16396 Tasting Notes
Morning tea; one from my Steep Me A Cup Of Tea haul! I just had to get this one ‘cause it’s named after Dakota so it seemed like the perfect representation of my trip there! I like souvenir tea; souvenir tea is good. Plus, it did smell really good in store.
It took me longer than I’d care to admit to figure out why this tasted so bloody familiar to me when I took my first sips this morning. It was sweet, and bright and tropical with an extremely familiar fruit and white tea combo. Eventually it hit me though; this is a passion fruit flavoured white tea, and I’ve been enjoying a passion fruit white tea from 52Teas quite a bit as of late too – their Passion Fruit de la Creme. These two are actually pretty dang similar, which of course means that this one is ALSO delicious!
Main differences, I think, are that this is a little brighter in terms of flavour with just a hint of tangyness to the passionfruit where as 52Teas’ version is silkier/creamier because of the “creme” component in the blend. This is also a little rosey/floral but not overly – just a nice, soft touch in the top of the sip.
Yeah, definitely feeling this one!
Sipping on this while watching this week’s episode of Marvel’s Runaways on Hulu! Once again, I highly recommend checking it out if you’re into super hero stuff! Basically, it follows around a group of six teenagers as they find out that A) their parents are super villains and B) that the majority of them have various forms of super powers/super power type abilities! One of ’em even has a pet dinosaur!
It’s great.
Anyway; this tea is pretty great too. Not fantastic or mind blowing but I mean solid enough. After sipping on this cup for the bulk of the episode I’m finding it’s very consistent with the first time I had it; medium to full bodied with a decently present black base and then a flavour profile that’s just a little more reminiscent of yogurt rather than cheesecake. Yeah, like a somewhat tangy raspberry Greek yogurt.
I have mixed feelings about Marvel — I really liked Jessica Jones, but I couldn’t get through Daredevil and I tapped out somewhere in the third season of Agents of Shield. I guess I was just feeling like Marvel was doing the same things over and over. Is Runaways noticeably different from these other shows?
I’m still pissed off at them for cancelling Agent Carter.
You’ll 100% get a different vibe from Runaways than the Marvel properties that Netflix has tackled which are much darker/gritty, and Agents of Sheild which is very tied in to the Marvel movies/references them heavily. This one is FAR REMOVED from the rest of Marvel’s properties.
I mean, both Runaways and all the properties that build up to The Defenders (Netflix stuff) deal with more “street level” threats (no alien invasions/world scale threats like The Avengers) but this is very much “ragtag group of teenagers rebelling against their parents, who happen to be an organization of villains with cryptic/mysterious motives”.
Thanks for explaining, that does sound different and very cool :D I’ll check it out!
@Jillian — Agent Carter totally deserved a longer run.
I just started watching Runaways last night, and am easily hooked.
(Thirding the opinion that Agent Carter was unfairly cut down before its time)
My Kitten and The Bear order arrived today, and along with it fancy banana spread and the two Sloane teas that I grabbed! I’ve got the first one currently cold brewing in the fridge, and this one I decided to brew up immediately – I was too curious not to!
It honestly smells so good! Very aromatic and rich, with really intense and sweet smelling peach notes! Not so much a candied peach like I was kind of expecting either, but something much more natural/realistic. Basically, sweet overripe peach: ready to pop with all those beautiful flavourful juices! It was making me salivate just smelling it, and it got even more lovely as it was steeping!
Steeped up I took my first sip, and I was super smitten!
This tastes so distinctly of very, fresh and just a little overripe peaches with hints of nectarine in the mix too. Just It’s really sweet, and juicy but ultimately also incredibly smooth! The vanilla undertones here are also just very rich, and super intense/creamy and ultimately very natural. They’re also just really thick, adding a lot of body to the overall flavour. The thing is, this isn’t peaches and cream in the sense that it’s creamy peach. No, it’s more like slices of peach topped in heavy, vanilla infused cream. In a way that makes it so much better though because it’s different from other “Peaches and Cream” teas!
