16396 Tasting Notes
Steeped up ‘Grandpa Style’ at work the other day.
Oddly, with a longer steep time and at a cooler temperature I actually kind of get more of those vanilla and rootbeer notes that I felt like I was missing out on the first time I tried this one! Also, several people have suggested to me doing it up as an iced latte to exaggerate that quality, so I think I’m gonna try it! I’ll report if that pushes those root beer notes to the forefront and further…
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.
First tea of the morning today.
It feels weird to me that this is my first time trying this tea; it’s always been so popular and I’ve definitely had many chances to try it in the past but this is my first time going for it. Honestly? I think I let myself hype it up too much because although I don’t think it’s bad at all I do find myself disappointed by it.
I mean, it really nails the blueberry aspect. That part is rich, and sweet and very very potent and I’m totally in love with it. I mean, I literally just said in a tasting note a few days ago that I deeply love blueberry black teas in general. The part of this that somewhat flops for me, though, is the ‘Cream Cheese Danish’ aspect. I taste pretty well nothing in this blend that would help me to make that flavour connection at all. I mean, to me this would be way better if simply described as like a blueberry syrup or compote kind of flavour instead of throwing in the pastry comparison, which is just a miss for me.
But other than that inaccuracy in regard to the name, I did enjoy the profile overall.
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrJ0mh52Q2M&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ&t=2s&index=1
So there are… a lot of ingredients in this blend and I was doubtful that they would come together in a way that actually tasted like apple pie but much to my surprise and delight when I steeped up my first cup of this it was actually pretty perfect.
It was definitely one of those situations where if you focus on the profile too much you’ll start to break up the overall flavour into all of the individual things that make up ‘the whole’ so I definitely had to actively work against myself at some moments to not do that and to just let myself enjoy the overall taste. ‘Cause the overall taste? It’s scary accurate to apple pie! Complete with like sweet filling, tart slices of apple, and buttery, flaky cinnamon dusted crust. A perfectly balanced dessert profile that captures all the things I love in the real thing!
Gong Fu session from last week.
This is a tea that I really, really deeply enjoy but up until this point had only steeped up Western before. I knew it was going to be beautiful Gong Fu though, so I really wanted to try it that way and experience it in all its glory. Lately I feel like I’ve taken a much more casual approach to Gong Fu, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all – in fact it’s made my sessions a lot more therapeutic in not having a pen and paper near me to take notes. However, it’s also meant less structured tasting notes and a harder time conveying what I’m experiencing to others…
So, you know, pros and cons either way.
I think I steeped around ten infusions total – I could have likely done more but I was itching to move on to the next tea as it was something I was also really excited about doing Gong Fu that day. Water temp was about 90C throughout the session; I find this one produces some really lovely flavour with water so close to boiling.
This was delicious right from the very first infusion all the way up until the last. There are a lot of flavours packed into this tea but overall ones relatively consistent throughout the session were cinnamon raisin bread, malt, honey, and leather. Depending on which end of the session we’re talking about there were also notes of dark cherries, autumn leaves, toasted nuts, and cocoa powder. Really beautiful profile and tea overall; rich and sweet with some very lovely tasting notes! As always, I highly recommend giving it a go.
Cup from last night.
This is still almost entirely just a brew of allspice and ginger with very little of anything that even remotely makes me think of butter beer. I mean, as a stand alone tea it’s about average; I don’t hate allspice and the slight coconut sweetness is a nice aspect. This cup in particular had an awful mouthfeel though. Very thick, and oily with a weird powdery texture from all the fine spice dust that made it through the filter. Bleeeeeehhh.
At least it’s one cup closer to a sipdown. I’ll make it there. Gradually…
Hot cuppa from earlier in the week.
Really, really surprised how much this one has grown on me. Perhaps yet another case of tea Stockholm syndrome? Or maybe it’s just that I’ve learned the perfect steeping parameters for it to really work to my palate – about half as much tea leaf and only a three minute steep. Doing it up that way it doesn’t taste like painfully tart hibiscus extract and is instead more of a sweet, fruit punch flavoured candy sort of concoction. Still a little tart, but also apple, papaya, and pineapple notes!
I don’t know – maybe a combo of both.
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.
With a splash of skim.
So, the blend of black teas in this is going to be changing soon, or possibly depending on the store near where you live has already changed. Basically; this tea is getting an update and stores have already started phasing out the old blend and switching it out with the new one – eventually they’ll all switch it just depends on a combo of how quickly your store sells out of it and where in the country they’re located as to whether or not they’ve received the new version.
