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We had a customer order this iced today with extra, extra agave; paid for it and everything. I made the drink for her but low and behold when it was done steeping she was nowhere to be found. So, we waited for her to come back. After all, we are next to the food court so it’s not uncommon for people to order an iced tea and while it’s steeping then go and grab the rest of their meal. Five minutes past, then ten, and then twenty…

After half an hour we just decided to drink it – if she came back, we’d make her a fresh one. I have to say, this was SO sweet. Like, I enjoy Coco Colada a lot but with this much agave it was far too rich for me. I still drank it though; with how sweltering hot the whole mall felt today I needed that iced tea refreshment!

Oh, and the lady who ordered this? Never came back.

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 (215)!

I didn’t have much time today to drink tea at work, ironically enough given I work at a tea store. We had a fire alarm go off midday though so we were all evacuated for around half an hour. Then, I spent a few hours in the back stock room gabbing stock so no tea then. Finally, our close was really hectic/demanding because we were short staffed someone didn’t come in for serious medical reasons.

So this was my ride or die tea today. Sip or die?

I really do love this tea, and I know I’m going to feel the absence of it in my cupboard a lot more once the rainy season hits because it’s very much my go to bad weather tea. I fully intend to restock it though next time I visit Cuppa’T if they’re still carrying it. It’s just so unique…

Gong Fu!

Not fully finished this session – I’m breaking it up over two days because I’m realizing now that realistically it’s much too late at night for this much caffeine and if I drink any more tea I’m going to be up for hours, which just isn’t good for my work schedule tomorrow.

Notes from the first 1/2 (four infusions, not counting the rinse):

- Dry leaf smells STRONGLY of wet earth/minerals
- Smooth right off the bat with thick mouthfeel
- Robustly earthy with lots of wet rock/wood notes
- Medium to light overall body
- Also notes of leather and somewhat of a mushroomy quality
- Subtle developments from infusions over time
- Takes on more of a mineral/sweet aspect
- But really just perfectly embodies the essence of the earth after heavy rain fall

I may or may not log the rest of the session tomorrow though, depending on whether the flavour changes to the point where it’d be noteworthy/anything interesting results from it.

Missed the bus the other day so I had the perfect amount of time at home for a cup of tea before the next one came – but only if I grabbed something that was already upstairs in the kitchen and made that. Since it was a hot cuppa, I went for this one since all the tea in the kitchen is my mom’s and most of it is more suited for iced tea than hot.

Mostly this was smooth and custardy, with almost equal undertones of spices and orange. The orange was nice, albeit it out of place for an “eggnog” flavour. The spices did more to enhance the custard notes in a way that formed the taste of eggnog though. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom all seemed to be present. Even with smooth, silky vanilla and cinnamon/nutmeg coming together though this STILL didn’t have quite the taste of eggnog.

Still delicious though! I’m gonna have to try it again with a spot of milk and see if that changes things for me.

Another attempt at tea infused sugar brittle…

This time I chose a black tea ’cause I thought that with the juice of a lemon added in as well this might make for a unique and somewhat traditional tasting “iced tea” brittle. I picked Kenyan Tinderet because the CTC grade of the tea would allow it to infuse faster/stronger and the tea itself already has a brisk citrus note that would compliment the lemon juice further.

It should have been great. However – it wasn’t.

My mom decided half way through my making this that I was doing it wrong and took over; what she didn’t realize was that I’m using a DRASTICALLY different brittle recipe than her standard one. The result? We burnt this to shit. Like honestly, there’s not even a point in taking pictures because this just came out black.

We did try it though and while it certainly had a VERY intense bitterness to it from being burnt to char there was a hint of something in there that tasted kind of like a burnt marshmallow – the best kind of marshmallow. Still wasn’t enough to keep me from throwing the batch in the trash though. I’d consider trying this one again in the future, though. Though without the backseat driver…

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, with a touch of milk.

The sample comes from VariaTEA and it’s one I’m especially glad that she sent because I very nearly bought some of this over the Christmas season when I saw it at Chapters. In the end, I just couldn’t commit to blindly buying that large of a quantity.

I think I’m happy I made the decision I did though – it’s not that I disliked the tea in any way when I drank it today, though. The problem for me was just that it didn’t taste like eggnog to me. Mostly, it was a vanilla/cinnamon flavour with some other nice, soft underlying spices such as clove and nutmeg. Maybe a hint of ginger, too?

I’m sure I’ll finish the sample she sent with ease – but this is not eggnog, and that’s what I would have wanted from it were I to buy it for myself.

Drank this one again, iced, because I’m trying to get more of a feel for it to decide if it’s something worth taking home to my mom/sister. Neither really love super tart teas, but both are pretty into watermelon. I’m still enjoying it personally, though I do think the more I taste it the more I can’t help but mentally separate the sour apple notes from the watermelon. Once you go down that rabbit hole it’s a little hard to come back…

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.

Gong Fu!

Didn’t track this one because I was just drinking the tea whilst reading more of The Runaways. I’d guesstimate I got around six infusions? They were pretty spaced apart because I was slowly sipping, and I’d find myself really pulled into the comic and then I’d forget about the steeped tea sitting in the pitcher on my tray. Most of the cups I drank were cold by the time I ended up getting to them.

This had a smooth mouthfeel overall, though a bit of a tang to the flavour. I think that’s pretty in line with what I experienced last time I had this one too. It’s kind of just like a really robust/full bodied white tea, with an exaggerated focus on the underlying peachy/stonefruit notes sometimes found in a nice white tea. I’d call this more of a nectarine type of thing, though.

Thank you VariaTEA for the tea!

This is another one from March’s ‘Honey’ themed Tea Sparrow box so I brewed this one up how with some added honey since I’m drinking all these teas with honey for the first tasting. Here are the notes from the tasting:

- I’ve had “Eight Treasures” styled teas before, but it’s been a LONG time
- Can’t remember if I liked ’em overall
- Dry leaf smelled a little like sun tan lotion
- But this was very smooth and fruity, and pleasantly sweet
- Strong dual notes of mango and lychee
- Obviously floral, both from the lychee, rose and base tea(s)
- Had some peachy undertones from the green tea too
- And fairly grassy

I was pretty surprised overall how much I enjoyed this, and I have to wonder just how much of that was due to the honey. It’ll definitely be interesting to try it again without to compare!

Iced Latte.

It actually pretty much just tasted exactly like chocolate milk but with this surprisingly bright top note of ripe raspberry that was really tasty, but which also felt really out of place what with the creamy, silky chocolate notes.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhZMAQLPqgg&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ&index=9

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.