Santa's Secret

Finally, after a really long and dry hot season, it seems like the rainy season finally made it to Quito, Ecuador! I love the rainy season! It is nice and cold, just enough to feel a bit chilled and make me want to drink even more hot tea! Once again venturing into my untasted, yet highly looked forward to David’sTea collection, I grabbed this one.

I honestly expected this to taste a whole lot like Read my Lips because of the Mint cream going on, but I was actually super surprised! In a great way!

The dry leafs smell minty and creamy. Unlike Read my Lips there is no chocolate in the scent. I don’t smell any spices that claim to be in the blend, but they may be hidden under the creaminess which I love. The little candy canes (way past the season at this point…) are adorable! I love all the little declarations that David’sTea adds!

Once brewed the dark liquor smells minty and smooth. The black tea adds an earthy scent that works really well with the sweet creamy sensation that the scent leaves behind. Unsweetened it is creamy and incredibly fresh feeling. sweetened, it is incredible. The smoothness of the mint mixed in with the spicy creamy sensation makes it hard to sip slowly. The sweeteners helps make the creamy aspect stand out an the mint become a little more of a sensation and after taste. A really well rounded dessert tea!

I have a full 2 oz but am already looking forward to being able to order more!!! I think this may become a must have for me along with Read my Lips! :)

Yay, guess what? I bought the Tea for the Tree set and gave the other two as part of a gift exchange at work. My co-worker absolutely loved his gift, and Sleigh Ride happens to be his favourite, so glad it worked out. Am I the only one who feels insanely stressed out picking out a gift for gift exchanges?

So I kept this one. Such a cute teal ornament too! The dry leaf smells like those colourful party mints. Like these!

http://www.foleyschocolates.ca/img/products/3110-10K.jpg

Steeped, it loses that creaminess I get from the party mints, but smells like a sweetened black mint tea, essentially. No surprises. I get a pleasantly cool sensation with every sip.

Good stuff, but still prefer Read My Lips. That one has more going on.

Merry Christmas everyone!
Santa was good to us, and now I will make some mint hot chocolate!~ With baileys! yessss

(but first – TEA!)

http://www.daisychubb.com/merry-christmas/

I got a few cups worth of this as a gift from BrewTEAlly Sweet! Thanks!!!

I’m off work this week so I haven’t been online nearly as much. I’ve still been drinking tea but not taking the time to write notes about most of them, heh.

Anyway, I was impressed with this one. I strongly prefer peppermint over spearmint, and this one is very nice and balanced well with the black base. It is rare for me to find a David’s Tea blend I would actually consider buying! Woot! AND it is appropriately festive :D

It’s winter, I think. Feels like spring here. Anyway, this is one of my faves. The mint goes very well with the vanilla. Too bad this is a seasonal one, I would drink it year round if I could.

I still have a nice-sized little baggie of this one from the DavidsTea ornament my sister gave me last year, so I figured it was time to use some up! I think I underleafed a touch, but the tea is pleasantly minty with a delicious chocolate flavour that blocks out any mint yuckiness. Which means, I like this one :) I don’t remember if I ever compared it to Read My Lips… I should have. I think it’s less chocolatey.

I’m just hoping my Timolino doesn’t permanently smell like mint now… last time I put Mayan Chocolate Chai in it, every tea I drank from it tasted like chai for at least two weeks…

(As a side note, this was apparently the third tea I logged on Steepster, and it was logged on January 30 2012! Which appears to be the day I joined Steepster! Woohoo, now I know :D It’s a bit sad to go back and see all the tasting notes with 0 likes though…)

Today is going to be a long day..I can officially say that I’m sick. I’ve had people in my office walk by me and say “I can feel the heat from you.” I’m leaving tomorrow to LA for the weekend, to celebrate Chinese Vietnamese New Year, so I have to stay till 7pm to get all my work done. All day I’ve been drinking Vitamin C packets, eating oranges, and sneezing my heart out. Wahhh..(remind me when I feel better to clean my office) Bad timing man, maybe it’s a foreshadow of how my year will be for the year of the horse. (If you believe in so.) goodness, I still haven’t packed.

