15990 Tasting Notes
This review is for the Carrot Cupcake infused White Chocolate Bar.
So, wasn’t a fan of the tea…
But something about the idea of it as a chocolate bar appealed to me a lot – I’m not even sure what, to be honest. So I reluctantly bought one the other day which I then shared with the other two girls working with me in the evening. Sharing is caring.
Actually? I liked this much better as chocolate. In large part I’m sure that’s because I just like white chocolate a lot but also I felt like the creaminess/high butter content of the chocolate mellowed out some of the spices I personally felt were too strong/forward in the actual tea. DAVIDsTEA had originally been going for a creamy cupcake sort of flavour, and this matches that idea a lot more in my opinion. Like a carrot cupcake with gentle spices and lots of yummy cream cheese icing. Also, no licorice root heavy finish/aftertaste.
So, big improvement for me overall.
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.
Revisited this one the other night on shift…
It’s been probably close to three years since I had it. I went through a lot of it back then because I’d blindly purchased 100g before I’d tried it – this was back during that time when I definitely didn’t know any better. Turns out I hated it, so getting through that 100g was a nightmare.
I drank this as an iced latte the other night when I had it which is definitely a totally new style of preparation compared to any other way I had tried it previously. I’m pretty sure, back then, I didn’t even know that “Iced Latte” was a thing you could do with tea.
Let’s be real though, this is chocolate cake flavoured because that’s essentially all that Red Velvet is: chocolate cake dyed red. It’s the most dumb cake flavour there is because people get so incredibly hyped about it when it’s just “cool looking chocolate” that even typically costs more money because it’s cool/trendy or whatever. The only thing that even remotely makes red velvet unique/different in my opinion is the cream cheese frosting it’s often paired with – and this tea doesn’t make much of an effort to replicate that. So that’s part of why I disliked this one so greatly three years back – the other part being that it tasted very artificial/chemical to me.
However, that said, as an iced latte I didn’t mind it that much if I only thought of it as a “chocolate” flavour. I mean, it wasn’t some big moment of “Oh no! What have I been missing!? This tea is changing my life!” but more of a “Well, I guess this isn’t quite as bad as I’ve mentally painted it to be”. Not nearly as artificial, for one thing. Really though, it’s basically just simple, creamy chocolate.
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.
I’m still trying to find the right balance of leaf to use for this tea when cold brewing. It came out nice and sweet, with subtle pineapple notes and stronger, creamy coconut ones. I’d describe this brew overall as silky and mellow. Though, in this case mellow also sort of means watery/underleafed. More experimentation is obviously needed.
Also, I just finished Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and… holy smokes Batman!
That’s probably the best show I’ve binged in a while; I split it over two days and it was phenomenal. I started off all kinds of confused, but then watching all the pieces fit together was incredibly, incredibly satisfying. That ending though! I don’t know that I can wait another year for the second season! They ended the story in the perfect way, while also leaving behind such infuriatingly fascinating cliff hangers that just need answers, damnit!
Highly recommend the show.
So, as I’m sure a lot of people here on Steepster are aware, on the back of every tin at DT there’s an information sheet with stuff like ingredients for Tea Guides to use as a quick reference. Some of the other stuff on there is whether a tea is organic, fair trade or kosher and a general brewing guide as well.
Well, there’s one other important symbol and that’s the “Do Not Latte” symbol which means that if a tea guide prepares that tea as a latte it will curdle. The other night me and another tea guide were looking at this tea and the ingredients and we noticed it had a DNL symbol on it. That kind of through us off a bit because none of the ingredients in the blend are things that will traditionally curdle a latte apart from the apple – and even that was kind of iffy because there are apple heavy teas that don’t curdle such as Forever Nuts. Our assumption was that it’s the citric acid in the apple that would make this curdle, but we kind of wanted to test it because neither of us thought that the acid level would be high enough to have that reaction unless you got some of the really, really big apple pieces that are in this blend in your measured out leaf.
Long story short; it curdled.
Never have I ever seen a tea curdle so fast, either. From the moment we poured in the milk it instantly just started turning into nasty, hard core chunks of milk goo. I was sure the tea was ruined, and so I went to the sink to dump it and just chalk the entire learning experiment up to a learning experience. Well, when I dumped it a good 1/3 of the drink was just curdled milk – but when I got the layer of grossness out of the way…
The rest was fine!
So, I drank the last of the tea because after all that effort I just had to see for myself taste for myself? if it was worth it. It was really good, and I’m a bit heart broken that it was because I would 100% NOT recommend recreating this ‘experiment’ and I definitely wont be trying it again. It was silky, creamy and strongly apple flavoured though with fresh, juicy sweetness and fig undertones and then the most warming cinnamon/spice finish. I sort of felt like I was melting from the inside out.
Wonderful latte. Minus the curdling.
Damn citric acid, always ruining things.
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.
Just had to try this one to compare it to DAVIDsTEA’s way too tart version from the fall collection, especially since I had a conversation with Anne about hibiscus in confectionery themed teas and she left me feeling pretty assured that this wouldn’t be the same sort of cider-y tart/hibiscus tart profile…
Well, she didn’t lie.
- Much more buttery than the DT version
- That element alone kind of already makes this seem like a better recreation
- Sweet, with clear blueberry notes which taste natural/realistic
- I LOVE seeing the big blueberry pieces in the leaf, as well
- Maybe a little tart? Which is kind of jarring next to the buttery aspect
- But it’s a more successful version than DT’s one overall
- By quite a bit, actually…
Next thing I want to try with this one is adding milk, since that’s actually an option for this tea but wasn’t for the DT one. I can only imagine it’ll improve the illusion.
