16384 Tasting Notes
Iced, with some added milk. Not quite a latte, though.
I feel like now that I’ve mentally made the connection between the flavour of this tea and sticky rice it’s one that I’m NEVER going to be able to separate from the experience of drinking this one. I mean, earthy? Yes. Coconut? Yes. Sticky Rice? FUCK YES.
I just can’t undo what has been done…
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v04H7_fFC90
Yeah, these two don’t really pair AT ALL. However, I’ve found myself in a nostalgia hole where all I seem to be listening to is classic Jonathan Coulton. Including this wonderful track…
Last fruity matcha, also as an iced latte.
To me personally, this was the matcha from the collection that best fit my expectations of it. It’s very much a mixed berry sort of flavour with notes of blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, and even this sort of acai kind of quality? That jumble of berry notes reminds me a lot of the mixed berry profile that Red Leaf Tea’s Richberry Pie matcha has! I really enjoy that part of the flavour.
For me, the thing that really doesn’t connect well is the ‘cream’ element. Quite often, I find myself thinking that whatever the company uses as its “cream flavouring” is really artificial and somewhat unpleasant tasting- and that weird “cream flavouring” is used in several different blends. It’s not as prominent here as I’ve seen with other teas, and the addition of milk to add some actual creaminess both in flavour and mouthfeel does help a lot. It’s kind of like a berry custard? Pretty solid overall, despite some slight cons.
Also, I think this may arguably be the sweetest of the new matchas for what that’s worth.
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.
Next up of the new fruity matchas!
This was the one I was most excited about; it just seemed like such a fun and unique flavour ideas and I was ready for something really vibrant and rich – you know, a Hawaiian Punch flavour that would, well, ‘punch me’ in the face. Sorry, bad pun is bad…
This was still pretty good as an iced latte, but it lacked the potency that I wanted and had already received from Honeydew Matcha. I mean, it’s just sort of generic tropical fruit in a rather mild way. There’s not really anything particularly wrong with that; I bet it would make for a rather relaxing, smooth hot matcha drink. However, as something iced and summery I just personally wanted a more robust, lively flavour profile. It’s an especially stark contrast of expectations when you couple it with my Honeydew Matcha experience.
I’m likely going to try this one again though, I’ll just definitely choose a different style to prepare 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.
New matcha teas!
I’ve been waiting for this collection of matcha for what feels like forever. Seriously; I’ve been sitting on the knowledge these bad boys were coming since Christmas!
Lets get the obvious out of the way – I’m not thrilled they have added cane sugar. However, at this point I would be even more surprised if that wasn’t the case. I’m just gonna have to accept that DT thinks the typical consumer couldn’t handle these flavoured matches without the sweetener. It is what it is.
So, I tried all of the new matchas as lattes because that’s generally just how I drink my matcha regardless of where I’m getting it from. I did the other two iced, but for whatever reason I opted to do this one hot. I’m not sure why the difference, honestly. Of the three flavours, this was the one I was kind of ‘in the middle’ excited for. I expected it to be nice, but probably rather mild/mellow. However, it’s without a doubt the best of all three new ones. In fact, I think it’s my favourite matcha that DT has ever carried. I even bought 80g of it on the launch day because I just needed to make sure I had some for at home.
So, this is sweet. That’s to be expected.
However, it’s also REALLY vibrant and intense. The honeydew is anything but mellow; it’s juicy and sweet and reminds me exactly of the taste of overripe honeydew. I can practically feel the juices running down my chin from taking a big ass bite. The brilliance of the melon flavour makes me think of Honeydew Mate, another REALLY juicy and tasty honeydew tea offered by DAVIDsTEA that I’d love to see a return of. I just think that this is bottom line kind of the epitome of summer flavours, and I’m really, really instantly smitten with it. The flavour is just so well done, and while I’d love to lose the cane sugar it doesn’t work well with the whole “super ripe honeydew” flavour kind of thing.
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 tea.
I was looking for something to try adding the Strawberry Kiwi cocktail sugar to, because I haven’t tried it with anything yet as more than a sugared rim and I was curious just how strong the flavour is when added to a drink. I picked melon cooler because I thought the flavour would compliment, and that was probably the most important thing. Second to that, I know this is a pretty mellow herbal so I figured if any one was going to let the flavour of the cocktail sugar come through this would probably be a good one.