I. Love. It.
Let’s see, other things going on with this tea…
It does have some of the typical hay/straw notes you’d get from white tea and there’s a little bit of natural nectarine/lemon notes that play well into the peach essence in the blend as well as a little natural cream that adds to the vanilla/cream component as well. The base and flavour pairing here just really connects so well on several different layers. Touches of floral elements too, but very very light ones. Gah! I just love this one so much!!!
just wish these weren’t so expensive for what they are. Feel like you’re paying for their fancy tins vs the tea
I know, right!? But I actually looked on the Sloane website today and it’s cheaper to order from Kitten & The Bear than directly from Sloane!
bwahahaha that’s ridiculous! they used to do pop up stores downtown here and i picked up a slew of their teas for 50% off… haven’t seen that in forever though.
Oh, this sounds yummy! I’ve read a lot of reviews about Sloane Tea recently. I wonder if they ship to the USA.
Early evening cuppa, made in a teacup.
Last time I made this one it was in a mug and I was very disappointed by the fact that it did not in fact brew up blue, like it was advertised as doing due to the butterfly pea flower in the blend. If it turned anything it was a weird sort of green colour? This time to try and combat that, I brewed the teabag/sachet in a small teacup to hopefully get a stronger flavour and colour.
It did sort of work; this still did NOT brew blue which is the whole reason I purchased it in the first place but it was a much darker green colour – and one that was very unnatural for tea to brew up. So I guess that’s something right? I added in a little bit of creamed honey to sweeten it and about a half cap of lemon juice concentrate to see what colour my green tea would change to. DAVIDsTEA’s Magic Potion blend with butterfly pea flower changes from deep indigo to a purple colour, so I was expected this would maybe go from green to a more magenta-y pink? It actually turned into this SUPER light lilac/periwinkle colour though. Actually quite pretty!
Taste wise it was lemon overload – you definitely could not tell that I’d added honey, it was sheer tart lemon with more lemon grass undertones. Definitely some pucker/punch! Not my favourite flavour, and still a disappointing tea overall both in terms of that flavour and visually. Boo!
Cold Brew!
This is only “meh” as a cold brew; I mean nothing is inherently bad about it I just think the flavours here are a lot better suited to hot tea. It’s very, very cardamom heavy and that note kind of masks all of the other ones to a pretty large extent. However, underneath that cardamom is a hint of milk chocolate creaminess and some orange peel/rind notes. The sweetness from the chocolate actually gives the cardamom a bit of a candied/chocolate coated vibe that makes me feel a little bit like I’m snacking on some sort of gourmet treat.
Yeah – very much getting the vibe from this that someone who really enjoyed it would be a bit of a ‘gourmand’. It’s just got a fanciness about it from the mix of very rich, indulgent/decadent flavours. I wish I enjoyed it more as a cold brew, but it is what it is. I’ll finish it off, and try to make the most out of the cardamom notes that take up so much of the profile. Cardamom is just better hot, that’s all.
Sipdown (419)!
This is only a temporary sipdown; I actually ordered 100g of this on Black Friday. I’m somewhat frustrated with myself though because I ordered it because I thought it’d be really interesting to try, and then immediately after placing my order I went downstairs to find a tea to drink and I saw that I did in fact have a sample ball of this one. D’oh! So lets hope I like it, since I have more coming in…
I’m gonna Gong Fu this one today; but if I’m being honest it’s still very early in the day and I’m still quite tired so I already know this is likely gonna be a sloppy Gong Fu session without a lot of precision. With that said, lets get into it!
Starting with a double rinse; ten seconds x2! Mostly I just want to give the ball its best chance to open up before really digging into this one. After the rinses, we take a rest and we’re ready to really begin!
Steep One – Ten Seconds
Very sweet and mild, with some floral/honeysuckle notes. Not much actually going on yet in terms of flavour, though.
Steep Two – Twelve Seconds
Stronger flavour from this steep; floral undertones and some malt/cream in the body; I still get honeysuckle but it’s also a bit headier than honeysuckle would be. Straw/hay as well.
Steep Three – Twenty Seconds
Kind of the same as steep number two, but a little sweeter and I feel as if I’m getting traces of almond in the finish?
