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So I went to Chapters to buy books, instead I ended up buying tea and no books.

Fuck. I have a problem.

Anyway; mostly it was the packaging of this one that got me interested – although the ingredients themselves sounded good too. The price was really good because it was on sale, so I figured it was worth the gamble even though these are teabags. And you know what? This was really pleasant!

It’s very delicate, light and airy overall – but the flavours are solid and clearly defined. Bottom line, it’s creamy vanilla, sponge cake, and sweet lemon! I think it actually does a shockingly good job of conveying the flavour of a fluffy, well baked lemon cupcake! Mmm! And… and! No traces of the base tea, either! This would be a really good one for someone who doesn’t like rooibos, and is looking for a dessert flavour for evenings/before bed.

Not overly complicated or nuanced; just a good, delicate but clear flavour! Yum!

Sipdown (310)!

I was happy to see this was the freebie sample tossed into my last order because I’ve been on the fence about ordering it with essentially every AQ2T order I’ve ever placed…

My mom and I disagree about the dry leaf aroma of this one: personally, I didn’t really smell the cherry and only picked up on the cream, which reminded me of the smell of heavy whipping cream with more sweetness. My mom instantly went to maraschino cherries…

I steeped this one up in a small teacup since the sample was a very small size; I also ended up resteeping it twice because I struggled to put my finger on exactly how I felt about it just off the first steep alone. Interestingly, the first two infusions tasted identical with ZERO flavour deterioration and the third was only marginally weaker in flavour.

I think that overall this one can be summed up as very accurate to the name, but probably just not the right tea for me personally. The cherry note is REALLY intense though; and it definitely reminds me strongly of black cherries, specifically those really fancy/expensive black cherries that get made into maraschino cherries for fancy/expensive mixed drinks/cocktails in mixology bars. Fuck the bright, firetruck red ones: this is the ‘elegant’ shit. And you know what? If that was all that the cherry tasted like I think I’d be fine with that but it’s a little artificial and that slight artificial quality just opens it up into falling into the trap so much cherry flavoured stuff falls into: it takes on a bit of a medicinal quality.

It’s not overpowering or just blatant, straight up medicinal but it IS there.

Lets talk about the cream though – ‘cause that was the best part for me. I like creamy teas a lot, but anything that’s cream flavoured artificially tends to rub me the wrong way a little bit. I’m just very particular about cream flavoured teas in general, it seems. And in this teas defense, it’s not artificial cream flavour – it’s natural. However, it’s flavourings regardless…

But the cream was great! It reminded me a lot of really heavy whipped cream; the kind of stuff I used to pile on breakfast pancakes/waffles in literal mounds. The good shit. The handwhipped shit – not Cool Whip or spray whipped cream nonsense. I was SO into this flavour element of the tea, and if there was more of it I think the degree to which I liked it would probably outweigh the parts of the cherry flavour that I didn’t like.

I’m really, really glad I tried it though! The curiosity probably would have eventually ate me alive if I hadn’t gotten this one as a sample – but while there are some REALLY good elements to this one, it’s just not for me overall. I can totally see why other people would be all over this one, though! I think the flavours line up perfectly with the name, and that can be a really rare thing to find in a tea…

Cold Brew.

I’m at a weird point where the smell of the dry leaf of this tea in the big wall tin and even in the small 100g tin I have at home kind of makes me feel a little nauseous. I can’t pinpoint exactly what in the tin makes me feel like that; it just makes me think of alcohol and chemicals…?

However, brewed up this one still TASTES amazing to me. It’s sweet, refreshing pina colada amazingness, with hints of tropical mango and this very sweet, candy like quality that also doesn’t sacrifice the natural flavour of the fruits either. I mean, I really do LOVE this one as a cold brew…

But the smell. Damn the smell…

I don’t even know. Anyone have thoughts?

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.

Cold Brew.

This one wasn’t as dragonfruit heavy as I wanted it to be. I mean, the dragonfruit notes did come through but not very strongly and in similar ways to DAVIDsTEA’s Magic Dragon – kind of fruit punch like, and a bit artificial tasting. In fact, artificial would be a good way to describe the flavour of this tisane overall because even the other fruit notes had an artificial/chemical sort of quality to them.

The strongest ‘other’ fruit note was definitely the strawberry – I’d say that was the bulk of the sip overall and definitely the main body note. I also thought this was a little lemony, and had a perfumey floral finish too.