And it does come through!
This is sweet, and fruity with a good balance of all three main fruit notes: melon, strawberry and kiwi. I even feel like the pineapple has stepped up its game a bit, and is shining through more than it would otherwise. Apart from this definitely being quite sweet, I do like the overall pairing a lot and I did find it really fun and refreshing. If only I could add the flavour of the sugar without the extra sweetness. That would be divine.
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.
This was one of those cases where I wound up measuring out some of this tea leaf for a customer, and then couldn’t shake the aroma and just wanted to make some for myself. I opted for an iced cup of it.
However, upon being steeped it just wasn’t doing it for me. I think what I wanted/found myself craving it after measuring it out was the raspberry in the blend – and I likely could have gotten than from another tea I would have enjoyed more. It’s just that the peppermint in the blend really through me for a loop/didn’t fit with the sweet, juicy fruit notes I found myself craving. The lime and apple notes though? Great! In fact, the whole thing was satisfying save for the peppermint which just didn’t fit in with the mood I was in. Totally a me thing though – and normally I don’t mind the peppermint a whole lot anyway! In fact, usually I barely taste it. It was just really bugging me with this cuppa.
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 (265)!
Thank you MissB for the sample! I think this is a new company for me, so I was curious to try out their Assam…
I took this one with a bit of milk and sugar, since Assam accommodates those two ingredients so well. I did try a few sips of it plain first though. Nothing about this one jumps out as exquisite to me, but it’s not a bad tea by any stretch. I think it’s more than fair to sort of just describe it as your typical, no frills, ‘trademark’ assam. It’s sweet, and malty with some cocoa and baked breads notes to it. Perhaps a little sweeter than other Assams I’ve had as of late? Really smooth – both with and without the milk and sugar.
I’ve very happily drink this again because it was really good; however since it doesn’t have any quality that really distinguishes it I likely wouldn’t order it for myself/spend money on it.
Cold Brew!
I know I’ve cold brewed this one before, but I can’t remember exactly if that style of prep has worked well for me or not. This time around, I didn’t mind it though! It was really hot in our house anyway, so the coolness of the tea was especially refreshing and delightful on this particular occaison. The flavour was good though: the ginger was kind of ginger beer like in that it had that sort of spicyness/kick to it than gingerale doesn’t have. Follow that up with the mellow sweetness of the pear, and you have a pretty satisfying brew!
Also, I’m 100% adding this to my list of stuff to try as Tea Soda.
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.
Ugh; I should be working on tasting notes/reviews but it’s so miserably hot in our house today that pretty well all I’ve done is lie around and sweat bullets…
Anyway; this was a cold brew from a bit over a week ago. I really, really enjoyed this tisane a lot the first time I picked it up from the farmer’s market, and when I was there on Canada Day I saw they were still selling it so I grabbed another bag to enjoy! It’s always nice when I can get something tasty and still support local vendors too.
This cold brew was great; very rich bright cherry notes and a real authenticity and juiciness to it. It’s also quite apple-y, and a little bit tart/brighter than I recall it being from the last few iced cups I made – that’s not a complaint though, it’s a very well balanced tartness with the sweetness of the cherry. Plus, the cinnamon undertones are very pleasant and grounding.
I’m glad I nabbed more of this!
Sipdown (266)!
Many thanks to my super kind and generous tea twin VariaTEA for sending some more of this one my way! Up until this most recent fruity matcha collection launch I definitely would have said that the Blueberry Matcha is my favourite flavour offered by DAVIDsTEA – now it’s probably tied with Honeydew, though.
I finished this little sample up as a matcha shot: original plan was to do an iced matcha but I was a bit worried I wouldn’t have quite enough matcha to make it as strong as I’d like, and I really wanted the energy bump from the caffeine so matcha shot it was!
Even if it was quickly finished off, it was pretty stellar/delicious! At this point everyone knows I don’t love the added sugars in DTs matcha but I do think that they work pretty well with the lively blueberry flavour in this particular matcha. It’s like a sweet, blueberry compote or syrup; sort of like you’re put on pancakes. Not quite a “jammy” flavour either; there’s totally a distinction.
Hopefully this one will come back in the future; I know a lot of customers seem bummed out this year that it’s not returning – and the Berries And Cream matcha they did this year IS tasty; but it’s definitely not the same thing.
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.
