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Sipdown (411)!

More tea mail today; some of it was just single serving freebie sachet samples of Bluebird’s winter collection though so I’m working on finishing those off tonight to help bring my cupboard down a little. I was a little frustrated when I opened this one up; the side of the sachet was split open so I had to transfer it into another sachet to steep it…

This tastes pretty good though; it’s a wee bit astringent but nothing I can’t handle.

I’m getting some major pudding/custard vibes though: probably from the vanilla in the blend. It’s kind of giving me a bit of flavour Deja Vu though; can’t quite put my finger right on it though. The hints of cinnamon and clove are very nice though; definitely adds a bit of that festive touch. The orange undertones don’t hurt either, in that regard. I’m intrigued by the supposed spruce needles in the blend, though I don’t taste them at all. I don’t taste the almond either, for that matter. Both of those statements are disappointing facts…

Overall this isn’t bad – I think I get more of a custardy bread pudding flavour out of it overall though, rather than “Christmas Cake” – which I imagine is supposed to be like a spice cake/fruit cake sort of cross. Not something I’d spend my own money on, though.

Bought this one a while back from White2Tea because i was really curious about it at the time, but then I just kind of forgot about it/put it on the back burner as far as trying it out goes – there was just so much more to try in the mean time!

I actually ended up getting more of it recently though in my Sipsby Subscription box. This is my second month receiving that box and I’m still pretty impressed by it. They’ve yet to send me anything I put on my “not interested” list and I’m still getting quite a nice range of tea types/flavours. This is essentially my second time getting a tea I’ve had before though; the first was a flavoured blend I’d tried before (and liked), and this time it’s something I actually already own but hadn’t yet tried. I don’t know if that means Sipsby’s algorithm is REALLY good or if maybe I just drink too much tea?

It’s probably the latter.

Anyway, now that I’ve got even more of this I figured I’d better try it out – especially if I want to send feedback in for the next month’s box to help that algorithm continue to improve. I also wanted to compare notes with James on the slack group chat to see if our experiences would be similar at all.

Brewed up, I was a little underwhelmed by this. I didn’t find it bad at all; in fact I genuinely enjoyed the flavour notes I got from it quite a bit – but it really didn’t have a lot of presence/“punch” and I think I would have preferred something far brisker.

Top notes:
– Generic red fruits
- Perhaps leaning a little towards currant and strawberry
- Over ripe strawberry

Body notes:
- SOFT malt, honey, and white peach/peach skins
- The peach is actually very comparable to Liquid Proust’s peach oolong blend
- “Peach vs. Bergamot refereed by Formosa Oolong”
- Light to medium body overall

Finishing notes:
- Honey and lemon peel
- Specifically the peel…

I’ll probably age this one for a while and come back to it…

Sipdown (406)!

With a touch of peppermint agave.

I said I wanted to wait until I was surrounded by snow, and blankets and it felt like winter to finish this one off – and you know what? I think I did. I mean, it is very snowy (about a foot of snow in my front yard), and I’m currently in a cocoon of blankets. The only thing that I kind of budged on was the fact that I don’t 100% feel like I’m quite in the winter spirit yet. This is helping though.

It’s smooth, it’s rich and it’s creamy and I love this really crisp, cool finish from the mint: both what’s already in the blend and the added kick from the peppermint agave. I was worried that since the agave does have a very strong flavour that it would over power this one but thankfully that wasn’t the case. If I’m being completely honest though, I think I might actually like DAVIDsTEA’s Candy Cane Crush blend better than this? I mean, they’re VERY similar in terms of flavour but I think DT’s is just a bit creamier while still having just as much body and mint flavour – and seeing as DT’s is totally the more readily available tea for me personally (and cheaper given my staff discount) maybe this isn’t actually all that sad of a sipdown after all?

