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“Oh work tea (aka work brewing conditions)…. you are truly so terrible :( I almost don’t even want to drink this cup of tea because it’s just Not. Very. Good. And I know the tea is great. I think...” Read full tasting note
“I reviewed this tea 5 months ago when I was just a wee baby Steepster. Now I must be an adolescent. A teenaged Steepster, not quite respectable and wise like my elders who’ve been here for a long,...” Read full tasting note
“I followed Bonnie’s suggestion and tried this as a latte. It is a beautiful rainy day today. I love rain and most of the time it makes me smile more than sunshine! It is so relaxing to watch it...” Read full tasting note
““You’ll swear you’re drinking a cup of hot cocoa, even though there’s no chocolate in the blend” Lies! (Don’t get me wrong. It’s still a very good cup, but I can tell the difference between this...” Read full tasting note
Game on
This tea isn’t like a chess game of black versus white, it’s black and white working together. When you mix white Bai Mu Dan with black tea, coconut and chamomile flowers, it creates a rich, satisfying, chocolate flavour. You’ll swear you’re drinking a cup of hot cocoa, even though there’s no chocolate in the blend. It’s so delicious it’ll hold any king or queen in check – now that’s a winning move any way you look at it.
DavidsTea is a Canadian specialty tea and tea accessory retailer based in Montreal, Quebec. It is the largest Canadian-based specialty tea boutique in the country, with its first store having opened in 2008.
Oh work tea (aka work brewing conditions)…. you are truly so terrible :( I almost don’t even want to drink this cup of tea because it’s just Not. Very. Good. And I know the tea is great.
I think I’m going to take the last of this bag to brew at home… and have my boyfriend take me to pick up 2 more thermoses at Costco. I’m so spoiled by tea at home, it’s just gross here now :( I’d rather brew 5 thermos-fuls of tea in the morning and nurse them through the day instead of attempting to make tea here. Blech. :(
I reviewed this tea 5 months ago when I was just a wee baby Steepster.
Now I must be an adolescent. A teenaged Steepster, not quite respectable and wise like my elders who’ve been here for a long, long while. My irreverance irratates many I’m sure.
I remember when fun flavored tea was all the rage with me. Packages of DavidsTea from Canada arriving at my home in Colorado was a thrill. I can’t believe that in such a short time I’ve learned so much about tea and that I drink mostly unflavored or naturally flavored tea now.
To revisit and reevaluate tea gives you a chance to see where you’ve come from and test your palate to see how your taste has changed.
Tonight, in drinking Check Mate, I took another look at what was a pretty nice cup of coconut scented tea 5 months past. Would I still rate this tea the same today?
Review:
The flavor was coconut but with a sour aftertaste that I associate with artificial flavoring. I don’t like it at all. A nice cup of tea with promise of cocoa and coconut just gets ruined with bad flavoring.
The sourness is overwhelming. Ick! The cup is all mucked up! I’ve become spoiled by high quality tea’s to the extent that this Check Mate mess is not good at all anymore. I don’t want to do it but I have got to downgrade this tea. Meh! Petoowy!
Awww, my cup of this today was definitely still quite delicious, in spite of the fact that I too feel like I’m leaning more towards unflavoured teas instead the outrageously flavoured ones. No sourness at all. Perhaps it was a bad brew? I’ve managed to wreck this one before :(
I am already beginning to feel the same way. Its sort of sad really in a way. Innocence lost.
Now don’t let’s start talking about innocence lost at this time of night/morning! Why are you up anyway? It’s 1:15 here…you must be crazy!
LOL its 2:22 here now – I am a night owl by nature and am TRYING to get on a day schedule which is not working :)
Its still early by my norm though I go to bed around day break normally Ugggg hard to change what is a part of ones core being. Vampire ancestors perhaps hummmm.
Fibromyalgia causes me to have trouble sleeping sometimes. I can sleep in though. Noone to complain either. I don’t take naps hardly ever…but the smoke has been disturbing me from the fires and the temp has been over 100 for days. We should be lower in the 90’s the rest of the week. Poor Colorado. 13 fires, heat and wind. 2000 firefighters just in the fire behind my home. Jasong (on Steepster) works by the other fire in Colorado Springs. Gets to you. Anyway, I’m going to try to sleep. I hope I can leave my house tomorrow. When the smoke is bad it gives me migraines so I have to stay locked indoors.