All of that said, I didn’t hate it – but it’s nothing special at all and given the recent announcement of Teavana closing I’m not even a little torn up to know that I’ll likely never have the opportunity to buy this again…

After dinner cup, to curb some sweet cravings.

Very heavy on the pomegranate notes this time around; like damn that grenadine flavour was sweet and intense and present in every aspect of the sip. I suppose I shouldn’t complain: I wanted something sweet to sip on after all. I just wish that some of that sweetness had been softened/broken up by some other flavour notes.

I don’t know – I feel like I go in and out of phases of really liking Monk’s Blend and right now I think I’m coming out of a phase of being into it. Good thing this is getting close to sipdown levels: I just need to push myself through a few cups to get there.

Hot cup, from last week.

I let Brenna pick out my tea for me – it’s always interesting to see what she’ll choose when given the option. Apparently she picked this one solely based on the tin it was in, though…

I don’t love this one, but this last cup wasn’t terrible. The peach was actually very sweet and smooth, it really makes me wish that this tea was JUST peach notes. Once again, the “cream” killed it though! It’s just so chalky and artificial tasting. It reminds me so heavily of chewable vitamins, and while I’m generally pretty open to trying some pretty out there teas, chewable vitamins is not a flavour I’d willingly go for…

Bleck.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I ended up adding a bit of milk, which softened this one greatly overall…

I always forget that I own this…

I was doing a stash reorganization the other day, and came across my tin of this one. I figured I should try it out and see if it still tastes decent, because I think it’s been over a year since I last had it. Made it up as a latte and, well it doesn’t taste bad or anything. It’s MUCH sweeter than I remember it being, though.

Like, the first flavour is very sweet, sugary vanilla and then you get the soft, warming spices. Cinnamon, clove, cardamom, and so forth. Also, very creamy overall even not taking the milk from the latte into consideration. I don’t dislike it or anything, but damn does it need to be that sweet?

Also, why did I rate this one a 78!? That definitely seems very high so I’m tweaking that a little too…

Took my mom out for supper the other night because I could afford to, and I don’t often have the money to do spontaneous nice things like that…

Normally I don’t mess around with crappy bagged restaurant tea; it’s generally not worth it and I can get straight up water or something alcoholic instead. I really just wanted some tea though, so I grabbed a cup of peppermint. As far as bagged teas go, peppermint is usually pretty hard to fuck up and quality tends to be relatively universal. And this was pretty well just standard peppermint. Cooling, a little sweet. Very refreshing. Not bad, not just by bagged tea standards but just in general.

Worth grabbing, just to get my tea fix.

It’s World Water Month, and to keep in line with the importance of that DT is featuring ME to WE as August’s TOTM rather than releasing a new tea for the month…

So, I’ve been drinking a lot of this one since August 1st – partially just because we’re sampling it every day but also because I want to get super familiar with the flavour of it so that I can do it as much justice as humanly possible when talking about the tea with customers. Usually my ‘go to’ line to sort of concisely sum up the flavour is that it’s like a cherry fruit punch and while I still stand by that overall summary I’m finding that today as I drink this one iced I’m actually picking up on the slight tickle of peppercorn in the back of my throat. That’s a first for me!

It’s interesting – sometimes you try a tea over and over and you don’t continue to get anything new from it. However, sometimes the flavour surprises you, and you wind up with new flavour notes or shifting balances of flavour.

I kind of love tea because of that. So, continued sampling of this tea actually turned out to be worthwhile this time around since now there’s something new I can tell people I’ve experience personally from the flavour.

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 (311)!

Finishing this one up right now while I wait for the bus; I didn’t realize until literally just now that 2/3 of the teas I brought with today for work were Dammann Freres ones. Usually I try to vary things a little more than that…

This one was a free sachet sample that came in my most recent DF order. I wasn’t excited about it per say, but it is a step up from the very generic “English Breakfast” or “Green Tea” sachet samples that usually seem to come with DF orders.

It’s not bad – a mix of floral lemon notes and generic herbaceousness. Of course, that’s essentially all that there is to Verbena in the first place. I’d call it delightfully average overall. Probably good as an option for before bed. However, like I’ve said with many DF teas – I associate the company with really nice quality flavoured teas. For the price you’re paying, I definitely wouldn’t waste my money ordering something as simple as Verbena when I can get the equivalent quality from a different company for a better price.

If I’m spending money at DF it’s for something fancy I can’t get elsewhere.