We’re officially playing Christmas music at work now. We’re only two days in and I’m already prepared to end myself. By the end of a month and a half of this nonsense, I swear some other member of management is just gonna come in to work to switch off from morning to nighttime crew and I’ll just be hiding behind the counter, deliriously singing Jingle Bells to myself because I’ve suffered a mental break…

This tea was good though, and I do think actually pulling out some of my “Winter” themed teas is helping me to begrudgingly get a little more into the winter/festive spirit and accept some of the things like mall Christmas music. I added a little skim milk to this one to help cool it so I could drink it right away and I found that today it had a bit more of a ginger heavy profile, which paired with the milk gave it a little bit of a molasses-y gingerbread cookie kind of quality with cherry finishing notes. Pretty solid, and definitely also wintery which again only adds to that begrudging excitement/acceptance.

Hot, straight.

Today this one was a little weird. It still had the sweet caramel/coconut kind of pairing that reads as almost syrupy to me or like the Cream of Coconut often used in cocktails? However the chocolate was VERY light/almost not present at all and the banana had the kind of green sharpness of an underripe banana. Just a little unlike how this one usually brews up…

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.

From vacation haul.

Honestly, this was pretty expensive for the amount of tea in the tin BUT it’s very very unique and now that I’ve tried it I actually don’t mind the price at all for the quality of it. It’s just gonna get used up quickly is all, and that’ll be disappointing…

I grabbed this one because of the unique combination of ingredients. The company, Algonquin Tea Co, was partnered with Cornelia Bean which is where I saw this one. They actually had about six different offerings but a lot of them seemed super wellness and religion based and that’s not really why I drink tea so they didn’t really interest me a ton. There was also one that was supposedly supposed to help with lucid dreaming? I didn’t really want to fuck with that though. So I grabbed this one solely because I thought I’d like the taste.

It smells really good to me; very fresh and outdoorsy with a lot of pine characteristic and sage undertones. I didn’t personally get much from the aroma in terms of the sweet grass in the blend, but most of what I was after was that strong pine aroma anyway and just going off scent this seemed to be a blend that would have a lot of that.

I brewed this one up at work, and I started with my normal four minutes that I do for Western styled teas – BUT I realized quickly that would have produced a really weak/bland tasting brew so I doubled that and steeped for eight minutes. I still think I could have pushed it even longer though, and would have got a more potent flavour without any negative repercussions. So that’s something I’ll keep in mind going forward.

This one brewed up really smooth though! I think it had a pretty equal representation of all three ingredients in the blend too: pine, sage, and sweet grass. That was a little surprising to me ‘cause I didn’t get the sweet grass at all from dry aroma but I got A LOT of pine. Not a complaint though! In fact, I really like the sweet, sappy quality from the sweet grass and the pine combined. And I love sage in general; it’s such a pleasant, soft herbaceous quality that’s really peaceful/relaxing. Overall, it just tasted really natural (kind of obvious that it would based on the ingredients though) and fresh. Reminded me of taking a walk in the forest; and also of those “Douglas Fir” candles that come out around the holidays – but just more stripped down, mellow and realistic. It would be a good tea for quite reflection or just meditation in general, I think.

Very happy with this one.

Got this one in For Tea’s Sake’s “Festive Sampler” – to be perfectly honest, had it not been in the sample I 100% would NOT have bought it.

So, those who’ve been around Steepster for a while know that while I don’t have any issues with mint I don’t generally drink straight peppermint. Aside from the fact that it’s kind of boring, I had a REALLY bad peppermint experience years ago where I found maggots in a specific tea company’s pure peppermint. I 100% will NOT touch that company’s straight peppermint anymore – but I don’t blame the company itself. I mean, tea is a botanical product and stuff like that is just bound to happen every now and then. Shit happens. Still, it’s left me in a spot where straight peppermint teass send me back to that experience and I get the stomach wibby wobblys.

In fact – before I brewed this one up I emptied out the sample tin of it and just looked through the leaf. Just in case…

Once I was assured this was good to go, it actually wasn’t bad though. I mean, there is the aforementioned thing where as a flavour it’s kind of boring – HOWEVER, I did think that this one in particular was pretty smooth and fresh, and thought it packed a pretty good minty punch while still having that relaxing quality a good peppermint tea should have. It’s because of that relaxing quality that this will probably be my last tea of the night ’cause boy am I tired now! And good thing too, I work really early in the morning tomorrow and I really ought to be getting to bed…

Loved my sample of this one so much that I had to go and buy one of the larger tins of it.

