16790 Tasting Notes
Gongfu!
Tried this one for the first time yesterday. It’s very enjoyable, but quite a bit different from what I’d expected it to taste like. Medium-bodied but with a very slick and sticky feeling liquor. Though the tail end of the sip was usually at least a bit starchy and sweet potato-esque, I mostly found this to be a rather fragrant and floral tasting oolong with really prominent notes of candied violets, rose, and magnolia with jammy black currant and lychee undertones. I was really anticipating more of a sweet brown sort of flavour direction with some more minerality, but it’s amazing how “purple” the whole session tasted!! Has anyone else tried this tea or has more experience with this Xiang Fan Shu fragrance/varietal of shuixian? I’m curious to hear other opinions since I feel like my tasting notes are off enough from the site description…
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DEiQHRjSA32/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01oI7AhwPLY&ab_channel=ROLEMODELVEVO
Sipped on a hot mug of this one last night. I wish I had an ingredients list to cross reference, but I got my sample of this tea (and the others from the same company) from a coworker and the sample bag just has the blend name on it. It’s nice, though! Not an overly complex blend, but fruity with a mellow tartness. I taste a bit of a berry sort of vibe, maybe strawberry? There’s a little cinnamon too, which balances it out a touch and adds a little bit of coziness. Though, I did feel like there was a bit of a numbing quality on my tongue – not unpleasant but a bit weird.
Grandpa Style!
Curiosity and a bit of gentle peer pressure won out today, and I’ve decided to start sipping my way through the white2tea order that recently arrived. I’m starting with a 2024 Shixi ripe pu’erh mini, which I’ve been drinking grandpa-style throughout the afternoon. It’s a rather thick and oily brew with a smooth, brothy sort of profile. Though not overly complex, the overall cup is loamy with supporting notes of bouillon, golden raisins, and sea salt. It’s definitely more on the savory side, but in a comforting way that’s akin to slurping away at a large mug of bone broth or chicken noodle soup on a cold and blustery afternoon. Though I’m not getting that first tasting kismet from this shou, I think it’s a solid offering that would work well as a daily drinker. I do think that makes sense given its price point. It will be interesting to see how this one settles and ages over time.
Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/DEayU6FSh00/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQeh5wqvtdc&ab_channel=rainbowfrogbiscuits-Topic
Brewed this one up last night because I was just in the mood for something a little more simple and straight forward, but still a bit cozier. It was a little bit more of an apple forward cuppa with soft undertones of cinnamon and nutmeg, but in that sort of baked apple way that’s less bright/juicy tasting. I still kind of wish we’d leaned more into the potato part of this blend, but it was a tough thing to balance when everyone has a different idea of what is too savory when it comes to tea. At least you get a bit of a thicker and more starchy mouthfeel from the potato inclusion.
I should try to remember next time I make this to add a pinch of salt after steeping…
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 and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s
Another late night cuppa that I sipped on while writing out my Top 3 teas/fandoms for the year. This tea is a perfect balance of jammy fruits and cozy baked goods. Starting with a sweet, kind of semi-cooked down raspberry note and lots of buttery goodness, that smooth flavour finishes with a lick of lingering anise/black licorice on the tail end of the sip. Not a profile for everyone, but dang is it one that I enjoy!
We haven’t officially announced it anywhere, but I think this last season of Geek Steep may have been the last as, due to a mix of life situations, Marika and I haven’t had any time to work on or record the next season and probably wont in the foreseeable future either. We did get an incredibly sweet fan email from someone asking about it, though, and so we wrote back a letter explaining the situation and included our top 3 teas/fandoms since that was a holiday tradition that we had as part of the Geek Steep mini episodes.
So, I might as well put it out here for y’all just in case anyone is curious…
Top Three Teas (In No Particular Order)
1. Cranberry Yuzu – Rishi
2. Lemon Meringue – DAVIDsTEA
3. Tipsy Garden (Barrel #2) – Volition Tea
Top Three Fandoms (In No Particular Order)
1. The Summer Hikaru Died (Manga)
2. Chainsaw Man (Anime)
3. Dandadan (Anime)
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 and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s
(I just wrote a nice, long tasting note and Steepster ate it… So abridged version I guess.)
I haven’t had this tea in a long time, but I’ve been really enjoying exploring some of my more neglected herbal/rooibos blends in the late evenings and this was one that felt like it would fit that sort of “cozy late night movie binge under the covers” vibe even though Christmas is over now. It does, in fact, do this really well with a very toddy-like profile that leans heavy on the sweet ginger notes of the tea bolstered with syrupy honey flavour and apple-y undertones. Not a personal favourite because of the ginger, but definitely warming and enjoyable within this context.
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 and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
Ros, given your extreme productivity, I am surprised you type directly into this, or any, website! Not just because of the occasional vanishment of long articles, but also for archival reasons. Websites vanish, domain fees get neglected, companies get sold and shift priorities. Even ad-supported sites with presumed perpetual security get shut down. Ever lost an email address when you haven’t used it for some time? I lost my ebay ID with thousands of items sale & purchase records and client feedback when I once fell ill for a time and was then inactive just a few months too long. poof. Now I always compose notes, reviews, letters, papers & documents into a generic txt or rtf file and save to backed-up storage before posting/sending. I suggest the same to others.
I drank this one last night while catching up on the Critical Role stream from earlier in the week. Though I had every intent to drink it hot, I got really engrossed in the stream and only remembered about my tea like an hour or two after having made it. So, I actually drank this cold but it was still very enjoyable with a smooth and not too sweet vanilla frosting sort of flavour matched in intensity by the honeyed and nutty rooibos that makes up the tea base.
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 and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
Cold Brew!
I think this was technically my last tea of 2024. Though there was certainly no intentionality behind it, I kind of like that I closed out the year with a tea that’s name is almost this sort of mix of happy, thankful, and celebratory vibes. The tea itself makes for a nice and refreshing cold brew. Very full bodied but smooth and velvety with a light (albeit generic) red fruit note very much in the vein of something from a French tea shop ala Mariage or Dammann Freres. It’s just very easy to sip on with a pleasant fruit flavour that works as a bit of a “backdrop” 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 and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
There was a day this past week where all I wanted to drink was orange flavoured tea blends so I dug this one out to include in the mix. I haven’t had it in a long time and was pleasantly surprised that it’s aged pretty gracefully. Definitely quite intensely aromatic in a bit of a perfume-y sort of way from all of the citrus packed in there, but the tart brightness of the hibiscus does a good job of cutting through the thick front-loaded bergamot notes before giving way to a sweeter flood of blood orange flavour in the back end of the sip. For an Earl Grey I find this to be a very dynamic tasting blend with a lot happening on the palate in such a short period of time. Not always a favourite, but on this morning it was just what I was looking for.
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 and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
