, and I get why people seem to enjoy it.