Steep Four – Twenty-five Seconds
Ooh, yes – this is VERY good! Top notes are hay and fresh cream and the body is very sweet honey, almond, and jammy preserves. I want to say more of like a light cherry thing, but I think that’s just ‘cause almond always make me think of cherry (it’s the almond/cherry/marzipan connection). Very soft, jammy red fruits anyway! Really smooth and pleasant!
Steep Five – Thirty(ish) Seconds
Possibly best infusion yet; very, very sweet with strong notes of fresh cream, hay, malt, almond, and honey throughout. Overall I find myself thinking of marzipan or almond infused sugar cookies? Which is a delightful tea session experience. Hints of fruitier undertones here but focus point is definitely on the former notes.
Steep Six – Forty-five Seconds
Same notes are represented as the previous steep but with less overall sweetness. However, there’s also a sharpness to the top of the sip here that makes me think more of a grassy/cucumber skin sort of thing. It feels a little out of left field, in terms of everything else that’s been experienced thus far.
Steep Seven – One Minute
This one will be my last infusion, I think – the flavour is actually still VERY good but I’m getting very bored with the session and I’m ready to move onto something else. It’s still got a fair bit of sweetness and strong notes of malt, hay/straw, almond, honey, and cucumber skins with some really, really light floral things (honeysuckle) going on in the undertones. I know I could very easily continue to push the session and still get several good steeps for this but I’m happy with the experience I’ve had.
So, overall I actually kind of really love this!? The almond was such a pleasant surprise but a really delicious note in this session and I’m very happy that it was so consistent throughout all of the infusions. I can very safely say that grabbing that 100g of Moonlight Dragon Balls on BF wasn’t a mistake at all! This will be a delightful thing to have in my cupboard!
Sipdown (420)!
It feels good finishing off another DT blend from my cupboard!
This is one that I’ve had a rocky relationship with; when it’s good, it’s good but when it’s bad it kind of tastes like it does now – artificial, and a little cough syrup like with a very intense stevia sweetness. I’m not hating this mug, but it’s somewhere in between the worst I’ve experienced from this tea and the best. Very currant and acai heavy in terms of flavour, with a wicked sweet finish. Tastes a little like artificial purple stuff. You know – pop, candy, etc.
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.
I HATE TEAS WITH NAMES LIKE THIS.
Sipping on this currently; it’s kind of garbage. Basically, it tastes like lawn clippings, wilting flowers, and movie theater butter. I don’t like the combination of flavour notes, and I loathe the name of the blend. That doesn’t leave much, if anything, redeeming here at all. Bleh. Bleh. Bleh.
Hot cuppa, with pizza!
Pizza and tea is the best kind of pizza, tbh. This was a decent enough one; enough spice/body to hold up pretty decently to the grease and strong tomato/cheese/onion in the ‘za – and it’s a better drink choice than soda or something else gross for you for sure. Pizza is already bad enough, why make it worse? This was mostly coconut, again, with allspice, cinnamon, and clove notes and hints of ginger and carrot. I’m still enjoying it pretty well, but to be honest getting a touch bored. It’s for the best though – one more cup and it’s gone. It’s a good time to be getting bored of it.
Funnily enough, this is the second tea named “Let It Snow” currently in my cupboard. I don’t get the appeal of the name; it’s pretty fucking cheesy as far as these winter themed tea names go and not indicative at all of what the flavour of the tea is gonna be…
I think this is basically just a straight EG though which is something that’s definitely NOT exciting to me at all. As such, I skipped over doing the whole plain, basic infusion tasting to get a feel of the tea ‘cause realistically if you’ve tried a dozen+ straight EG teas you’ve kind of tried them all. Instead I steeped it hot, with some very foamy/frothy milked scooped onto the top to form a pillow for me to sprinkle candy cane shards on top of.
Now that’s how you take a boring tea and make it fun, flavourful, and festive! It was only ok though; I mean, the tea itself is just really boring/bland and there’s only so much candy cane shards can do to turn that around. I essentially just made a cup of EG with mint, and while it was drinkable it was hardly a “treat”. Bleh.