In fact, my desire to have more of this in my cupboard is the whole reason I went and placed an order with Silk Road in the first place. I just liked this one so much. It’s probably the best currant tea on a black base I’ve had to date and I think tied with Tea Desire’s Champagne Cassis for favourite currant tea overall.

This cup was really satisfying! I made a little bit of a mistake with my food pairing and I chose something that kind of overpowered the taste of the tea; a cheesy cauliflower curry. I mean, it was delicious but I would have preferred to get more of my tea’s flavour. I only really got to experience that delicious jammy currant flavour in the few sips I had before I started supper and the few sips afterwards. Oh well, at least I have lots of this one now! Hooray for stocking up.

Early evening cuppa.

I was certainly feeling the caffeine from my earlier session with Camellia Sinensis’ Jin Die so I needed something caffeine free to kind of mellow out a little bit for a while. This was part of my vacation haul, and I’ve been pretty excited to dig into it so I figured why not give this one a whirl.

Is it just me or have a lot of companies been going for this “Pineapple Mimosa” flavour lately, though? I know I’ve seen a few companies here on Steepster but even just in general I know I’ve seen others that aren’t on Steepster just from cart building on different websites in the last year or so. I think the first time I heard of it as a flavour was when DT did it a few summer’s ago as part of their cocktail collection. I liked it a lot then, but it was really new to me as a concept. Is this is a thing now outside the tea world that the tea world has then set out to replicate or is it a thing that’s unique to the tea world!?

It’s good though! Very, very strongly pineapple flavoured without a lot much else going for it other than sweetness and apple undertones. I mean, I like pineapple A LOT – it’s my favourite fruit and definitely in my top five favourite foods of all time. So, you know, I’m down. I could see this being a little too cloying or “candied pineapple” tasting for some though, and if that was the case I could see people easily being turned off by it. Understandably, as well. It’s a touch weird as a hot tea though; I think I’d be much more into it either iced or cold brewed…

Also, even if I like the profile doesn’t mean I’m sold on this whole “pineapple mimosa” thing as a concept. I mean, a mimosa is champagne and orange juice – right? So even if we’re, in theory, replacing the orange entirely with pineapple shouldn’t there still be something in this to replicate the flavour of champagne? ‘Cause right now it’s essentially just a sweet but straight up pineapple flavour. I think if you, as a tea company, really were committed to the idea of a pineapple mimosa you’d do something to introduce another flavour here to actually give a proper nod to cocktail you’ve named your tisane after.

But that’s just my opinion.

First eggnog latte of the year!

I’m doing it right too; we had a bunch of old bananas to use up so we made eggless chocolate chip banana muffins that I’m now snacking on while I enjoy this latte! The whole experience is just divine; both the latte and the muffin are SUPER indulgent and sweet with a lot of very dynamic flavours.

As far as the muffin goes; it’s a little denser than a typical muffin because it doesn’t have eggs in it and therefore didn’t rise as much as a typical muffin. It’s got really intense flavours though, and is nice and moist. Very good for dunking, too! Love, love, love dunking baking in tea!

The eggnog latte is also great! I had no doubt that the chocolate component of this tea would work well with the eggnog, and I was completely correct. Chocolate and eggnog are just great; very sweet and creamy. Kind of like a really thick, smooth chocolate custard or mousse flavour. The ‘chili’ element was what I was a little unsure of. It works though; eggnog already has some spice elements to it (cinnamon/nutmeg?) so this just adds to that. The extra layer of flavour is important too; I think if this was JUST chocolate and eggnog it wouldn’t feel as balanced as it does with that soft spiced undertone.

Man, and these two things (the muffin and the latte) just work so well together! The chocolate in the muffins is a good connecting ingredient that forms a bridge for some of the different flavours going on. Yum!

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.