I made this tea in my timolino, maybe it’s because I’m sick but I can’t taste anything. Lol. Just the base and the cooling mint after. It will do though. Usually I make my teas in a steeper and then place it on top of my timolino. But I suppose my brother did the dishes and when he dumped the leaves he also dumped the filter. So I just put the infuser basket to catch the leaves but then leaves would get stuck in the steeper. When I come back, I am for sure purchasing stuff from Davids tea.

Ever have one of those moments where your brain wants something (and knows exactly what) but the rest of you doesn’t? That was me this morning, I walked into my office after an early morning meeting and reached right for my Sugar & Spice bag, opened it up for a sniff… and then the rest of me went “Nah ah, what in the world are you thinking?!?” sigh

Oh well, instead I’m drinking my trusty Santa’s Secret. This is definitely a “feel good” tea for me, the peppermint/black tea combo just works in ways that I can’t describe. I love the creaminess of it and the hint of chocolate from the tea base, just ya… Yum! :)

2013/11/08
this tea is BACK! and let me tell you i ordered two full tins worth! i never order that much of one tea. but that is seriously how much i like this one. i’m not even a huge david’s tea fan, but this tea remains special. i had a big cup this morning and will probably have one tomorrow too. and the day after. forever. until i have to buy more yet again.
hello holidays! hello and good morning and hello!

2013/03/14
since the day i received the ‘24 days of tea’ in the mail, i’ve just been grabbing a bag or two of the little sample tins and throwing them in my purse to take to work. at my desk i have my new asian style mug in the color of peppermint, and i just turn my electric kettle on and pull out the tins to see what i have with me.
so when i grabbed this one next and saw it had little peppermint sticks in it i was kinda tickled. (sprinkles add a weird oily coating and grimy residue to my tea, but candy canes are just a flourish!)
it’s an invigorating, slightly sweet, tiny tingle minty tea and PERFECT for noon tea.

why do we love this one so?!?!?!
i mean, there are several of us that drink this every day with enthusiasm. and i don’t understand it really because even with all the affection i have for this tea, when i try to describe it to someone it never really sounds as good as it tastes. but heck, all i can say is that i never thought of myself as a mint or peppermint lover. and i still don’t think of myself as a peppermint lover. but i can honestly drink this everyday with ease and joy.
mysteries are mysterious.

i have this tea for breakfast almost every morning i love it so much. i can’t explain it. i never thought of myself as a peppermint person. not at all. but there is something else going on in this tea. maybe it’s not the candy canes, but the secret part that i like so much.

i can’t believe that, over the past few days, i have deleted 200 blank reviews from my tea log.

i now have a list of 27 teas that i have drank more than once but i did not write a review of. and i’m planning to make some sort of note about them, even if it’s just a word or two (thumbs-up? thumbs-down?), over the next few weeks.
i’ll re-taste them if i’m able, or i’ll just have to recall as much as i can from memory if i have to.
the idea is that i will then know when i have for real tasted 500 teas :)

anyways…
now off to a Pi Party! with tea in hand of course!

Aw man. I’m so depressed lately. Teapressed. I have a million teas to try and drink but lately not only do i have to limit my caffeine consumption but (cover your ears) I just don’t even feel like drinking a ton of tea. I’m sad because all my zillions of flavoured teas seem to be turning me off and since I’m limiting my intake I really want to focus on the ones I love. Figuring out what I feel like having is a nightmare these days!!

So I’ve been MIA and it sucks and that’s why.
As this was one of my old favourites from back in the day I decided to have some this morning. But something is wrong. It seems like I can just taste fakeness. It’s still tasty but this new development is both distracting and disappointing. I am unsatisfied :(

I also watched the end of the Tenth Doctor recently and that only added to my depression.

Sorry guys.
I want to keep reading everyone else’s reviews and maybe that will encourage me. I was also in Maine for 4 days so I had no tea! Just one crappy bagged tea from Dunkin Donuts. I threw it out.

And it’s chilly and perpetually rainy here so I can’t even make myself drink my new Davidstea herbals cold brewed! Wahh!