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A good friend helped me get my hands on a larger quantity of this so now I don’t have to worry about hoarding it as much; and on that note I took the time last week to make a mug of this to sip on while I bussed to work.

It’s really, really nice being able to sip on this one guilt free ‘cause it’s the perfect dessert flavour without being over the top rich or relying on things like chocolate. Chocolate teas just don’t do it for me, and this is more burnt sugar goodness. Delicious, and creamy and smooth! Hints of jasmine in the undertones; a very soft, delicate touch that just adds to the whole “buttery melting in your mouth” kind of flavour.

Yessss!

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.

Soy Latte!

Made this one at work with the last little bit of matcha in the tin; it’s sort of a workplace tradition. If a tin ever gets so low with a retired/seasonal tin that there’s not enough to really sell in any sort of large quantity but there IS a few drinks worth of it left the staff will finish off the drinks of it. It saves someone the heartbreak of seeing it on the tea wall and wanting to buy like 100g of it, and being told there’s like less than eight grams left.

I do enjoy this matcha – but it’s totally weird as a latte. I mean, lots of great apple/pineapple and red fruit notes but it’s just weird to think of fruit punch as a creamy flavour or something to mix with milk. I know in my head, the only time that makes any sort of sense is in a Paralyzer cocktail. Not the typical one though; the weird “Saskatchewan Paraylzer” variant that all of my friends who grew up in small towns/villages in the area learned to make. Basically, it’s the same as a normal paralyzer but with cherry brandy and maraschino cherries – and those bloody things are disgusting. It’s so weird that my three friends all come from different small towns and they ALL learned this weird regional cocktail variant. Bleck.

It’s so weird; ‘cause I totally liked this one as a milkshake, but as a latte it’s just sort of freaking me out. Maybe it’s that this was a hot tea? Yeah, that’s totally gotta be 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.

Sipdown (378)!

Finished this one off earlier this week, as my morning/breakfast tea. I thought the stronger profile/caffeine level mixed with the fruity elements would be a nice start to the morning and I was right.

We had a wicked wind storm the night before I drank this one and the morning of. Like, I live across from a small park and the wind was so bad that one of the boughs/limbs on the tree in the center of the park snapped off. It sounded really scary/intense and it was totally unexpected so it freaked me the fuck out. It sounded like a HUGE crack of thunder, but there was no rain/water or anything…

Anyway, point is that while I sipped on this I also storm watched. That’s one of my favourite things to do: we have a huge living room window with a bench under it so I’ll sit on the bunch in the comfort of my house and watch nature do it’s amazing, beautiful and sometimes scary thing.

This was actually really delicious though! Very, very strong flavours/full bodied profile overall. It was really, really earthy from the pu’erh but that was easily matched by a really bright, sweet strawberry flavour that was like a mix of overripe strawberries, strawberry candy, and strawberry jams. Just like, strawberry to the core. It’s almost weird how well that sort of sweet, vibrant flavour compliments the deep, intense earthy flavour of the pu’erh. It worked, though! Like, really well. The mango was a lot more subtle in flavour; but I liked the sweetness of it as well. Flavour wise, it was like being pleasantly assaulted with strawberry/pu’erh and then just as that attack is starting to ease up the mango just runs up to you and… waves? Like, “Yes, hello I’m here too! Don’t forget about me!”. That’s it though; just the reminder that it’s there – no impact.

Still, really liked this one and the mixture of opposing flavours coming together in a complimentary way. It was a good morning option, for sure! I also feel like there’s LOTS of potential for this to be a really nice latte, too. Don’t know that I’d want it in a large quantity, but if I was already going to be ordering from TeaTaxi? Yeah, I’d totally add in another sample to revisit it.

How weird is it that I ended up, unintentionally, having two gelato themed teas yesterday!?

I didn’t pick this one out for myself though; a coworker and I were playing the tea guessing game where you make a person a tea without them watching and you have to guess what the tea is, and if anything was added to it. Not to humble brag, but I’m really good at it – though it’s definitely MUCH harder when you play with added things like milk/sweetener.