Sigh… it’s 3:30 here…. and I have a dentist appt at 10am. Silly Steepster addiction…
I’d be up stressing about the dentist too! I remember a dentist once that looked like Robert Redford when he was young…really cute. It was awful laying in the chair looking up at this gorgous man (single too) with my mouth in one of those shield things…so gross!!!! I was in my 20’s. MORTIFIED!
Addiction? What addiction?…shakes…quivers….who…me…?
Rest well Bonnie and Krystaleyn Get to sleep young lady LOL
I am going myself :) To TRY to sleep.
OK MA!
It’s funny how tastes change. Not sleeping isn’t very fun though. I watched a kinda scary tv show and now I can’t sleep :{
You need cocoa!
Cocoa Channel!
Bonnie, you tea snob! Kidding, I totally feel the same way. I have learned so much about tea in the year I’ve been here.
I’m a tea snoot not a tea snob!
I’ve become the same way with flavor teas, they don’t seem as fun and exciting anymore, no it’s all about the nonflavored teas! Funny how tastes change.
I do like the naturally flavored tea’s and blends though. Not the fake flavors though. Fake flavor is sour! Leaves a terrible aftertaste and goes bad on the shelf.
I followed Bonnie’s suggestion and tried this as a latte. It is a beautiful rainy day today. I love rain and most of the time it makes me smile more than sunshine! It is so relaxing to watch it rain, also the cold makes it a great idea to curl up and have a nice hot cup of tea! Somehow I stumbled upon this sample (Thanks again Indigobloom!) and decided it was time to finish it off.
I brewed it strong (almost 3 teaspoons that I had left of it for 10oz of water) and added my homemade latte mix. Most importantly, this tea is strong enough to peak through the milk and sweetener. I tasted the white tea and smiled, it held up to the black tea! I realized that I had never had a white tea latte before. I can’t see myself doing it too often, but it was an interesting experience. I tasted a bit of chamomile, the black tea and the creamy coconut flavor. Sadly, no chocolate.
All in all, it is much better as a latte, but still not a tea that I would buy! Tasty experience nonetheless… : )
“You’ll swear you’re drinking a cup of hot cocoa, even though there’s no chocolate in the blend”
Lies!
(Don’t get me wrong. It’s still a very good cup, but I can tell the difference between this and cocoa.)
Haha. Is it just the mouthfeel or the actual flavour.
?
It totally tastes like caramel to me.
It didn’t remind me of hot cocoa either.
I’m not sure what was supposed to be cocoa-ish. Presumably the flavour? I get some notes that are chocolatley, but nowhere near an actual cocoa drink! It’s tasty but not a replacement.
I think i read before that the coconut-chamomile combination is supposed to create a chocolate-like note. But chamomile is always chamomile to me! Can’t fool them taste buds.
Sneaky! I didn’t know that!
Haha, this certainly didn’t fool me into thinking that it tasted like cocoa… but it did taste to me like a fairly decadent beverage, and I was quite impressed. I couldn’t ever taste the chamomile in it (I was apprehensive to pick it up initially because I thought I hated chamomile, but the girls at DT assured me I wouldn’t know it was in there… so true.)
Men I really didn’t care for this tea..but my bff claims it grows on you and she drinks it regularly.
It boggles my mind how different this tastes at home versus at work. The microwave at work, combined with some half & half, makes this taste like delicious toffee tea, while the variable temperature kettle at home, with some soy milk, makes this a lame black and white tea mixture. Too many variables, I guess. Is it the water? The choice of milk? The way the water is heated? The steep time? (I confess I steep this longer at work…too much distraction!) I don’t know!
Hmm!
Might be the water and probably the milk. Even with great water, I keep a water filter that’s attractive (from Target) just for my tea. I think it also extends the life of an electric kettle by removing minerals. I use condensed milk (poured into a glass bottle with a lid cuz I hate the can!).
So after my horrible experiences with Second Cup, I desperately needed good tea. Plus, I had an hour to kill, so I stopped in to DavidsTea. Surprise, surprise, they had their new teas available on the counter for sniffing. Oh man, guys. You’re going to love them. This one in particular caught my sniffer. It’s a black/white tea blend with chocolate…it smells out of this world. It tastes even better. They couldn’t sell me a bag, but I did get some to go and saved the bag from that for resteeping at home. It’s delicious. I can’t wait to get more.