I don’t really care for hibiscus much so it is unlikely that you’ll find hibiscus in one of my blends unless I feel like the blend really needs the thick texture or tart flavor of the hibiscus in it. I had a couple of blends that I used hibiscus in during my LiberTEAS days. One was my Meadow Nocturne and the other was Candy Shoppe. I have been asked to reblend my Candy Shoppe and I’m considering doing that without the hibiscus and rosehips. Not sure how it’ll turn out . . .
Some of us like hibiscus. A lot even. :)
I purposely didn’t buy this blend because I was ruined by the DT version. Hibiscus belongs in tart iced teas, not pastry/dessert flavours. It is one of those ingredients (much like smoke, licorice root, cinnamon, coconut, and rose hips) that one must be careful with. It is a shame that so many blends have high hibiscus concentrations when a smaller amount of hibiscus would taste much better.
I’ll have to try to sample the 52Teas version!
@Evol
Don’t get me wrong – hibiscus has its place in the tea world. Confectionery themed teas, I think, just isn’t one of them.
For the most part, Ms. Strange, I agree with you on this.
#ProjectTeaWall
Ugh; 1/3 three sencha teas down. Started with this one because it’s not part of the core collection so getting it out of the way seemed more pressing…
I mean, it’s basically just your typical sencha profile? Very strong seaweed notes, and strong umami flavour overall. I did find this one a little peachier than other sencha’s I’ve tried and that was a redeeming quality. I don’t really know what else to say about it. Fairly smooth, I guess? Not bitter for sure – a whisp of astringency?
I mean, I kind of just hate sencha in general though. Like, as a person who isn’t a fan of green tea in general I think sencha may actually be my least favourite generic kind of green tea overall. So, this was kind of a biased tasting from the start if we’re being totally honest. It’s gotta be done, though – and there’s still two more to go!
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.
#ProjectTeaWall
One of the last herbals on my list to cross off…
Drank this one iced during my last shift. To be completely honest, I really didn’t like it at all. I definitely see how it’d be good for a sore throat because so many of the ingredients are ones that are generally very soothing/gentle but just focusing in on the taste component which is the most important one, in my opinion it was very sweet because of the really, really heavy handed licorice root. Seriously; first part of the sip/top notes were nice and minty with hints of clove but then all was swallowed/consumed by that deadly trio of anise, licorice root, and fennel which is just too sweet altogether.
Each ingredient on their own? Yeah, I could handle that. It’s overwhelming to me how it’s handled in this blend, 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…
Number doesn’t change though because I forgot to add this one to my cupboard.
Drank it as a cold brew this time; it was smooth, and pleasant enough but honestly I felt like the nuance and quality was lost quite a bit in the cold brew compared to the hot cup. I think it’s definitely more worthwhile to consume this one hot for the amount of money you’re spending on it…
Also, somewhat exciting news! I’ve been asked to stay on at DAVIDsTEA as a P/T employee! It means I’ll still be working two jobs, and will continue to be very tired a lot of the time, but also it means I get to keep doing a job I love and taking advantage of that sweet, sweet employee discount! Hooray! I’m very excited, honestly.
It also means I can take my time with the last bit of project tea wall as well.
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.
Soon enough they’ll hire you FT at DT and you can quit the other job :)
Also, do you need to pay for drinks consumed on shift?
No – staff get free drinks on shift; you have to pay for them when you’re not working, although we do have a staff discount as well.
That’s a pretty great perk!
Awesome! Congrats!
Hot tea.
This wasn’t bad as a hot tea, but the rooibos was very strongly wood-y and had a bit of a peppery kick to it as well. Like, black peppers – not spicy ones. Same sort of tickle in your throat, though. The mango reminded me of Tang a little bit? Kind of artificial, sugary and juice like. But, you know, if Tang was mango flavoured instead of orange.
Still enjoyed the cup overall – but I’m starting to get the impression that the rest of the 50g I originally purchased will be the last of this one for me. It’s not going to become a cupboard staple or anything like that.
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp1ZluX4aYs&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ&index=5
Anyone else fallen into the That Poppy/Mars Argo/Titanic Sinclair rabbit hole of conspiracy? I fell into it a few weeks ago, and now I’m just fucking obsessed. The entire thing is just fascinating, and exactly like unraveling a puzzle and that mystery/piecing the clues together element is totally what hooked me.
But the music produced by both is just fucking phenomenal as well – and that’s just the cherry on top of what was already an intriguing and confusing sundae.
I think I ended up drawn to this particular pairing though because of the whole “commercial”/manufactured element that the Poppy Project has and the fact I’d already felt like this tea had a bit of a Tang/manufactured sort of vibe. And on that note…
A “commercial” done by Poppy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qG4mS3G0K0
And one by Mars & Titanic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDRr-kAlycs
Which one makes you want to buy the product more?
I made this one the other day to drink while I did a fancy clay mask/facial thing ‘cause an impromptu ’treat yourself’/spa day deserves a soft, relaxing tea that matches the indulgent and peaceful mood of a cleanse and bubble bath…
Maybe it’s because of the difference in preparation style but I made this in gravity steeper and it came out tasting quite floral/strongly of lavender – like, a lot more than it normally/typically does. It was still nice and soothing like normal, but also it gave me lavender hiccups.
Which is a thing right? Like, I can’t be the only person who gets lavender breath/hiccups from concentrated lavender…