This one ended up being an iced Lime Gelato sweetened with pumpkin agave, and topped with frothed milk. Obviously, I got the fact it was iced like right away – and I also was able to narrow down that it had milk in it very quickly too. From there, I knew it was obviously lime gelato because the lime notes were REALLY strong and the only other tea we have with that much lime is Sweet Lime, which you can’t add milk to. It curdles if you do. The pumpkin agave threw me off though. Like, badly. I could tell it was sweetened, and whatever it was sweetened with was definitely familiar – but couldn’t pinpoint it. I thought maybe honey ‘cause it did have a distinct taste and plain agave doesn’t. Then I thought perhaps the vanilla agave, because the flavour was extra creamy/rich but nope. I mean, who adds pumpkin to lime!?

So, I almost perfectly nailed it. Not quite 100% though.

That said, apparently lime and pumpkin work surprisingly well together. At least, with a creamy component like the yogurt in the blend or the added frothed milk acting like a sort of ‘bonding agent’ for the two flavours. This was really, really weird – but totally good.

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.

Hot cuppa, from last night.

I found myself craving this one last night, which is actually kind of weird because I’ve only had it once prior and though I liked it I wasn’t blown away by it. Plus, it also prominently features two ingredients that, dependent on the day, I range between impartial towards and just not a fan of: the lavender and the bergamot.

I added a dollop of lemon infused honey to this one as well; I picked up a jar of it at the farmer’s market last week and I’ve been gently experimenting with the different flavours I think it will pairly nicely with. In this case, I know from prior tea blends that lemon works well with lavender/floral aspects in general and bergamot is already citrus so in that regard it’s just like strengthening the citrus components of the blend.

Not surprisingly, this had a strong mix of lavender and bergamot flavours though neither were overpowering and together they made for one hell of a relaxing/restful profile. The lemon from the honey was present, though very light and more in the undertones than as main a flavour note as either aforementioned ones. The tea itself was also very, very creamy and thicker in mouthfeel which kind of felt like a soft nod to the fact this is a ‘gelato’ themed tea!

Sloppy Gong Fu this morning, opted to get more use out of my Kyusu though rather than a Gaiwan. I don’t drink green teas often, so it doesn’t get as much love as I wish I could give it. It’s a gorgeous piece of teaware…

I’m definitely still enamored with this tea; it’s easily my favourite green tea from DAVIDsTEA which makes the fact it’s not carried year round such a sad thing for me. I did buy a decent amount of it though; it’s rare I find a green tea I actually like without strings attached to that statement, so I’m holding onto this one as much as possible.

I used 5g of leaf for this session, and my pot is 150ml. Any more leaf and the flavour would have been too heavy/strong for my personal tastes. I didn’t keep super close track, but I believe I had somewhere between six and nine infusions. I didn’t really time any of them; I just sort of went with gut feeling in the moment for the length of the infusions.

The first few were definitely the most enjoyable; very rich and buttery with strong notes of artichoke, edamame, and crisp leafy greens. It’s got a lovely and strong umami flavour to it overall. The buttery quality definitely waned later into the session, but the vegetal notes remained sans buttery taste/mouthfeel.

Undertones in the first infusions, and then more of a body flavour in later ones, were bright, sweet and fresh fruit juices – and I don’t mean like the kind you buy in a bottle at the grocery store, but that natural juices of the fruit that dribble down your chin as you bite into it: white peaches, and a little bit of a quince flavour. Way more fruity in the end of the session; almost more so than the vegetal elements.

Overall, there was just a very prominent freshness to the taste. It didn’t matter if it was the vegetal elements or the fruit juice notes – everything was natural and, well, fresh. I don’t know how else to say fresh – it just was. Made me feel like I easily could have been outdoors, in a field by like a babbling brook or some such nonsense. Maybe that’s ’cause there was also mineral notes to the tea, and a sort of “dewy” quality. I also was using a combo of teaware that sort of evoked the imagery of a garden too; snail teapet, and a cup with hummingbirds, water lilies, and water pads on it. It just all come together very nicely though.