New teas…winter?
Cute name! I don’t think I’ve seen a black and white blend before. I was in too much of a hurry today to see if there was the opportunity for a sneak peek, regretting it now!
Nope, just random teas coming out this week for some reason.
@Jessie you should! They’re all amazing, I’m dying to try the others now!
with a name like that you’d think it’d be a Mate (I don’t know how to get the accent going!)
lol We were actually joking about that in store.
That’s a cool name! It sounds yummy…I think my wallet just began weeping.
Ooooh!
Nice! I can’t wait to see these when they’re released soon. Thanks for posting a lil sneak peak. :D
I can’t believe I didn’t know about these. I’ll have to check it out! (and pick up more read my lips :D)
Humm with white and black tea would it not be bitter? Maybe I’ll try some tomorrow but i don’t think I’d be successful with this tea.
I’ve had this tea before, and it’s a old reliable comfort tea to tea. The mix of black and white teas creates a mild black tea, and the coconut and chamomile give off a chocolate feel, but the whole infusion is light and sweet. I recently got more of this as I do tend to like it as a fall tea…warm and comforting, but not too heavy either (still light enough for a summer hot tea). I usually add milk and sugar and that ups the chocolate and creamy feel to this tea. I opted for this tea today because it is a bit bulky and I’m struggling to make room on my shelf for more tea with the release of the fall collection now…
Black tea predominant at the end of the sip- leathery taste, reminds me of the musty smell of a barn. I think that the coconut comes out most on the aftertaste and gives sweetness throughout. The white tea seems to be coming in closer to the beginning of the sip. The chamomile sweetness is mostly present in the after taste with a sticky-sweet feeling.
For the second infusion (5 minutes), the black tea taste is subdued and the flavour of the brew takes on a somewhat creamy feel.
Rating: 72
this one sounds wonderful !
(I love your avatar Raritea, so cute!)
This one had a very interesting taste profile. Definitely one that I would recommend trying!
Glad that you like my avatar! I wasn’t sure what to choose so I picked something to show my appreciation for one of my favorite television shows. Unicorns drinking tea; how incredibly wonderful is that?
Sipdown, 247. I could have sworn that I tried this tea before, but apparently not. Apparently I was thinking of Salted Caramel, for some reason. This sample comes from a swap I did a while ago with Faith. Thanks!
A blend of black tea and white tea seems challenging to steep, temperature-wise, but I did as I usually do and went for a mid-temp. It seems like everyone steeps this one for 4 minutes or more, but I could not bring myself to do that. The aroma is… odd. Not bad odd, just hard to place odd. Coconut, ok. A hint of burnt-sugar caramel. A hint of apple-y chamomile? Taste is iiiinteresting. Definitely toasted coconut, and maybe I can kind of see chocolate but I don’t really taste it very strongly. I don’t really know what to make of this one! There is also a bitterness that is more coffee-like than tea-like, and it has the sensation of coffee, though not really the flavor. I’m not a fan of coffee, so that aspect isn’t my favorite. But all in all it’s a pretty decent cup.
What thermoses do you get from Costco? The Contigo no-spill mugs, or something else? (I need new thermoses/mugs, hence the curiosity!)
Yes – my mom and I picked up a 2-pack of the Contigos for Christmas, and I love mine. Well worth the price! I know Sil has about 4 in her house too, and they work awesomely. Keep the tea hot, and is the more important criterion for me, leakproof (not that I’ve tested it too much though, but it’s certainly better than the mug that spilled in my backpack before Christmas and soaked everything in Genmaicha…)
The mugs are pretty awesome. We do have 4 in our house, and i bring 2 in to work with me everyday. The keep the temperature pretty well and don’t leak. Mine don’t have a lock like Kittenna’s, but unless the button is being pressed, they don’t leak…and if they’re upright even pressing the button won’t necessarily = a leak.
Ahh, perfect. I have one, but I’ve dropped it a few times. I should go pick up another set! I find that as long as they don’t lay on their sides for too long, they’re good. Mine sometimes leaks if it’s just laying there, but it’s more of a dripping than a torrent of tea.
I have found that if the lid is wet (i.e. just washed) when I put it on, I will get leakage… but it clearly was just water, not tea, so my fault, not the mug’s!