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Recently, I made this as a cold brew and I loved it. I thought the lemon was bright and sweet, but not overly or in an unrealistic way and I liked the buttery, almond pastry undertones. It reminded me a lot of a more refined and light tasting incarnation of DT’s Lemon Pound Cake. Though this was the OG, not LPC.

On the flip side, none of my coworkers enjoyed it. One said it tasted like pledge…

So, that was sad.

Happy Easter, Steepster! :)

I can’t really call this one tea infused cooking or baking but I decided to try my hand at tra infused popsicles again! The first ones I made were the matcha and avacado ones which were pretty good; these were a touch more traditional though.

Basically, I just mixed cold brewed Magic Dragon tea with muddled dragon fruit and grapes; not mixed together though. One half of the mold was the Magic Dragon/dragon fruit mix and the other was the mix with grapes.

The tea aspect of the popsicles tastes great either way, and I suppose that the fruit didn’t taste bad. However, texture-wise I didn’t love the dragonfruit mixed popsicles that much. The grape ones had a lovely added flavour though, and the texture worked really nice too. I’ve actually already finished those ones; still making my way through the others.

Fun, tasty, and easy to make though!

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.

I’ll write a more proper tasting note when I drink this Gong Fu, but for now here are some jot notes from the Western styled mug of this that I happily slurped on whilst watching Jungle Book:

- Thick mouthfeel, smooth profile
- Earthy, wet wood, walnut, dark wood, cocoa, brown sugar, camphor
- Just slightly roasty
- Full bodied; clean finish

PS. I totally recommend watching the new live action Jungle Book. I thought it was really well done, and I loved pretty much all of it – except Christopher Walken kind of creeped me out a lot as King Louie. Which I suppose is the point. I don’t know; that ONE aspect didn’t work for me.

Iced Tea! And also just jot notes because I feel lazy today.

- Top notes of graham cracker and cinnamon
- The cinnamon was surprisingly present; oddly worked for an iced tea
- The berry was a bit generic, but I guess that’s the point?
- Sort of leans JUST SLIGHTLY towards raspberry
- A little floral, from the oolong
- Definitely creates an nice overall “pie” flavour though
- A split between feeling rather perfumed/artificial and natural with clean finish
- Like, the ‘top’ was more artificial, & it transitions into a cleaner, smoother natural finish

Also, for anyone wondering if the graham crackers in the blend taste good I have to say that while they work in the steeped tea I do not recommend eating them straight. I stole a bit out of the dry leaf, and deeply regret eating it. Bleck.

Well, I was correct – this tea does make a pretty stellar latte.

I drank it earlier today on shift as an iced latte; I can’t even remember what the last hot tea I drank was. At this point, with the current weather, drinking hot tea on shift is just too much on top of working. I need something cool, and refreshing to not feel burnt out.

The chocolate marries really well to the milk though, creating a very silky lighter milk chocolate taste. The orange does blend super seamlessly as it still stands out as very bright and juicy. Despite not mixing together perfectly, it does still compliment the overall flavour a lot though. It’s a nice sweet blend with that great juxtaposition between sweet, creamy indulgent chocolate which is more of a candy/confection sort of thing and naturally sweet fruit notes.

Drank this one iced the other day,

It’s not bad iced – the apple is sweet and a solid top note which transitions into a somewhat fleeting body note. The cinnamon and clove both feel very drawn out/exaggerated, and are strong presences in the finish. The anise sort of fuses with the apple in the body, in a way. I like the level of sweetness overall, and I think it’s a more unique fruity option for an iced tea. That said, I also think it’s still quite a bit better hot.

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 Sipdown (212)!

#ProjectTeaWall

Finally, after months of this tea being on back order we got it back in stock which means I can cross it off the list for Project Tea Wall. Not that I’m particularly excited to do so, though. Nothing about this blend really appeals to me – it’s a chamomile heavy herbal with hibiscus and licorice root of all things. The only ingredient that could be redeeming, I fear, is the lemon myrtle. But even that is… not promising.