Really, really good/peaceful session.

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 (379)!

Another Kombucha from the farmer’s market!

This one sounded really, really good to me – and to be honest I’m enjoying it but not actually as much as I expected to. The mango is actually very, very light in flavour and I actually wish there was a little more of it. The rest is very much just like drinking a glass of cold, refreshing cranberry juice – but carbonated and just a little bit vinegar-y.

Still good, but I feel like it could have been better.

Evening cuppa.

The dry leaf for this tea is just beautiful; I fucking adore the contrast of the pink and purple floral elements against the rich green of the spearmint. It’s so pleasing to look at!

Steeped up, this is nice – very soothing/relaxing. In particular, I really love the sweetness of the spearmint. I’ve always loved spearmint in teas – it’s just mint at its best. Refreshing, sweet, relaxing! The lavender in the tea is actually really nice too. I’ve been challenging myself with lavender teas as of late; traditionally it’s a flavour I don’t like at all but lately some experimentation has shown me that in mild quantities. That’s what it is in this blend – mild. A nice soothing, spa like blend/mix of spearmint and lavender with rosey undertones.

Just what I wanted from it!

Sipdown (372)!

It’s a very lazy kind of day, so I figured what better than just milking a tea for all it’s worth and doing a big pot of something Grandpa style. What could be more perfect for this than White2Tea’s 2017 Grandpa (named for this style of drinking it!), which I recieved as a free sample in one of my orders this year!

I’ve been sipping on this one for close to three hours now; in total I’ve probably refilled my pot with hot water three times now, though definitely broken up into many, many different top ups and not just three ‘blanket’ sort of refills.

Overall, this was been incredibly smooth, pleasant and flavourful! It’s got a lot of really sweet elements to it overall too! Obviously, it’s got quite an earthy element but also I’m getting different natural notes too; wet wood, and truffles mostly. The undertones are really fruity but in a deep, rich sort of way evocative of strewed fruits, dates/figs, and really deep stonefruit notes like plum and black cherry. I’d say the date notes in particular have been particularly strong as I sip on this.

Part of the sweetness also comes from a more confectionery/bakery rooted place: a mix of dark chocolate/baker’s chocolate, barley and oats. I’m surprised a little bit by the presence of an oat-like flavour but I’m not turned off by it either. I did notice it much later into this ‘session’, if you can call it that. At this point in the session a lot of the initial wave of robust earthy elements had more mellowed out and the soup produced from the tea was getting thinner/weaker.

Overall, I don’t know that this is a particularly unique or standout tea, but it’s incredibly smooth and I appreciate the sweetness in it a lot too. It works really well for the Grandpa style of brewing, and I think it would be a good intro into Shou as well because it’s so smooth/sweet with those fruity elements.

10/10 – would definitely recommend.

From my mom’s BC Vacation haul.

When she stopped at Cloud Mountain Tea House I asked her to pick out a mix of stuff she found interesting and just whatever the owner recommended trying; according to her, this was his top pick/recommendation for something really unique and worth trying.

I do really, really love Lapsang Souchong – both smoked and unsmoked, like this one. So I was excited that this was one of the teas I wound up with. I’m drinking it this morning as a lazy morning cuppa to kind of ease into the day. It’s a very relaxing flavour profile, so it’s working well for this purpose.

I’d call it sort of medium bodied, with very smooth and gentle flavours. It’s interesting to me that the owner describes this as more of an oolong flavour because that’s exactly what I was thinking with my first few sips, before reading the description of the tea. Personally, Rou Gui sort of springs to mind. You know, that very smooth warming spice/cinnamon sort of quality with a mix of accompanying notes: some roast and malt, wood/bark, a stonefruit/peachy kind of sweetness but perhaps most importantly a floral kind of finish. Heady florals; florals with weight to them. It also has a bit of a quince sort of undertone, as well as honey and baked bread.

I’m really enjoying it, and this is one that mom got a larger amount of so I’ll definitely be able to try Gong Fuing it in addition to just having more really nice mugs of it too.