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Midday cuppa.

I’m watching the Runaways series that Marvel is doing right now with Hulu and I’m actually really, really loving it. It’s a unique position for me because I’ve actually read the comic series – something that generally hasn’t been true for me with most of Marvel’s properties. Plus, this one is one that’s a little more… Indie? I guess? It’s just so well done though. There are some pretty big deviations between the comics and this new series BUT none of them are ones I’m against; they all just seem like things that needed tweaking in order to make the series work as a TV show, and fit within the legal restraints of the MCU. One of the main characters in the series is a mutant; and if you know anything about the MCU and Fox’s ownership of different Marvel property’s rights is that the MCU cannot touch the word mutant so some changes definitely needed to be made there…

The casting is also really good! They kept their cast SUPER diverse just like the comics are, and the actors they cast for each role actually fit the likenesses of their comic counter parts almost eerily well. My only minor criticism is that in the comics Gert is fat, and proudly so. Plus, some of the insecurities of being a plus sized woman in a relationship with someone who is a lot more ‘conventionally’ attractive than she is actually ends up being a pretty big thing between her and the person she inevitably ends up with (trying to be vague here – I don’t want to give away spoilers for those who haven’t read the series). Also, as a fat person myself who’s favourite character is Gert it does hurt a little bit to see some of the representation that had resonated with me being stripped away a little. However, that said, the actress they cast is doing a phenomenal job in the role and it’s definitely not her fault at all. Plus, lets be real, she is kinda pudgy – definitely more so than the rest of runaways. So I think they at least tried to get some of that representation there. I miss seeing her rolls, and the double chin though!

Oh – minor spoiler here but worth saying because I definite;y want to give trigger warning for anyone considering watching the series! There’s an almost rape scene about halfway through the first episode. One of the six main characters basically prevents his ‘friends’ from raping of one of the other main characters, who was passed out at a party. It’s not graphic and it doesn’t progress far at all but the intent of the guilty party is made very clear, and it definitely made me a bit uncomfortable so just want to warn others…

ANYWAY – the tea was great. It tastes like grapes and honestly there’s not a whole lot more to say about it other than that. It’s proven to be very consistent when brewed and it’s sweet and smooth. Just how I like it! It was a good tea to sip on while watching the first few episodes. I really drew it out too; little sips here and there during the quieter moments!

Cold Brew! …and a shot.

Mostly I just drank this as a cold brew and enjoyed the sweet orange and tropical passionfruit notes. You know, nothing out of the ordinary for this cold brew. Just a reliably pleasant taste very much relating to the name of the tisane. However, at the same time as I was sipping on this one I was also making the matcha cocktail I just wrote about and while I was fishing around the liquor cabinet I had a very half baked idea for making this one into a shot – and so I did.

1. Half a shot glass with vodka
2. A squeeze of lemon juice
3. Top up with cold brewed Orange Passionfruit Tea

It was… meh.

Very strong liquor taste, and a great pucker from the lemon juice. Honestly, the tisane was mild as hell but the faint tropical taste of orange/passionfruit at the end of the shot wasn’t bad. I’d definitely change some things if I was going to recreate it though. For starters, switch out the vodka for Tequila to make this a little more like a twist on a Tequila Sunrise. Then, instead of just using a lighter cold brew of this I’d have used more of a concentrate or tea infused syrup for a much bolder flavour that would hide the tequila a little more. Maybe a drop or two of grenadine for a little more sweetness and a bit of a light punch of colour? The lemon juice can stay – though! It was fine.

I can always try it out another day; one cocktail and a shot is enough liquor for me for the day. I haven’t been drinking much at all in the last year so my tolerance has REALLY declined. I’m definitely a bit of a light weight now…

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.

So, I’m day drinking today – which is fine, because I don’t work today or have any sort of commitments. My little sister was over throughout the weekend, and I feel weird drinking at home when she’s around (responsible sister mode?) so I waited until today to try out a few cocktail ideas…

The first one was this one – I don’t really have a fancy name for it but I guess you could call it something like a Hawaiian Peach Punch Matcha Spritz? Yeah… Yeah! That totally works; basically highlights all the key components here, I think.

