16396 Tasting Notes
Sipdown (410)!
So, this year for the holidays I want to come up with my own cocktail that incorporates each of the five teas in our Winter collection – I actually got the idea from a coworker after a long conversation about tea infused cocktails/possibly doing an outside of the store staff party for those of us who are legal drinking age (which is like 90% of our staff).
I started with this tea in particular because a customer actually made a comment about wanting to find a tea to mix with Amaretto and it just made me have that “epiphany” moment where I knew exactly what to do with this tea. So, I present to you the recipe for the White Cranberry Amaretto Sour!
1. Start with a glass filled with ice cubes OR crushed ice, if you want more of a slush
2. Pour in 2 oz. of Amaretto
3. Pour in 2 oz. of chilled WCB concentrate
4. Pour in the juice of 1/2 a fresh squeezed lemon
5. Garnish with a lemon wedge and Maraschino cherry
6. Stir to mix the ingredients before serving
For the WCB concentrate, I just steeped 1 PS of the tisane in about 3 oz. of boiling water. When you strain everything, it gives you enough concentrate for 2 oz. of the tisane.
Anyway, this works great! If you don’t stir everything up right away you should get a really pretty gradient of colours with the bright, cranberry red in the middle as well! I love Amaretto Sours myself because I think they’re really sweet and smooth, and they remind me a lot of cherry candies. The addition of the cranberry here plays into all those aspects; the tartness of the cranberry works well with the tart lemon, it compliments the almond really well (think the almond/cranberry pairing in Harney & Son’s Boston tea if you want an example of this), it adds a beautiful colour, it’s kind of festive, and it leans in to that sort of cherry type of flavour. I will say, though, that’s it’s fairly sweet so if you have it on hand I’d try adding in a drop (maybe two) of Saline to try and balance out some of the sweetness if sweet cocktails aren’t generally your thing.
While I sipped on mine for like an hour to savor it, I also made one for my mom and she just fucking downed it without a second thought. She really liked it. It’s awesome too ‘cause this tea on it’s own? Yeah, personally I didn’t really like it much at all and neither did she, but this is VERY transformative.
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 (411)!
Finished this one hot, with some honey. It was actually really tasty and very smooth with a predominantly honeyed peach flavour and then sweet grassy and floral undertones. Honestly, it may have actually been the best cup of this one I experienced flat out.
Still, I’m not sad to see it go – one less green in the cupboard to worry about!
Sipdown (412)!
Well, I think I’ve got my Black Friday/Cyber Monday ordering done! I actually started it a few days ago, and I’ve just been slowly checking things off the list since. There’s only two more companies I’m looking at, but it looks like neither are likely doing stuff this year. In total I ended up ordering from:
- Teavivre
- Healthy Leaf
- A Quarter To Tea
- Sloane Tea
- White2Tea
- Wize Monkey
- Crimson Lotus Tea
- Mandala Tea
This was deliciously sipped down while plotting some of those orders. I really love the juicy floral lychee flavours and I’m actually pleasantly surprised how consistent they were with every single cup I had of this – even this last one, which was largely broken up tea leaf! I honestly would not have expected to enjoy this so much when I received it but it’s been a real favourite of mine this year.
I mean, I certainly am not going to do it now that I’ve just ordered a ton of stuff and my cupboard is 400+ teas, BUT I’d definitely be REALLY open to trying other Octet blends in the future!
Iced!
So, I recently acquired an iced tea press from a coworker who didn’t want it anymore. I put off getting one for a really long time because I just didn’t see the appeal of them, but then I ended up getting two of the newer Tea Press model and I fell in love with the style of them. That sort of made me regret never getting an iced tea press, because there’s an aesthetic appeal to the fact they’re clear – you get to see the tea, something you can’t do with the Tea Press.
This was the first tea I tried out in my ‘new’ Iced Tea Press, and I 100% picked it for the aesthetic of that gorgeous, deep indigo coloured infusion. I have no regrets either, it looked so cool and I got so many customer inquiries about what I was drinking so it wound up being a really good talking point with customers too. And you know what? The blueberry/bilberry flavour with the raspberry and apple undertones? Super satisfying flavour wise too. So there were just no regrets at all, only good times.
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 own probably 5-6 iced tea presses and 1 regular Tea press which went missing and therefore needs to be replaced
If you don’t have at least 4, how can you steep a multitude of iced teas for a get together? lol that’s my brain’s explanation, anyway. I have only one iced tea press, but I’m wanting to get a glass one.
Oh jeez, I don’t know if I’m winning or losing in the ‘travel mug’ department. I guess it depends how you look at it. Anyway, this is what I’m currently sitting at (from DT alone):
- 1 Iced Tea Press
- 1 Milk Bottle (from a few summers ago)
- 1 Matcha Maker
- 1 Iconic Cup
- 2 Carry Mugs
- 2 Tea Presses
- 4 Lock Tops
Midday cuppa.
This is one that I got in my November Sipsby subscription box. It’s a completely new company to me, which is great ‘cause that’s the whole reason I was interested in Sipsby in the first place: discovering new companies. I am glad this is the tea from the company they chose to send me; I browsed through this company’s website and I’m pretty sure that this is the only tea I’d have considered ordering from them anyway.