I chose to cold brew this because I was pretty sure I would dislike it anyway, so I wanted to at least make this tasting memorable/unique. I already understand why this appeals to people as a hot tea/bed time tea but I’d like to be able to offer some other sort of perspective of it.

The taste is much like I thought: predominantly the STRONG taste of gross, floral chamomile with a wickedly sweet licorice root and fennel finish to the sip. However, I definitely though I’d hate it more than I actually am. The lemon is surprisingly strong compared to all these other really dominant flavour notes and it’s counterbalancing them enough that I can handle the overall taste. It’s sweet, and fruity without any acidic qualities, and really what it’s reminding me of is lemon meringue pie filling! If only that was the only flavour here, I think this blend and I would be pretty good friends. That’s not the case though, and that flavour note isn’t enough to completely negate everything else.

However, for a blend I was almost certain that I’d dislike because of the ingredients this holds up pretty well. And, it’s not that I think it’s actually a bad blend overall – all my issues with it purely stem from the fact that the key ingredients/flavours are things that I already know I don’t personally like. Anyone who doesn’t have a strong negative bias towards them like I do would probably be all over this as a night time tea.

Plus, it’s a lot better than the straight chamomile so there’s that.

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.

Found myself craving this one earlier this evening, so I indulged and made a mug.

The orange notes are so rich and juicy, as the name implies they ought to be. That’s my favourite part of the cup, and that sweet citrus sweetness perfectly satisfied what I was craving today. Unfortunately, the finish of the sip cuts in with a rather strongly cloying taste that comes from a combination of the blackberry leaf (which is really heavy handed) and the hibiscus. I normally don’t mind blackberry leaf, but it really gets to me with this blend in particular. Something about how it interacts with the other ingredients in this tea makes everything else taste somewhat artificial, and too sweet.

It’s hard drinking a tea knowing you’re going to be over the moon about some aspects, but equally turned off by others. It’s a real catch 22.

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.

I lied about being done with the sugar brittle experimentation;

I totally intended to take a break, but I got rather bored today on my day off and decided to try something really experimental and different. I made a red chili jelly infused brittle! Originally I was going to use Lapsang Souchong for the tea side of things, but I got nervous that would end up being too much flavour going on so I opted for this instead. In addition to the chili pepper jelly, I also added the juice of a lime and a bit of red currant jam to make sure there was some sweetness and acidity to the recipe as well. The jelly I used, after all, is quite spicy and I didn’t want it to totally dominate.

Structurally, this set beautifully although the colour isn’t as pretty as I’d hoped. I was wishing for a slight red hue from the two different jellies used but instead I ended up with kind of a dark amber/gold looking thing with a bit of cloudyness to it.

The taste is… interesting. There’s quite a bit of overall sweetness, and I feel like the sweet notes kind of pull you in different directions. There’s this almost mellow sweetness from the red currant which also draws out the plumy notes of the tea. However, the lime gives this more of a tang/acidity which is a bit polarizing to the softer red fruit/stonefruit notes. The roastiness of the tea itself is pretty lost; most of its contributing flavour comes from the plum/stonefruit notes it has.

As for the chili pepper, it doesn’t have the punch you would expect if you’ve ever tried the jelly on its own. In fact, you almost don’t taste it at all initially. Rest assured, it’s there though and the subtle spicy/heat from it kicks in after you’ve been sucking on the brittle for a while. Creeping, building, and hanging out in the background of the more glaringly obvious fruit notes.

I kind of like it, but not at much as some of the other flavours I’ve made. It certainly is unique though!

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 (213)!

Really sad to have finished this one off, but it was the oldest matcha in my cupboard and I’ve been hoarding this last serving for far too long. The last chawan of it I decided would be best appreciated straight and hot, prepared traditionally and I’m glad I chose to do it that way because it really let me savor the flavours, and fully appreciate the experience of drinking this tea. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my hands on more of this one in the future.