16384 Tasting Notes
Bought this one from MissB during her stash sale!
I love a good peach and cream tea, especially when it’s on a black base. One of my favourite is definitely DT’s Southern Belle but over the last four years there have been quite a few pretty good ones.
The dry leaf for this tea smells intriguing: it’s got the same peach aroma as all of the other teas from Impeach, and then a bit of a boozy quality as well. However, as soon as I had it steeped up I knew right away I was going to have some issues with this tea…
The peach flavour in this is actually really nice; it reminds me a lot of the other two peach teas from the company and I enjoyed it in those blends so I’m definitely liking it here too. It’s the “cream” that’s really problematic for me – it tastes God awfully artificial and fake and there’s this gross chalkyness to it in the body of the sip. In the finish, that bitter chemical tasting cream flavour lingers for fucking forever. Then to top it off, something just seems kind of rubbery tasting, kind of latex gloves? No clue where that’s coming from, but it’s definitely also a turn off.
So – I foresee lots of experimentation with this one in the future to make it tolerable/drinkable. Damn it – I so wanted to like this one so I had another peach/cream tea on hand!
We just had a short little thunder storm, so of course as soon as I heard the rolling thunder I whipped together a Gong Fu set, brewed up some water for my carafe, measured the tea out and was on the porch bracing for the rain!
I got to witness that amazing first crack of rain as the pavement suddenly went from water free to drenched in less than three seconds. So satisfying! The storm stopped about two thirds of my way into the session, and after that I just basked in the petrichor until I ran out of water. I’m literally just back in from outside so here are my ‘notes’ from the session – or more realistically, here’s everything I remember before it vanishes from my brain.
First things first I started with a 5 second rinse, and then a rest.
7 Seconds/Infusion One
- Definitely some astringency; a rougher infusion
- A mix of grass/peat with a tangy soup
10 Seconds/Infusion Two
- Still astringent but less so
- Top note is this tangy “apricot” like quality
- Carries a bit into the soup, but mostly this mineral/peat/artichoke sort of flavour
15 Seconds/Infusion Three
- Pretty well smoothed out
- Light apricot tang/peat/artichoke/mineral/hints of anise
- The taste of the finish/aftertaste reminds me of licking stamps
??? Seconds/Infusion Four
- Totally forgot to time this one; I was mesmerized with the rain… oops.
- Smoothest infusion yet
- Same notes as above but add a faint cream/buttery quality to the list
20 Seconds/Infusion Five
- Has kind of lost the “apricot” note
- Has a really nice sweetness to the body though
- Finish is taking on a bit of a heady floral quality
30 Seconds/Infusion Six
- Repeat of the previous infusion, but we’ve lost the buttery quality
35 Seconds/Infusion Seven
- Same but milder overall
- With the exception of the sweetness which is really bright and noticeable
40 Seconds/Infusion Eight
- Lightest infusion yet
- Mostly artichoke top notes, sweet body, floral finish
And at this point I ran out of water, so I just ended the session. I feel like I got the best out of the tea anyway; and the rain was over. It was a very peaceful session all in all, though! I’m really enjoying these more regular Gong Fu sessions out on the porch!
Simple.
Water + Chawan + Chasen.
This is still one of the most buttery matches I’ve ever had to date; it’s intensely creamy and silky, and the vegetal notes are only softened and made to feel like a real treat because of the buttery quality. It’s got a clean finish, as well. Just good matcha, really.
Iced tea.
Very light, fresh and dewy pear flavour with the same hints of creaminess you’d get in the flesh of a Bartlett pear. There was some floral notes, probably a combination of the pear itself and the green tea matched with it. Sadly, all of these brilliant tasting notes were masked by a very choppy, grassy green tea with an astringent edge to it.
This could be so good if the base was better; but as is it’s just pretty average.
Thanks for it regardless, VariaTea! I’m always up for a pear tea.
Cup on the way home from work.