It’s definitely not bad, but I do find it really delicate/light in flavour. I’d have thought that with the sage and rose, which is a more heady floral element, it would have a touch more body to it? It’s sweet though, and the contrast between the savory/herbaceous sage and clean, perfume-y rose is really nice. They highlight each other well, and it seems to draw out sweetness from both of them. There are also some nice lemon undertones, and typical notes of straw. It really is a nice profile!
…I just want more of it.
I got a Teawarehouse order in the mail today with a couple pretty new teacups, so I figured I’d pick something to Gong Fu today and test out one of my pretty nice pieces of teaware. I didn’t have to do much thinking about which tea to choose though; I actually got a coin of this tea as a freebie with my order so I just went for that.
I actually have a sample of this that I bought from W2T but I haven’t tried it yet, so this gives me a way to without cracking into that sample! Oh, and this is the cup that I’m ‘breaking in’ today:
It’s a nice size/shape to hold in my hand, and appearance wise it’s even prettier in person than it was on the site. Perhaps the best thing about it though, and the most pleasantly surprising, is the texture of the glaze on the cup. It’s satisfying/kind of stimulating to touch, especially on the inner lip where there are so many nerve endings. It’s just making me really happy to drink out of…
I’m initially a lot less impressed by this tea though – I broke the coin in half and gave it a rinse to try and open it up a little bit but I’m three steeps in now and I’m finding it pretty bland tasting/unexciting. It has very basic hay/straw notes a the tiniest hints of cream and floral finishing notes but I have to really push myself and focus to get them. I’m doubtful this is going to be a great session, but I’ll keep going for a little while and see if anything changes for me. I’ll just update the rest of this note steep by steep with any in the moment thoughts and we’ll see where that gets me…
Steep Four/Five
- These ones have a little more body to them; a mix of floral, straw, hay and honey
- I don’t know why I’m so surprised this tastes so generic white tea to me
- I mean, it is white tea; I guess I’ve just come to expect a little more from W2T?
Steep Six/Seven
- More of the same, hints of autumn leaf though
- And like a wood chip-y sort of finish
- Still blannnddddd
Yeah, I’m bored with this one to be honest. Kind of surprised I even gave it seven steeps if I’m really laying it all out there. Maybe part of it is that it was a coin? I find coin teas are sometimes a bad representation of a tea’s flavour. Thankfully, I do have a regular sample of this one so I can revisit it again and see if the different pretty style does anything to improve the experience for me – as well as try it Grandpa/Western.
Song Pairing: https://youtu.be/Gcu-fOQ7iDg
Aha, another reviewer of this tea that wasn’t too charmed. I thought maybe I was losing my touch, or my taste buds. Haha. Yeah, I’m with you on your impressions. As a white tea, this didn’t really do much for me. It’s not bad but those hay/straw notes and this dry bitterness just didn’t do it for me. Maybe give these bricks 10 years and this stuff’ll be delicious. I have an aged white tea brick from another company that just turned 10 and it is wine-like in complexity, but then again maybe they started with better materials.
Iced!
I think I’m actually happy that I’m gonna have so much of this one to explore, ‘cause this is my second time trying it out and I’m finding that for a fruit infusion/tisane I’m enjoying it a pretty decent amount. It’s not without room for improvement, but I think with the quantity of this that I have on hand I can probably nail that given time.
Basically, it’s like a candied blueberry flavour/body with a bit more of a tart/sour hibiscus and orange edge to it. Ideally, I want to try and cut down the sourness and get the whole profile to more of that plump, juicy candied sort of territory.
Sipdown (413)!
Finished this one off early this evening, just as a teacup. I brewed it with less water than normal to try and get a stronger/more concentrated cola flavour. I also over steeped it quite a bit too, though – so I did get a more full bodied Coke sort of taste but also a TON of bitter/burnt finish. It’s fine though, I think I’ve officially made myself sick of cola teas for a while. I’ve just had too much, too quickly.
So, it’s probably a good thing this is a sipdown.
Sampled a little bit of this out of the brewer a few nights ago.
Of the new teas released this winter, this is definitely still my favourite. I liked it initially for the strong, buttery orange notes but the more I’m familiarizing myself with it the more I actually notice the walnut in it. It definitely imparts and almost maple like flavour and I’m kind of digging the maple orange duo. You have to watch it though ’cause the orange has a tendency to build to a near overwhelming point and can get just a touch pith heavy.
I want to come up with cocktail ideas for each of the winter teas this year – but I’m struggling really badly to come up with one for this one. So thoughts are totally welcome! So far I’m thinking trying to do some sort of “Blueberry Tea” spin with Amaretto/Grand Marnier but I’m not sure yet.
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.
Iced Latte.
I thought this would be a really good iced latte, but it was a little… blunt?
Like, all three main flavours WERE represented here – mint, vanilla, and grapefruit but it just didn’t have the creamyness or sweetness that I’ve experienced from this one in the past. It was very, very crisp and clean and almost had a little too much of that menthol/mint quality. I just wanted a little bit of softness, and a silky smooth mint/grapefruit/vanilla trio and I felt a little bit assaulted by the profile. I think a little sweetener probably could have fixed most of those issues but I just wasn’t feeling added sweetener that just so I just left it and drank it as it was.
Just a touch disappointed, still, though.
