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Made a day trip to Old Fashioned Foods (like this combo of vegan/health foods store) the other day; I was looking for jackfruit and Elderflower soda and while I did find both of those things I actually ended up getting a much bigger haul overall; coconut curry bowls, mango crisps, and a box of tea.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever had Pukka tea before – it’s bagged tea so it really hasn’t ever been on my radar; however the packaging is SO CUTE and as I was shopping the store I just found my eyes flicking back to the tea shelf looking at the boxes over and over. I decided I needed to get at least one box; and after skimming the flavour options I chose this one for a couple reasons. Firstly, one of the only kinds of bagged tea that I do actually REALLY like to have on hand is lemon tea because when I feel really sick I don’t like making loose leaf and instead rely very heavily on bagged lemon tea. Also, I thought the combination of lemon and mandarin, verses regular orange, was really interesting and I wanted to see if they could actually get the flavour of mandarin orange clearly across.

My first impression is kind of… ‘meh’ .

I mean, the lemon comes through pretty clearly and nicely so I know I definitely wont have trouble finishing this one off as a ‘sick’ tea for those times I just can’t bring myself to do it up as loose tea. The mandarin didn’t really become noticeable until after a good ten minutes of steeping (I had left the teabag in the mug) – but once it was noticeable it was distinctly mandarin and not just typical orange. Another thing I observed was that there’s lots of licorice root sweetness in this one; and that’s a good thing if you’re sick and want something soothing for your throat, but otherwise? Definitely not my favourite flavour…

So, decent tea overall; but ultimately I wanted it as a sick tea option and I think that’s what I’m getting so I’m happy with the buy.

Got this as a Chai Latte from Cookies by George, a specialty coffee/cookie shop based in my mall. I don’t generally get drinks from them because they’re largely coffee based and that just isn’t my jam, but their cookies and bagels? Holy fuck have those become a routine part of my work week…

Something compelled me to get a Chai Latte the other day though; and this is the brand that they use for their lattes. It wasn’t bad; very, very sweet and not actually that spicey overall. I suppose in the grand scheme of things that could be a negative or a positive depending on what you’re wanting out of a Chai. I liked it well enough though, and was impressed with what I got given that this is a latte mix (AKA powder). So, it could have been a whole lot worse IMO. Plus, CBG adds a nice cinnamon sugar topping on top which was really good, and a nice touch!

Just chipping away at my tin of this one now; trying to get in the sipdown…

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWwfT8yyz0Y

I’m SUPER into this new Wombats album right now; so many teas lately have become highlighted by having these songs as a backdrop. I also really, really love that this is a love song but the main hook of the song is “I like the way your brain works” and it praises actions/personality/intelligence rather than aesthetics.

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.

Dark, warm and inviting with caramelized sugar, molasses, toffee, and roasted nut notes being the dominant driving flavour force here – paired up with a touch of creaminess and a sweet, candied orange peel undertone and finish this does a decent job of recreating the taste of an orange infused Brulee dish; I think it could use a bit of extra creaminess (vanilla, for example) to push it closer to that direction and there’s a bit of a char to the taste (the roasted oolong) that detracts just a bit for me. Overall, though, it’s a nice enough tea.

#TryAllTheBubbleTea

Guys, I’ve almost had all the bubble tea flavours! Well, at least at the bubble tea place in the mall I work at, anyway. Not counting this one, I’ve just got two to go!

This one was mango – and it was really good but also probably the one flavour I’ve tried that was the most like what I expected it to be. Not overly sweet, milky, or bland but just a well balanced and authentic mango puree kind of flavour. I liked it but it’s not a stand out for me either; probably falls middle of the pack.

Last few times I’ve made this I think I’ve felt like the strawberry in it was far too mild, but I actually thought it had a lot of presence in this mug and came through very distinctly. It was a very natural strawberry taste; perhaps leaning a little to that kind of sharp, slightly under ripe sort of profile. The grassyness and floral nature of the oolong really complimented it though.

Tea sachet, rather than loose.

Made this one with a smidgen of vanilla agave and a hearty splash of milk. Chai typically isn’t my thing but this is one that I’m ok with on the very, very rare occasion – mostly because it’s a sweeter, vanilla laced chai and for me that removes some of the spice harshness. I got love of cardamom and clove from this mug of it in particular.

To be honest, I’m not really sad in general when any Chai tea in DT’s collection gets retired because it just isn’t my thing – but I think this one was largely retired because its very similar to Saigon Chai and they wanted to focus on just one of the two. So, while I wasn’t personally sad to see the Chai collection reduced a bit, I wish this would have stayed instead of Saigon Chai.

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.

Latte, with some rock sugar.

Thank you Starfevre for this tea! This is one that really fascinates me, and I like that it’s a white tea that goes in an area you don’t see nearly as much as fruity/floral teas; a more spiced, dessert type of flavour.

This one actually really hits the ‘cookie’ element on the head; very, very sugar cookie like in terms of flavour with this sweet almond-y undertone to it – and the added milk because I did this one up as a latte really pushes that too to this sort of ‘cookies and milk for Santa’ kind of level/imagery. It’s quite nice. I do like the spices too though; the ginger, cinnamon, and clove are all very well balanced and definitely remind me of Christmas. In fact, to be fair, I think basically anything that has both cinnamon and clove in it gives me at least some degree of Christmas vibes. Only hints of orange, mostly in the finish, but still very nice and complimentary. Really, really complete layers of flavour that just come together to create this succinct recreation that’s perfectly accurate.

I loved it.

Sipdown (528)!

This doesn’t taste bad, but it leaves me bored. The blackberry flavour comes through very clearly/distinctly but it’s kind of flat and it tastes very obviously fake to me. Not like chemical/harsh artificial fake but more like a muted blackberry candy type of fake flavour. I think if there was a bit of an acidic bite to this, like lemon or grapefruit, this would be a much more dynamic and exciting flavour profile – it’d still have that kind of mellow candied aspect but would lean just a little bit towards a more natural, nuanced profile.

This is just… fine. Not something I’ll miss.

Left the teabag in this while I was drinking this; didn’t ruin the cup but did make for a lot more apple notes in the infusion – kind of buried the chocolate a little bit. The result was an infusion that tasted more like apple slices dipped in marshmallow fluff rather than S’mores. Still delicious though.