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It wouldn’t be winter without a cup or two of this throughout the season.

Unlike my coworker Andy, who can pound back like five of these in a shift, this is one that I definitely get sick of the more I have it – however an occasional cup for me can be quite enjoyable. I appreciate the aroma of it a fair bit more than the actual taste, but the mix of warming cinnamon and fruit notes is one I’ve always been intrigued by. It’s pretty much a mulled apple cider, but berry instead of apple.

Still, it’s a DT classic.

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.

Shit.

This is really indulgent, but holy fuck is the flavour good. Like, I’ll be honest when I got my August Uncommon teas for this season and I saw that this was a pumpkin flavoured rooibos I kind of groaned a little internally because did I really need another pumpkin tea this year? And I’ve had herbal/rooibos pumpkin teas with the sweet component and soft spices – they’re ok but not like mind blowing?

This is sort of mind blowing though. I’d argue that flavour wise it’s sort of this molasses/brown sugar flavour first and foremost – very dark, deep, rich and indulgent. It really coats the mouth too and is just captivating. From there, then I would say you get more of the pumpkin and apple flavour due: sort of a mid sip undertone that gradually transitions into a more main flavour? It’s very “bourbon pumpkin pie” but with a lot of sweetness/brown sugar and without the crust. It rounds out with more of a vanilla toffee sort of flavour profile and finishes with this haunting lingering sweetness.

I’m in love.

It’s so crazy how I can go from waffling between not sure if I’m in a summer or an autumn mindset to full on “It’s winter, bitch!” with a simple snowfall. It’s here now though; the whole city is coated in this heavy layering of snow and with that I’m gone into full blown winter teas mode.

This was my morning cup of tea a few days ago; I’m liking the trend I’ve got going right now of starting my mornings with a mug of oolong. The flavours just tend to be so warm and comforting, and I like that medium bodied profile because it has some assertiveness to it (which I need in the mornings) while still having a gentle, soft quality to it as well. This one is all warming spices with fruity undertones. Definitely like a spiced fruit cake sort of vibe; but I really enjoy it! When the cardamom is particularly heavy like this cup was, that’s kind of the sweet spot for me – especially when it’s followed up by the apple/cinnamon pairing and hints of pineapple/papaya sweetness.

Definitely a Christmas/winter kind of tea – and one that, come this time of year, I’m happy I bought a tin of. I’m a little sad there weren’t any oolong teas this year for our winter collection; the last three years we had this one, Mulled Wine, and Bubbie’s Baklava and I liked the sort of place that those fruity/spicy teas held. It almost feels weird breaking that unspoken tradition this year…

EDIT: Correction, the last FOUR years have featured an oolong! The 2013 winter collection had the wildly unpopular Choconut Oolong tea included in it.

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.

Latte, with honey.

This makes for a delicious fucking latte! It’s already a very light/fluffy sort of flavour profile and when you add milk that’s also literally light and fluffy from having been frothed it feels like you’re drinking this really creamy vanilla/lemon cloud. Like, it’s just such a pure, feel good kind of profile with this whimsical innocence to it.

I really, deeply loved this one!

(And added bonus of it using five teabags; which means a quicker sipdown in the future)

First tea I’m cracking into from Steep Me A Cup Of Tea!

This was the tea store we looked at in Fargo; I grabbed a lot of things to try out from them too – eight different teas. I liked the store a lot; the owner did all of his blending in store and was really welcoming/friendly. I know I definitely talked more about it in a previous tasting note – but I just wanted to reinforce the fact that I had such a good experience shopping there. I really, really hope that I enjoy a decent portion of what I picked up.

I think this was the only black tea I picked up; it was one that I wouldn’t have thought I’d enjoy based on the description but when I got a chance to smell it in store was delightfully surprised by it. The dry aroma is very sweet/creamy with a tender raspberry aroma to it, not unlike the buttery raspberry quality you’d get from a strudel/danish. Or cheesecake too, I suppose.

My first tasting was in my tea press with some added in milk to give that cheesecake element a bit of a fighting chance/helping hand. So many people struggle to do cheesecake teas well; I really want this one to do it justice. I will say that I really enjoyed the flavour and I can loosely see cheesecake notes there because there was a bit of a tangyness to it, but I felt like I was mostly getting the tang from the raspberry notes. So it more so gave me the impression of like a raspberry or even more of a mixed berry sort of flavoured/scented yogurt? With a bit of a buttery undertone as well.

