15662 Tasting Notes
This was the second tea that I picked for the Hudson Bay’s perfume and tea pairing event!
While I selected Grapefruit Granita because of the citrus notes it had in common with the perfumes, I chose this one because of the floral lavender notes! About half of the different perfumes had either jasmine or rose notes so I thought the pairing of a similar heady floral notes would create a really nice bouquet effect. This tea also has a lot fruit notes to it too though; strawberry and blueberry! I figured that this tea would work better than just a generic floral tasting tea, like a jasmine, because the fruit notes would diversify the profile while keeping the fun, fresh summery feeling of the collection. Since we already had a lot of citrus going on, what with the other perfumes and Grapefruit Granita, berry seemed like the perfect differing floral flavour. Berries and citrus go so well together, too!
I enjoyed having this one to sip on during the event while I explained the teas and how they related to the perfumes to various people – I’ve always really enjoyed the strawberry and blueberry notes in the tea, but trying it side by side with all the designer perfumes made me appreciate the lavender notes in a new light.
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.
So, I had an interesting work day yesterday!
The Hudson Bay in our mall recently had a “Scents and Sips” event to promote a new line up of perfumes they’re selling – and to help promote our store sponsored them and provided the “sips” for the event. It was a good partnership all around!
I had a fun time with it too because I got to put a different aspect of my Sommelier training into practice and select two different teas from our collection that best paired with the different perfumes they were promoting. I ended up selecting this one and Serenity Now because they were looking for an option with caffeine and one without. A lot of the collection featured scents with varying citrus notes so I thought that the citrus in this tea would marry nicely with the fresh citrus in the perfume. I didn’t want to pick something like Countess of Seville though because I thought that might be a little too citrus heavy – thankfully this one has the ginger in it which adds a grounding element that keeps the pairing from feeling too over the top.
So, I spent a few hours sipping on this one during the day! It was my first time trying it hot, and I think I actually liked it better as a hot tea! The ginger just comes through in a more natural way, and I didn’t find it nearly as artificial. For the first time, I think I actually got why people enjoy this one so much!
And the people at the event enjoyed it too!
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.
Had a sore throat the other day at work, so I knocked back a few hot cups of this tea with honey. I’m not saying it’s a fix for all your ailments or anything – but it definitely goes a long way to making you feel a little better. Suddenly talking to customers hurt a little less, and the headache I was nursing broke a little bit – I think largely thanks to the mint.
In fact, I ended up feeling well enough to head to a show with a few coworkers where another one of our coworkers was performing with his band! It was pretty fun – good atmosphere, and of course Tanner nailed it! I already liked his music, but hearing it live for the first time was actually a fantastic experience.
They closed out the show with a cover of this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP07Oyr7enQ
Very fun! Definitely a weird genre class given than this is their normal style of music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j-96urmfR0
Still, great night!
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!
So, we’ve got a couple new hires at work right now that we’ve been training throughout the week; of course a huge part of that is learning how to make the different drinks that we sell. So, who makes a better guinea pig than staff members?
So to practice, I had one of our new tea guides whip me up a latte – and it was good. She did it perfectly! Complete with tons of awesome milk foam. The milk foam is the best part! Especially when you’re following it up with a slurp of tasting maple syrup tasting tea. Hard to beat 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.
Toasty morning cuppa.
The flavour of this one is pretty shot now; it basically just tastes like any old Genmaicha blend. There’s nothing special about it anymore, sadly. That’s what I get for hoarding my tea like a mad woman. And so, on that note I’ve put this one in the sipdowns section of my stash…
Hopefully finishing this one off soon.
Tea Soda!
We’ve been experimenting with “sparkling iced tea”/tea pop in stores lately when sampling; rimming the cups with the different flavours of cocktail sugars we sell using our agave, cutting up the gummy candies into garnishes for the glasses and then adding a little sploosh of sparkling water! It’s actually been pretty fun coming up with the recipes and pairings.
While we were sampling this with the Strawberry Kiwi cocktail sugar, I opted to try it on its own because I find the stawberry kiwi flavour a little bit too sweet for my liking. I’m not totally sure what I expected to get from this one – something summery, and refreshing with a bit of effervescence? That’s sort of what I got.
It is lighter, and a bit more refreshing. In fact, I’m able to taste a note in addition to the others I’ve tasted with prior cups (Welch’s grape juice, currants, hibiscus) – something new! What is that? The floral notes of the rose! It’s actually kind of cooling seeing this ingredient brought out by the new preparation style. That said, it did remind me a little bit of the fake “sparkling wine” I used to have to drink in church for communion…
I wanted to like it, a lot! Especially because it totally reminded me of wine. However, I just really don’t want to be reminded of church when I’m drinking tea either.
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.
Hmmm…
Not nearly as mind blowing as the last time I had this. I mean, it was still really delicious and it totally had lots of vanilla flavour, but also lots of average quality black tea base coming through which kind of negated some of that delicious vanilla flavour. The nuanced rose and other floral notes in the backdrop of the sip are pleasant though; I didn’t really observe them the first time around – but they’re present here.
I wonder what the difference in flavour is? I think I used the same amount of leaf as last time but maybe not the same steep time or temperature? Hard to say.
Happy Mother’s Day Steepster Moms!
My little sister made our mom breakfast in bed today, and I contributed the tea! I chose this one because I thought the bright, citrus flavours would compliment the platter of chocolate chip waffles and fruit salad that Sister Strange had concocted. I was pretty spot on; it was sort of like having a glass of orange juice on the side. Hot orange juice.
Actually, really what this reminded me of was DAVIDsTEA’s La La Lemon blend. It’s got the same strong, sturdy black tea base with notes of lemon and orange. However, my biggest complaint with that tea has always been that it’s rather pithy and lacks the brightness and sweetness that I would want from a citrus black tea. This tea, though? Not the case! Everything I’ve wanted from La La Lemon – the juiciness/brightness and strong lemon/orange notes – was there! So delicious, and really perfect for a first cuppa in the morning.
Hot Cup – underleafed and a little understeeped to try and cut back on tartness.
It worked! This cup was very fruity, but not very sour/tart. In fact, more than anything else it tasted strongly of red currants! It also had a touch of rooibos woodyness to it, and the faintest “red wine” flavour. Like, a dry red wine though.
Not half bad. An improvement, to be sure.
Drank this one again iced on shift – it was my favourite when I went through all the cocktail teas the first time around, and I wanted to revisit it to get second thoughts/make sure what I thought of it the first time around wasn’t just excitement from all the hype I’d built up.
It was interesting trying it again – I still really liked it and I think the “Welch’s Grape Juice” observation totally still holds up. However, I was more acutely aware of the hibiscus notes this time around. Also, I think I picked up on more of the currant, too!
It’s also strange for me, because normally I can down an iced tea really quickly. Especially when I’m working, and I’m moving around all the times doing things and I need to keep hydrated. However, drinking this one I felt way more compelled to sip at it slowly. In fact, it took me about three hours to finish off my mug of it! It’s just not something I could ever chug, though I’m not really sure why. Thoughts to contemplate another day, with another cup of tea – 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.