My store hasn’t yet, so I decided I’d make a cup of this one and just make sure to revisit it now while I still can. It’s not really a favourite of mine; of all the breakfast blends I think it’s actually probably my least favourite with the Irish Breakfast being my first. It’s not bad either though; I just prefer more of a bready or malty quality to my breakfast teas and I find this one is more fruity with some relatively distinct notes of muscat and brisk citrus, with that sort of crunchy autumn leaf sort of quality to the undertones. It’s nice; just not my preferred profile.
I do look really forward to trying the new version though and seeing how that one stacks up compared to the other breakfast blends. Who knows, maybe I’ll wind up with a new favourite!?
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 (516)!
TeaTaxi really does have some of the weirdest named teas…
Anyway, I’ve been holing onto this tea for a little while now waiting until I was deeply committed to a binge watch of something to break it out and finish it off during what I can only assume was the intended timing of such a tea. Well that moment finally happened over the last few days – someone introduced me to The Good Place and in the span of two days I finished both seasons of it. Holy shit it was an AMAZING show, and now I’m just chomping at the bit waiting for more episodes.
I broke this one out right as I was starting season two, and I wasn’t really sure what to expect flavour wise. I just knew that it felt right to be steeping it up. I don’t know; I guess it’s basically like a pineapple and raspberry flavour? I can see that – the overall profile was definitely fruity though in a weird and somewhat artificial and generic way. I think if I was blind tasting I’d have probably just called it slightly tropical and berry tasting though instead of really pinpointing those two flavours specifically. Knowing what they’re meant to be, though? Yeah, I can see it.
It was honestly just ok – and maybe that’s for the best? I think if you’re mid binge, and so obviously at that point where you’re REALLY invested in whatever you’re watching, then you need a tea that’s not so good or so bad that it’s distracting from the show. So if that’s your main criteria, then this nails that. It’s decidedly average, which in a way makes it perfect.
Yeah, I wouldn’t buy it again but it felt pretty perfect finishing it off.
Free sample from my Vahdam order.
Honestly? I didn’t think I’d like this one – I imagined it would be far too spicy/chai like for me to get into overall and to be frank I generally don’t mesh super well with the whole ginger/lemon combo either unless I’m feeling sick. This was surprisingly tasty though, and I actually really enjoyed the cup!
I definitely got Turmeric from this, but it was less than I’d imagined there being and I liked it paired with the bulk of the other spices – I could have done without the ginger, but the cinnamon and cardamom? Surprisingly strong, and actually fairly sweet too. I found myself really reminded of spiced halvah! The East Indian woman, Em, who owns the convenience store near where I grew up used to sometimes give my brother and I little cubes of cardamom halvah when we went in with our mom and that shit was phenomenal. So, in a way this actually tasted weirdly nostalgic for me too?
As for the citrus, I really didn’t taste it? There were slight undertones of it but so gentle that had I been blind drinking this one I would not have believed that it was supposed to be a strong enough presence in the tea to warrant being included in the name. In fact, I feel like the bergamot in the blend was significantly stronger than the lemongrass. And I know bergamot is citrus but definitely not in the conventional way and I’d argue that to the bulk of the world it’s not a flavour they actually associate with citrus.
Anyway; semantics of citrus aside it was a good blend and I enjoyed the cup!
Cold Brew Sipdown (516)!
Last tea from Story of My Tea to finish off; like the others this one basically come in a very large tea bag for you to make iced tea with, but I opted to just cold brew it largely out of laziness. This one was pleasant enough; I really, really enjoy blueberry black teas and in fact my most logged tea here on Steepster is a blueberry black tea so I’m always excited to try more variations while at the same time probably also very critical given how much I love them. Sort of a catch 22; I love them but I will tear them apart nearly every time I drink one…
I thought the blueberry flavour in this had a nice overall presence though; it wasn’t too light but it didn’t entirely overshadow the black tea base either which is definitely what I want out of a good blueberry black tea. Biggest complaint though is overall sweetness; it took me a while to place it but finally I landed on the fact that what the blueberry notes were reminding me of was blueberry syrup! Back when I was living in Saskatoon there was a little cafe at the end of my block – I only went a couple of times, but they made their own blueberry syrup and I think that’s what this is reminding me of. I mean, the syrup tasted good and this tastes good but the point is that it tastes sweetened and just a little unnatural and I was hoping for something would be sort of naturally sweet/mimic the taste of actual blueberries. So it is a touch disappointing.
But overall I liked it despite some small issues, and I think it was probably the best tea I had overall from Story Of My Tea as well. Don’t think I’d repurchase/order it though.