I’m not disappointed though in terms of flavour even if I don’t think it was 100% dead on. It’s certainly not the biggest swing and a miss I’ve ever seen for cheesecake teas either and the rest of the flavour was good! I don’t foresee issues finishing this off, and I think it is a good creamy/dessert flavour with soft fruit notes which is something I’m into.

More peppermint agave experimentation.

So I made this one in the teapress with some almond milk and a splash of peppermint agave. I’ve been struggling to think about what to use the peppermint agave with, but this seems like a logical pairing to me. I mean, it already has mint in it – this will just make that element more intense, right?

I got impatient to drink this one, and I took a sip right after pushing the press down which was a mistake because I actually burnt my tongue very badly and have been dealing with the consequences of that choice for the last three days now. Flavour wise, once this cooled down, it was great too! Definitely a richer mint taste, but the following flavours of milk chocolate and nuts were really complimentary too and I liked the stronger/intense mint with the honeyed quality of the rooibos base a lot too. I don’t think I actually have a plain rooibos on hand at the moment, but maybe this is something to look at pairing with a more simple flavoured rooibos since it did work so nicely?

Sipdown (409)!

Kind of glad to finish this one off; while I definitely didn’t dislike it I do think it’s one of those teas that doesn’t really have a long term place in my cupboard. For me to really get into this one, I felt like I needed to add things to it and while that can be really delicious I do want to primarily have the teas in my cupboard be ones I can enjoy without additions.

That said – I made this gal in my teapress with some milk and vanilla agave. It made for a very smooth, rich and creamy flavour with a lot of silky creaminess from the additives and then more of a soft gentle/mild lavender finishing note. It was really pleasant and relaxing; but credit for that can’t solely go to the tea. What I chose to add to this to enhance the flavour did A LOT of the legwork to create the relaxing flavour combination.

Sipdown (410)!

Grabbed this one as a sample because I was craving this sort of Pina Colada flavouring a lot; and I was like 99% sure I was really going to love it. I didn’t get a full size of it though ‘cause at the moment I’m a little more focused on trying flavoured teas that are more unique to me and I have tried a million different Pina Colada flavoured tea – especially on a rooibos base. So I was pretty sure this wouldn’t be anything new to me.

I was right on all accounts; this wasn’t anything new to me in terms of those sort of pina colada blends but I did really enjoy it! It was very fresh in terms of flavour and I loved how rich the coconut was compared to the bright, liveliness of the pineapple which was more of a ‘bouncing’ top not flavour that I really felt on the roof of my mouth. The coconut was more of a coating sensation, which I experienced in the body of the sip, and then well lingering in the finish. It really worked well for me!

Also, it REALLY satisfied that pina colada tea craving I had without leaving me with an excessive amount of it on hand. A good treat!

Man, I did such a good job keeping up with tasting notes while I was on vacation and then I got home and instantly just stopped. So, it’s my first day off now since getting back and I have a whole slew of things to write about. I’m cursing myself and my laziness so much right now.

This was a nice early morning cup; the kind of flavour that’s really smooth and relaxing with a medium bodied flavour. You know, just strong enough to have body/a presence that wakes you up but not full bodied enough to be a slap in the face sort of wake up/jarring. It’s a nice mix of soft roast, nutty notes, wood, honey, and floral elements with a touch of a mineral/vegetal kind of finish. A little green bell pepper-y, in a loose way? Mostly though I think the main flavours here were the honey and wood/oak notes.

It’s an oolong that just screams “nature” overall.

From last night, with DT’s new Peppermint Agave that we’re doing for the winter.

I was so excited about the peppermint agave when I saw it, but I’m realizing now that it’s going to be a challenge finding teas to use it with that aren’t already minty blends. I thought I’d try it out with this one, a straight black tea, and maybe with a black base that hint of mint would work really well. I wasn’t a huge fan though. It’s just such a powerful flavour; and sure it really brought out the cocoa and malt notes in this black tea but it also really competed against them/drowned them out. I didn’t really love it…

And so, I think the challenge of finding a way to use this agave continues.