Eye of Newt

TTB. I’d wanted to try this since it came out last year, but never got around to it, so I was excited to get the opportunity. I love the visuals- how the little ball unravels in the cup. I drank this grandpa style. Not sure if that was the best route, but it seemed to work. It’s mostly just super grassy, with some intense sweetness in the finish. I didn’t get any bitterness.
I really enjoyed drinking this! Loved how it looked in the cup, and it tasted better than expected.

Sipdown (259)

Thank you Roswell Strange for sending this my way. It was certainly a festive tea but not one I personally enjoyed. I was taking aback by its sweetness. It was grassy but really sweet and that just isn’t a pairing I’m personally here for. Fun to try though and definitely different.

Check out pictures here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CHCGZQzgaUU/ and keep scrolling through for a fun Halloween treat :)

STTB Tea

1 ball in 450 mL water, 80-85 degrees C water, oversteeped (total over 30 minutes)

I actually planned on keeping this because I enjoy this herb (jiaogulan). However, this is one of the worst cups I’ve ever had and I only got a few sips in before I had to dump it. Now, I /did/ oversteep it (~30+ minutes) but the water wasn’t particularly hot. This is like a cup of concentrated bitterness with way too much sugar added. I would never add this much sugar to a tea, especially a herbal that tastes pretty good on its own. At first you get a very sweet mouthful (basically sugar water with a faint herb flavour) and then it hits you. This might be the most bitter thing I’ve ever had. It seems fine at first and then you have this overwhelming bitterness that you can’t get out of your mouth. If you’ve ever had bitter melon then you know the taste I’m referring to.

Either my taste buds are off or this tea is a travesty. I’m also really sensitive to bitterness but this is crazy.

Roswell Strange’s description of these as looking like little tumbleweeds is so accurate. They’re definitely cute and fun as far as the name and presentation. And I agree with kittenna that you only need one ‘eye’ per mug (I used two my first go and was overwhelmed by the sweetness, lol). I’m not the biggest fan of the flavor, to be honest. It tastes very sugary and herbal, sort of like I grabbed random, savory, dry herbs from my pantry and made a tea with them, and then added several heaping spoonfuls of sugar to the mix. I think I want to say it tastes sort of like oregano to me. Still, these were quite fun to try.

Thanks to Roswell Strange for sending me a sample of this tea! I’ve had jiaogulan once before… I think it might have been from Teaopia? Or Teavana? I really don’t know. It was interesting, but I don’t think I was the biggest fan. It was about the same story here – the vegetal flavours of the tea aren’t quite matched with my preferences, or perhaps the sweetness throws me off! However, I think this is a great Halloween offering for DT because it’s unusual and fun!

One note: definitely need to only use 1 piece per teapot, because the pieces are huge and it is just wayyyy too much for a single cup!

Last new Halloween tea!!

This one is also really neat – and fun fact it was one of the first unreleased teas that caught my eye when I started at the SSC. In anticipation of it being released for Halloween, I actually ended up exploring several different styles of this tisane – which is traditionally called Jiaogulan or Five Leaf Gynostemma – from other companies ; including My Cup of Tea, based here in Montreal, and Yunnan Sourcing.

It’s so strange, and I really liked learning more of the history behind this super traditional style of Chinese herb/tisane. I had never seen it before starting at the head office! So now that it’s officially launched, I feel like I’ve already gone through a whole journey of discovery and exploration – I hope I get to watch other people try this one out and go through the same discovery! Plus, what a fun name! This totally looks like some sort of weird tumbleweed-y type potion ingredient, and Eye of Newt takes what might actually be an intimidating traditional tisane and puts a fun and very DT spin on it!

So, here are some of the notes that I’ve taken on this tea, and held onto, from the last few months of my exploration of it…

Large Glass Teapot: Really light/mild. Sort of a sweet (cane sugar) grassy vibe?

Nordic Mug: Stronger/thicker with a more pronounced grassy/lawn clipping note and under ripe green melon. A bit bitter; one ball is probably too much for a Nordic…

Gong Fu: Actually brews very nice when prepped that way; sweet, herbal, kinda has a fennel bulb note? Smooth!

I will definitely be picking up some of these to have on hand! I hope other people find them as weird and interesting as I did and give them a try – it’s a cool way of exploring something traditional and also incorporating a herbal tea into your tea assortment that feels a little more “tea like” than, say, something like Caribbean Crush. I do find these sort of comparable(ish) to green tea, so if you’re a green tea fan this could be a nice caffeine free evening alternative? Or if you just don’t always want to go for that more rich/dense and sweet profile with your evening teas…

Also there’s some traditional wellness/functional aspects of this herb – but that’s never really the focal point for me personally. Still, I know that appeals to some people so worth pointing out…

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.