For an aged oolong with a pretty heavy roast on it, this is really smooth. It’s obviously very roasty tasting, and has a lot of woodyness to it as well with hints of earthiness. All of that is more of a top note sort of flavour though, which gives way to a surprisingly soft and fruity body flavour – think honey, raisins, red fruits, and maybe even a bit of French bread sort of sweetness. It’s all very nice, and really pulls you into the sip. That sweetness sort of sits on the tip of my tongue for a long time, while the finish slips back into the woody quality, with sweet nutty notes to it too. Occasionally, though not completely throughout, I felt like there was a soft cinnamon note too; in combo with the honey and French Bread notes it actually almost created this “cinnamon bun” sort of flavour, or at the very least a cinnamon sugared toast sort of thing. Cinnamon pastries anyway, regardless. I just adore the sweetness and complexities of this medium bodied aged oolong; it’s a delight.
Iced tea.
I’ve definitely noticed at work that more than other teas, I tend to gravitate quite strongly towards the limited edition teas because I know that they’re not going to be options for me to drink forever.
Among all the many teas released this summer, I do think it’s easy for this one to get lost among the options. I mean frankly, a lot of the teas kind of resemble one another: this one, Blackberry Blizzard, Sparkling Sangria, Frozen Raspberry, and even Rose All Day (a little bit) all kind of smoosh together into one big generic fruity iced tea in my head. So much overlap, honestly…
Still, I do like this one a lot – it’s refreshing and while, yes, it’s kind of generically fruity I do think you can break it down into its key components and enjoy them as something that’s not just one big mashed up fruity mess. This is raspberry, orange, and pineapple and maybe at first glance it’s ‘just fruity’ but all of those flavours are present as their own thing too. In fact, this cup in particular was more orange/pineapple heavy! Sweet orange, too. Quite tasty.
So… yeah.
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.
Let my coworker Kandyce pick a drink for me – complete control of what it was, down to the sweeteners in it. She chose this one, iced with some honey.
I don’t know; it was drinkable and I definitely finished it but I’m still just not a fan of this one. Legitimately, only way I’ve found where I really like this one is as a latte. On it’s own, it’s just too apple heavy, and the green tea base tastes weird to me alongside the lime notes. It’s cacophonous in a way I struggle to put my finger on; and the honey didn’t smooth that over. In fact, I think it just made the apple notes sweeter/more prominent.
At least I tried it though; you never know if your palates changing if you don’t revisit things you’ve not been a fan of in the past…
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.
Decided to try this one iced after all the success I had sampling it out as an iced tea around mother’s day! I’m still on the fence about buying it for myself as well, so I figured this might help me make up my mind too.
It’s actually VERY good iced. The bergamot comes through pretty clearly, but it doesn’t feel like an Earl Grey type tea to me at the same time. It’s just so different, despite that familiar bergamot. The richness and overall creaminess is bananas though; it’s such a smooth, silky vanilla and the white chocolate tastes great despite not having the world’s best effect on the mouthfeel/texture. After a while, I decided to add some milk in too to just make this even richer, and it also very strongly complimented the creamyness and vanilla notes. Plus, the mouthfeel felt a bit cleaner once there was some added milk too.
I think if we were just to leave it like that, this would still be a very nice/solid tea but the piece de resistance is that very faint apple note in the background/finish which just adds a needed, but soft, extra dimension to the flavour. I’m still on the fence about buying this one because I don’t feel like I need more bergamot things in my cupboard, but this was still a great idea as far as beverages go.
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.
So, the DAVIDsTEA blog posted a recipe a while ago about turmeric lattes and actually, somewhat surprisingly, we’ve had several people come in to the store looking for “the turmeric tea for the latte”. Admittedly that’s a bit frustrating because we’re not carrying a turmeric tea at the moment…
However, all the excitement did make me pull out my tin of this tea and brew up a mug of it. I didn’t go full blown latte because I’m trying to conserve my leaf of this one since I really enjoy it and we’re not selling it anymore – but I did add a bit of milk.
This one is just still really good; it’s sweet from the pineapple and quite earthy with a light kick of ginger and lingering turmeric spice in the back of the throat. The milk adds a perfect creaminess and thickens the mouthfeel, and any spice that maybe would have been too much for my delicate white girl taste buds is muted/cancelled out.
#BringThisBackNextYear
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.
- Smells INTENSELY of cardamom/cinnamon
- Way more spice notes than apple; the apple is a fainter undertone
- Has a “plumpness”/sweetness to it though!
- All the cardamom and ginger leave an intense tingle along my tongue
- I do get an apple pie vibe, so that was totally acheived
- Don’t really understand the place that lemongrass has in this blend, honestly
Overall my consensus is…
I need to try this one again to form more of an opinion.
