15678 Tasting Notes
Someone in the office recently received a large Yunnan Sourcing order that they placed on Black Friday, and she really thoughtfully brought a few of the teas into the office for us to try. A lot of people working there seem to be really into Dancong so this was the one that every immediately wanted to test out.
We actually ended up doing a bit of an experiment with it; the person who brought it in said that she’d had issues finding brewing parameters that she was happy with so we did four different cuppings all with slightly different brewing parameters to experiment a little bit and see what changes in flavour profile might show up with each brewing method. It was funny because, of the four of us doing this exercise, we all pretty much uniformly agreed on the flavor notes that were observed with each cupping but we did NOT all agree of which was the “best” cup of the tea. Kind of cool how we demonstated uniformity in our impressions of a tea’s flavour, while still also highlighting how much “taste” can be subjective…
Here’s a quick summary of the four cuppings though:
Cupping 1:
Steeped at 205F, for four min, with 2.7g of leaf. A bit of a harsh and one-note bitterness to the top of the sip and body, loosely comparable to the “skin” on a nut such as a walnut/almond. Lacking any astringency, though. Not unpleasant, but not desirable profile either. Beautiful aroma to the steeped leaves though!
Cupping 2:
Same parameters as above, but water temp at 165F instead. VERY bland/watery – really boring cup; and my least favourite of the four.
Cupping 3:
Same parameters as cupping one, but with only 1.8g of leaf. Much better overall profile, with what I would call that “maple adjacent” sweet walnut note that I personally love so much. A more buttery/fatty mouthfeel also, with floral undertones. Steeped leaf was very potent with lots of sweet floral elements! Definitely the sweetest of all the cups, and my personal favourite.
Cupping 4:
Same parameters that we used in cupping three but five minutes instead of five. This is definitely the closest to what I had envisioned a “Walnut Fragrance” Dancong might taste like. Some astringency and a pleasant, fleeting bitterness like the walnut “skin” notes from the first cupping. A little sweetness in the body, and still some floral in the finish. The most balanced and nuanced cupping, for sure. My second favourite.
An online exclusive that sneakily dropped on the DT website with the New Year’s launch.
I remember being so skeptical of this tea when it originally launched three years ago, but then being super impressed and surprised by the taste. I always meant to head to stores and pick up a tin of it, but by the time I managed to actually get to the store it was long since sold out. Ever since then, I wait every year around the start of the year’s Wellness campaign in the hope that it will be brought back. It never is.
Until now!
I was able to drink this one at work, and I imagine I’ll be doing that a lot while we still have it – though I’m definitely thinking that I’ll need to make an online purchase at some point because I would really like to have it for at home too – maybe put it to use for its namesake during a weekend out? Who knows! It tastes just as good as I’ve built it up to be in my head over the last three years: some herbaceous elements but ultimately a very lovely sweet and juicy red apple flavour accented by a BIG punch of mint with a cool, crisp finish. Some greener/earthy undertones from the mate in the blend.
I’m so into it. Thank you for (finally) bringing this back! Now just bring it to stores…
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.
Hot cup of tea on the commute to work, but because this is a kind of boring Orange Pekoe that leans a little on the astringent side (too much for my liking) I also added in a small amount of maple flavoured agave to make it a little sweeter and more palatable. This tea already has really full bodied, brisk nutty and malty notes to it so those were a very nice, natural compliment to what is essentially a maple syrup kind of flavor. In particular, I thought that the walnut notes of the tea which are already sweeter leaning notes seemed very forward when you added the sweetness of the agave: making for a black tea that was still really rich and brisk (that did not lose the taste of the tea itself underneath the flavoured sweetness) that almost read as “maple walnut”.
Definitely an improvement, in my books.
Made this one on one of my first days at the new job; to be honest it was maybe some sort of weird way of flexing for me? “Yo, check out the range of strange and unconventional teas that I stock in my cupboard!” I don’t know why I get weird and competitive like that – I should just enjoy being surrounded by so many tea people and getting to have such great, tea driven conversations at work every day…
I do love this tea though – so even if I wasn’t doing the whole weird “tea flex” thing I’d still be enjoying a damn good cuppa. It’s go lovely, rich umami flavours and in particular this infusion was more on the bacon-y side, with these sort of salted/cured meat and woody rooibos notes that were AMAZING.