So, I started with an empty glass and a lime wedge, which I rubbed against the rim of the glass, and then rolled in a tiny bit of matcha powder to rim the glass. Then I filled it with iced. Once the ice was added in I then added an ounce of white rum. Then, in a separate bowl I took a heaping perfect spoon of matcha powder and whisked it really well in three ounces of peach schnapps. Not a perfect matcha spoon, mind you – but the regular one. Then I poured that into the cup of ice and rum. Then, I took a quarter of a lime and squeezed that into the cup. Finally, I topped everything up with water I’d carbonated with our soda stream. Finally, I used the wedge I’d started off with to garnish the glass! Tada! You have a cocktail!

This one comes off a little potent; there’s a good four ounces of booze in this, after all! The flavour is really nice though; a strong mix of fruit punch notes from the matcha and sweet, juicy peach which compliments each other very well. The lime is more subtle, but adds a nice tartness/crispness in addition to that faint citrus flavour. And the soft carbonation is really pleasant. Plus, since we’re using water for a large enough portion of the drink (like a third of it) it kind of acts as a press, so you could slug a few of these back if you wanted to and get more water without as much of a hangover the next day. Just throwing it out there. Personally, I’m just sticking to one, though.

You could also really easily substitute in a different fruity flavour of matcha for a different profile. Peach Matcha would obviously be a very peach heavy taste, and I think the Honeydew, Mango, or Strawberry would work quite well too. Probably the blueberry, too. I’m not as sure about the Berries & Cream – I don’t know how introducing a cream element would go. I will say, I actually really like DAVIDsTEA’s matcha specifically for this sort of cocktail because the sugar in them does add some sweetness that I think makes them a little more palatable/easy to sip on without feeling the alcohol as much. While I think RLT’s Kiwi Matcha or other fruity flavours would probably work really nicely with this set up you’d probably also want to add in some simple syrup as well. This way, you get to skip the simple syrup.

So yeah – day drinking!

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.

Is there a better way to start my morning off than with a Pancake Breakfast? I don’t think so!

I’ve got a fair bit of familiarity with this one; I had one of the larger pouches of it during Frank era 52Teas and it’s one that I liked a lot initially and that I kind of ended up feeling a lot more ‘meh’ about the more I had it. The more of Frank’s black teas I tried the more I was able to identify this very distinct taste that his base used and the more I realized this tea really only tasted like a sweet version of his normal black tea base…

When I cracked open the package of Anne’s version of this I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would it be different? Familiar? Well, turns out that the initial aroma was EXACTLY the same to me as Frank’s. Like, it sent me right back to when I was living in Saskatoon sitting on the couch in the living room drinking a cup of this in the only infuser mug I owner at the time. My how the times have changed! But yes – the same sort of buttery maple aroma and hard to describe but perfectly distinct black tea base. Which is weird, ‘cause I’m like 95% sure Anne doesn’t use the same black base that Frank did.

Somewhat thankfully, now that I’m having my first few sips of this one I’m not finding it as familiar as the aroma was. Sure, it’s definitely got a buttery/maple kind of flavour but the base is a lot nicer, and smoother. The butter/maple combo does make me think of Aunt Jemima’s butter flavoured maple syrup – my Grandma used to by that by the gallon and when stayed at her house for a few weeks over the summer we’d have that on Eggos every morning. I wonder if Aunt Jemima is a Canadian thing or if the US has it too? I’d think that they probably would?

Apart from that, I’m also getting baked bread, malt, and nutty notes – especially the nuttiness in the finish. It’s quite pleasant, and a nice way to start off the day. I love dessert teas that kind of tread that dessert line really finely, like this one is. Just going on initial impressions, I do think I like this better than Frank’s version.

So, when I went to make Silk Road’s Tanzania Gold I thought it would be a sipdown but was surprised to see more tea in the tin than originally expected. With this tea I had the opposite experience; I went to make some and saw a lot less than I’d imagined was left. Thankfully, it wasn’t so empty for this to be a sipdown but…

Soon.

And, I know I’m supposed to be finishing teas off but I’m actually not yet ready to be out of this one. It’s just such a good, sweet dessert oolong flavour and I really don’t have a lot of those in my stash at the moment. Plus, it’s not overly sweet either and it still has the beautiful floral notes of the base tea in addition to the silky, creamy caramel notes. So, I made my cup and deeply enjoyed it but now I think I’m going back to hoarding it for a while. Oh well.

