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Somewhat hard to believe that my store still has a small amount of this one kicking around; I feel like it came out ages ago…

I decided to revisit it iced last week though as part of a continued process of revisiting teas I either don’t drink often/forget about or that in general just really aren’t to my tastes. I think this one has to fall somewhat inbetween both of those categories though. I wasn’t really enthused about this particular infusion – I found it was actually too sweet, as opposed to the more toned down and mellow cups I have memories of experiencing in infusions past. Maybe a bad mix of ingredients in the scoops? I don’t really know. The stevia was also more heavy handed than I’ve experienced in the past. I know I often fall on the side of people who actually don’t mind stevia/aren’t really perceptive to the taste of it, but when it’s bad for me it’s bad.

So I guess that’s where I’m currently sitting with this one…

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.

DAVIDsTEA’s newest blend, this time for Easter.

I was a little surprised about the announce of this one; the name is so similar to Sunny Citrus and the line up of the release also lines up very well with the release of Sunny Citrus last year. However, these two are completely different blends with actually a surprising amount of differences when it comes to ingredients, apart from the actual citrus in both of course…

I tried this one iced first; I figured it would probably be a somewhat lemonade like flavour and that seemed appealing to me at the time. It was alright; actually a lot less sour/acidic than I would have guessed it would be just going on the aroma of the dry tisane alone. Not to say it isn’t acidic/tart/sour – but just a more mellow take on those flavour notes. Also, a very even distribution of orange and lemon notes, in my opinion. So, you know, it was kind of lemonade like but with an OJ kick to it too.

I thought it lacked some overall punch/‘wow factor’ though; and in the grand scheme of things I’d say that for me personally this falls into the categories of “smells better than it tastes” and “not a bad tea, but not an exciting one either”. I’m sure some citrus fans will love it though, and I do like that they found a way to sort of ‘bring back’ Sunny Citrus but without the sprinkles that caused so much kerfuffle last year (due to the peanut oil in them). So I think that has to at least be applauded.

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’ve been putting off writing tasting notes for the last few days because I’m sick as a dog and all holed up on the couch under layer upon layer of blankets watching Gossip Girl reruns, but I just finished the season five finale and I think I need to pause for a moment and do something else, so maybe now is a good time to get some writing done…

I had this one last week, well before I started feeling unwell. As always it was a complete and total treat! I did feel like it leaned a little more towards nectarine/generic stone fruit notes rather than specifically peach, but the cream element was so smooth and divine and honestly the weird non-peach notes could also just be because I let this sit for way too long before I actually started drinking it and it was practically already room temperature by that time.

Still lovely regardless.

Sipdown (531)!

I decided that this year, for Easter, I wanted to do something for my coworkers at DAVIDsTEA so I bought a ton of plastic Eggs and filled them all with single cup amounts of tea from my personal stash. A mix of all different types, flavours, and companies.

I had honestly completely forgotten about this tea until I was looking for Pu’erh options to add to the mix and I pulled it from the very, very back of the pu’erh tin section in my shelves. There was actually only about two cups of tea left in the tin so I put one into the egg, and finished the other one off on the spot for an easy sipdown.

It wasn’t bad; tasted just a little bit flat so I added a touch of coconut agave just to spruce it up and give some more punch to the already coconut heavy profile. It made it quite sweet and smooth, with a lovely toasted coconut flavour and complimenting buttery quality. It was a nice enough cup; I wonder why I had completely forgotten about this tea?

Today has been a slow, lazy sort of day – and I’ve enjoyed just kind of doing nothing with it.

This was my first tea of the day, a hot cup that I savored and slowly sipped on while watching some RuPaul’s Drag Race. Season 9 just got added to Netflix, so I’m working my way through the season. So far I think my favourite is Sasha Velour. I’m only a third of the way through the season though, so no spoilers please!

Taste wise this was pleasant but almost all sweet, candied lemon with lemon grass notes and not a whole lot of pear. Pear notes that were present were almost more of an under ripe sort of pear, and not an overly pleasant addition to the flavour. Still a good cuppa overall, I just wanted a whole lot more pear and a little bit less lemon.

Had this one yesterday, and I honestly can’t decide if I liked it or not.

