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Found myself craving this one earlier this evening, so I indulged and made a mug.

The orange notes are so rich and juicy, as the name implies they ought to be. That’s my favourite part of the cup, and that sweet citrus sweetness perfectly satisfied what I was craving today. Unfortunately, the finish of the sip cuts in with a rather strongly cloying taste that comes from a combination of the blackberry leaf (which is really heavy handed) and the hibiscus. I normally don’t mind blackberry leaf, but it really gets to me with this blend in particular. Something about how it interacts with the other ingredients in this tea makes everything else taste somewhat artificial, and too sweet.

It’s hard drinking a tea knowing you’re going to be over the moon about some aspects, but equally turned off by others. It’s a real catch 22.

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 lied about being done with the sugar brittle experimentation;

I totally intended to take a break, but I got rather bored today on my day off and decided to try something really experimental and different. I made a red chili jelly infused brittle! Originally I was going to use Lapsang Souchong for the tea side of things, but I got nervous that would end up being too much flavour going on so I opted for this instead. In addition to the chili pepper jelly, I also added the juice of a lime and a bit of red currant jam to make sure there was some sweetness and acidity to the recipe as well. The jelly I used, after all, is quite spicy and I didn’t want it to totally dominate.

Structurally, this set beautifully although the colour isn’t as pretty as I’d hoped. I was wishing for a slight red hue from the two different jellies used but instead I ended up with kind of a dark amber/gold looking thing with a bit of cloudyness to it.

The taste is… interesting. There’s quite a bit of overall sweetness, and I feel like the sweet notes kind of pull you in different directions. There’s this almost mellow sweetness from the red currant which also draws out the plumy notes of the tea. However, the lime gives this more of a tang/acidity which is a bit polarizing to the softer red fruit/stonefruit notes. The roastiness of the tea itself is pretty lost; most of its contributing flavour comes from the plum/stonefruit notes it has.

As for the chili pepper, it doesn’t have the punch you would expect if you’ve ever tried the jelly on its own. In fact, you almost don’t taste it at all initially. Rest assured, it’s there though and the subtle spicy/heat from it kicks in after you’ve been sucking on the brittle for a while. Creeping, building, and hanging out in the background of the more glaringly obvious fruit notes.

I kind of like it, but not at much as some of the other flavours I’ve made. It certainly is unique 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.

Sipdown (213)!

Really sad to have finished this one off, but it was the oldest matcha in my cupboard and I’ve been hoarding this last serving for far too long. The last chawan of it I decided would be best appreciated straight and hot, prepared traditionally and I’m glad I chose to do it that way because it really let me savor the flavours, and fully appreciate the experience of drinking this tea. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my hands on more of this one in the future.

A little underleafed and a little understeeped,

Resulted in a smooth more harmonious cup with heavier focus on the creamy, nutty “peanut butter” and a softer mixed berry under tone with natural sweetness. I’ll have to remember this for the future, as this was by far the best cup I’ve been able to produce of this tea to date.

Sipdown (214)!

Finished this one off iced at work yesterday;

I didn’t mind this one iced but I do think I prefer it hot. As an iced tea, I found the coconut to be really strong. I do enjoy coconut a lot, but I thought it kind of dominated the cup and about half way through it was starting to take on a bit of a lotion-y quality just from all the flavour build up. Icing this all seems to bring out the natural woody/honey qualities of the rooibos/honeybush a little more as well. Neither tasted bad or too strong for my tastes, but it was a step up from the hot cup and I think would have been too intense for someone who dislikes rooibos already. The strawberry was great! Really lush and fruity with just a whisp of tartness. Only criticism there is that I just wanted more of it.

More Brittle!

This was the best batch yet; it set correctly, nothing got burned, and the flavour came out really nicely. Sadly, I forgot to take pictures. Rest assured, it was beautiful though! A nice, clear sunny yellow colour.

I chose Lemon Pound Cake to experiment with because I thought that the lemon would be well suited for this sugar brittle recipe – especially because you need to add some sort of citric acid to it to keep the sugar from crystallizing so there would already be a tie in since this is lemony already. I actually ended up using lime juice and not lemon though, I had used my only other lemon earlier in the evening with a different brittle (the burnt Kenyan Tinderet). You couldn’t tell that it was lime though – it blended in with the lemon of the tea so seamlessly.

Also, I thought that the vanilla/pastry element of the tea would provide an interesting depth to the flavour if they managed to come through in the finished product. Though admittedly, to help them on their way, I did add a tiny, tiny amount of vanilla extract. You could taste those vanilla, buttery undertones in the finished brittle though and it was a really nice addition.

I think now that I’ve had a successful batch, I’m ready to take a break from brittle for the time being though and try my hand at something else. I’m definitely going to return to it though, because now that I know I can make it properly it’s a pretty quick recipe with a lot of potential. I mean, you can use literally ANY tea you want. So, lots of possibilities out there for sure.

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 thought I was already in love with this tea when I tried it hot, but I have to say I think I might like it even better as a cold brew. The fruit notes are just bursting with flavour! Seriously, the blueberry is succulent and so vivid; from top of the sip all the way to the aftertaste, and the lemon note is just as intense throughout as well. Plus, I can actually taste the almond this way as well though I do feel like it’s a sweeter, more cherry/marzipan like taste than the kind of subtle, softer almond I’d expect from a muffin. Actually, all in all I think that cold brewing this you basically lose any semblance of “muffin flavour” that the hot brew had. That sacrifice is worth it for those INTENSE full bodied, juicy fruit notes though.

I’m glad this is something that Q2T carries year round because I KNOW that I’m going to want more.

Iced Tea.

This is my favourite iced tea at the moment for when you want something natural tasting, slightly fruity, and really refreshing! It’s just very light bodied, with really realistic apple skins and raspberry notes and very, VERY hydrating. I literally have no complaints.

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 (216)!

I was excited about this tea – I love tangerine, and I could really see it working well on a black tea base. In practice, I ended up liking the steeped tea a lot less. I drank this one iced, and I just found that overall the tangerine was a little too tangy, and a little too generic citrus to really nail that flavour for me. I feel like if I had to blindly guess what the citrus flavour was I would have settled more in the “Meyer lemon” range of citrus fruits. The black base was also really full bodied and somewhat “choppy”/unrefined feeling. For how strong of a presence it was, I really didn’t like it.

All in all, that just made for a tea that was drinkable but not great. I think all in all, this is just going to wind up being a forgettable experience. There’s just nothing noteworthy here.

Iced Latte.

Drank this one at work while I was sampling some of our new summer teas;

I picked this one out because the smooth, silky creamsicle flavour that comes from the vanilla/orange pairing is pretty summery to me. I mean, when else does one indulge in a good creamsicle? I did underleaf my latte a bit, which made this a lot more delicate and soft in flavour – still quite nice, though. More weighted towards the vanilla than the orange though.

Still need to try this one hot.