Thought this might have bee a sipdown, but I underestimated the amount of tea still left in the tin so there’s still a few more cups left…

I brewed this one up extra strong though, and then topped the mug up with eggnog. I mean, ‘tis the season after all. It was very good; still super full bodied and brisk/malty with some citrus/pithy lemon notes in addition to the rich eggnog. Mouthfeel was a little weird though; borderline slimy actually. You know when you see people shooting back raw eggs for protein or whatever nonsense? I know it wasn’t actually that thick/slimey but that’s what I thought of drinking this one.

Taste was still there though and ultimately that’s the most important thing to me.

Song Pairing: https://youtu.be/1R0AUyvNc4Y

Hot cuppa.

Reminds me a lot of DAVIDsTEA’s Luscious Watermelon which makes sense, there’s a lot of ingredient overlap. I liked all of the melon teas DT did this summer, and I understand that doing Luscious Watermelon on top of all of them would have been excessive but I was a little sad when it didn’t make a return. Nice to know I have something very similar to fall back on, though!

This is a little milder in flavour in my opinion with some more obvious apple and strawberry notes in addition to the mellow but I’ll take the trade off ‘cause it actually makes for a brew that’s a little less candy sweet and bubblegum-like. It’d make a pretty stellar iced tea or cold brew, as well.

Welp, this is like my fifth time having this tea and I still can’t taste if I actually really like it or not. It’s just sort of… weird.

This cup was hot at work; and mostly it tasted like gardenias/peony to me but with some vegetal and buttery undertones. However, there was also a sort of fruity sweetness. It was REALLY fruit though, more like the lingering taste of where fruit was. If that doesn’t make sense that’s ok, but just go with me here: You know when you’re eating a slice of watermelon and you get past the fruit and are just left with the white part of the rind that isn’t really the flesh of the fruit but is still munchable? When you nibble on that bit of rind that’s still able to be consumed before it gets really hard/tough there’s still a little bit of watermelon sweetness…

But mostly it still tastes like rind. Anyway; this kind of tasted like that. Yeah I know – I’m using weird metaphors tonight. It’s just one of those nights though, so you guys just have to either go with me on it or ignore me completely. So now the question is, do I enjoy that flavour?

I. Don’t. Know.

Cold Brew!

So, it’s like seven at night – not morning, but this still makes for a nice tea. I have no clue why TeaTaxi’s tea names are so weird; but there’s definitely something special about them. I hear a tea named “Binge Watching” or “Daddy Cool” and one of the first thoughts in my head is I wonder if that’s from TeaTaxi?

I think this really does a great job of capturing the feeling/taste of a berry muffin, though! One of my biggest complaints with muffin teas in general has been that they don’t capture the fluffy, buttery taste that a muffin needs and just focus on the “flavour”. Like, you can’t just make a blueberry tea and tack muffin on the end of it and expect that to convey a blueberry muffin. Yes, looking at you – DAVIDsTEA! So yeah: buttery muffin notes totally done and done well here! I think the base choice probably helps a lot.

As for the berries/flavour? Strongest one in my opinion is the cranberry, but it’s nice to get a little of that sweet tartness up against the buttery and honeyed taste of the rooibos base/muffin. Also, I usually just love cranberry teas in general. It’s a good fruit for tea blends. Other than the cranberry, there’s a relatively substantial amount of blueberry, which adds to the plump/juicy berry flavours and provides a little more sweetness. Cranberry and blueberry are a good match up; you have a tarter berry paired with a sweeter one. It’s like two musical notes from the same chord but one is a high note (cranberry) and one is a lower note (blueberry). Or, at least that’s how I see it in my head. Harmonious, complimentary, but separate. I hope that makes sense to someone other than just me…

But yes – good berry muffin tea! Well executed, and a lot of interesting stuff going on in terms of flavour. Would recommend this one.

Hot with milk.

Broke out my stash/reserve of this one since it’s winter and this one tastes a lot like a Terry’s Chocolate Orange to me, which is a special treat I only get around winter. So, it just feels really seasonally appropriate to me. Also, I need to stop hoarding the retired DT blends – I’m just racking up way too many teas from DT.

It was good – helped get me in the holiday mood a fair bit, I think. I probably could have steeped it longer to pull out more flavour, since it was a little weak tasting but no major criticisms.

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.