Sipdown (573)!
Made this one up as a cold brew in the communal pitcher of tea that I’ve made in our fridge for myself and the roommates. They didn’t seem into the last flavour that I made (the Buchu Superfruit) so I thought something straight, green, and Chinese might be a little more familiar since, from what I’ve observed, they mostly just drink hot cups of Chinese green tea or Chinese herbal infusions?
I don’t know if they’re into this one either, though…
I thought it was fine; on the nuttier side for a Dragonwell so I’ve been enjoying that quality when I drink it in the morning with my breakfast. I think I’ll probably end up finishing this pitcher all on my own though – which definitely defeats the purpose of having a communal pitcher of iced tea. I don’t know what to try next, though…
Hot cuppa from midweek.
Still a very artificial tasting cup, and I think preparing it in a travel mug (tea press) like I did only served to draw out the artificial tasting quality a little more. Though, I think it also helped me to pinpoint what aspect about the flavour is what’s driving that artificial quality and while I originally thought it was the fig that was off putting to me I’m now thinking that it’s actually the raspberry flavouring in the blend that’s coming on too strongly/heavily.
Gong Fu session from last Sunday, I do believe? The first one that I had in the apartment.
Usually I’m really into White2Tea’s flavoured white offerings, and I was definitely intrigued by this one as well – but as I dove into it for this first time through that Gong Fu session I did find myself less excited that I generally am when exploring a new W2T white tea offering.
In total I believe I gave this about seven or eight infusions, starting with water just under a boil but readjusting midway through the session to be boiling in the hopes of drawing out some more flavours. However, instead of bringing out an array of new flavour notes it just got really bitter very quickly: so this definitely isn’t a candidate for Grandpa brewing, in my opinion, just because it appeared very susceptible to over brewing. I think it was just a little too consistently delicate and bland in terms of flavour (when it wasn’t over brewed): nothing to ‘pop’ out and hook you in to what you were drinking? The most consistent flavour note was bamboo for me, with a crisp and clean finish.
So overall consensus? It’s fine – but not what I personally look for when I’m getting white tea from White2Tea; especially when their aged white catalog is so vast right now.
This is another one of those Christmas teas that I probably have once or twice every winter because that’s just sort of “what you do”/it’s kind of tradition at this point – though like Santa’s Secret I’m not a huge fan of this one either – very over hyped, in my opinion. Plus, a lot of the flavours feel like they don’t really know what they’re supposed to be conveying in the blend which can make it a little cacophonous. This cup was iced; and it was fine but really not very much my jam. I do like the cinnamon and popcorn notes, though. So I mostly focus on those.
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…
Kind of like a more tart Swedish Berry vibe going on with this cup, along with tangy strawberry notes. My tin of this is kind of getting really empty and sad looking, so maybe I’ll have to hunt within Montreal to see if there are any stores that still have this in their offsite storage…
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.
Pot of tea, split among coworkers.
I think a lot of the people working with me are heavy green tea drinkers, so it’s going to be interesting for me to see if they’re able to convert me at all to more of a green tea drinker. I’ve already come around on Chinese green tea a lot more than I’ve been in the past, and completely of my own accord. So maybe a deeper exposure could be a really good thing for me? Only time will tell.
This is already a green tea that I know I like from DAVIDsTEA though – it’s got a nice sweet peach flavour to it that I find very approachable and tasty, and is really clean and smooth. Very much a profile made up of the things that I do tend to like A LOT in green tea. The things I focus on when a green tea is otherwise nasty, 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.
Some of the earthy, nutty, herbal, or spicy Dancong oolongs can be extremely hard to get right when brewing in the Western style. In general, I find Dancong to be best suited to gongfu brewing, especially using fairly heavy leafing and shorter steep times.
I also generally prefer Dancong steeped Gong Fu, though sadly we don’t have a great set up for this at work – and the bulk of the people in our department don’t actually drink Gong Fu anyway. So, since we were sharing, we opted more Western. When I officially get my own desk instead of a shared desk space, I plan on bringing in my own Gong Fu set up though so I can steep Gong Fu independently while I work on inputting all my lab testing information and such.
I love this scientific method of steeping/tasting. Nicely done.