So, I’m a complete sucker for any sort of tea blends that includes hers like sage, thyme, and rosemary so I really thought this would be up my alley – and it definitely did have a lot of really great notes of strong, bold, herbaceous sage that I just loved. However, there was also a lot of lavender and I found that to be somewhat off putting. The combination of lavender and sage also didn’t work great for me; I found myself thinking of bath soaps – and, like, really nice high end bath soaps but bath soap is, well, soap regardless of the price tag attached to it.

The surprising amount of body that the white tea and sage/juniper combo had would have been so great with just like half as much of the lavender – but as is I was left feeling mixed. Huge pros, and huge cons just equates to general adequateness.

I think I need to try some Bao Zhongs from other companies, ‘cause I don’t know whether or not my tastes in general have changed or if it’s just that I’ve fallen out of love with this one in particular – I just feel like the more I drink it the less I actually like it.

This cup was just filled with strong, robust notes of gardenias, garden peas, creamed spinach, and butter – at one point I know I loved it, but this mug? I just hated that combination of flavours. It was so dissatisfying and only felt like a chore drinking it.

So, I don’t know. I am lowering my rating from the mid 80s spot it was in though; I just feel like I can’t in good conscience leave it where it was when I had such a miserable time drinking this one…

Hot with some honey.

Very soothing on the throat, and great to sip on after demolishing a giant pizza all on your own because ginger is really good at settling a growly stomach monster. However still a little too intensely ginger heavy for my tastes – it get less of a ginger tickle and more of a ginger burn in the back of my throat. It’s also definitely significantly better as an iced tea.

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.

Tasting note 6000!!! This wasn’t really a planned tea to have for this milestone, but it does seem fitting that something so unique/fun get the honor…

This is the second of my new, fun rainbow matchas! I think this might be, of the three, the one I’m least excited about – it’s not overly/uniquely flavoured and by the point I’m pretty darn familiar with butterfly pea flower as a tea ingredient. Still, it’s a very cool concept and just because it’s the one I’m least excited about doesn’t mean I’m not excited at all.

I was surprised, opening the tin up, how normal the powder looked. I mean, the Beetberry Matcha was so distinctly different and this just looks like regular matcha. No hints of blue to the be seen. I used my largest chawan for this; less for the size and more because it’s covered in this beautiful blue/teal and gold pattern that reminds me so strongly of waves and fish/mermaid scales – it seemed incredibly fitting for this, supposedly, blue ‘Mermaid Matcha’.

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/BfzQTZFlpW5/?taken-by=ros_strange

Evening just pouring in the first, tiniest bit of water to whisk this up I didn’t really think “blue” as it was whisking. If anything it just looked like a very, very dark green maybe with some turquoise sort of undertones to it? When I was satisfied with how everything had whisked up initially I then added in more water to fill the bowl and it still didn’t look like anything more than a very, very dark turquoise-ish green. I was a little disappointed, to be honest. I mean, it totally wasn’t the normal colour of matcha but it didn’t look like what was advertised either…

Flavour wise, it was quite nice though – tasted a lot like the Ice Cream matcha that Bluebird also carries; which is to say notes of vanilla and carob. I was feeling the creaminess of the matcha, so I decided to amp it up by adding milk to my matcha bowl, and folks, that’s what the magic happened. Suddenly I had so much more than dark turquoise green matcha – I had honest to go BLUE MATCHA! I mean, it looked like fucking Bantha Milk – the blue milk from Star Wars. So pretty, and so interesting to look at! I mean, I wish I didn’t have to add milk to see that beautiful blue colouring, but I’m glad it was there even if it was hiding right under my nose. I feel a lot less deceived about the colouring of the matcha now.

Only other real ‘con’ to this one is just that it has the same issue I’ve found with other matcha from bluebird that the other ground up ingredients in the powder (carob/butterfly pea flower) are somewhat heavy and settled quite quicky. So you either need to drink fast, or stir often.

Ordered crepes yesterday from brunch from a local restaurant that specializes in crepes and Moroccan food; I noticed that they had added a traditionally made Moroccan Mint tea to their menu and so I was fascinated to try it given that the owners are actually Moroccan and I figured it’d really good trying something more authentic.

I got mine iced since I was getting delivery, and with soy milk.

Honestly? It was kind of garbage. I mean, I could tell that they were using fresh mint and I appreciate that – however, it was just very astringent and not nearly as sweet/sugary as I’d expect from a traditional Moroccan Mint tea. I guess it didn’t really taste bad, but it didn’t taste great – and if you’re gonna boast an authentic Moroccan tea from your Moroccan themed restaurant then I’m gonna have high expectations…