Peace Berry (Formerly Youth Blossom)

Samurai TTB #54

I didn’t know anything about this one, but I was hoping it might be similar to Teavana’s Youthberry. Unfortunately, this one is completely different…mostly hibiscus (which I’m emphatically NOT a fan of) with hints of rose and tulsi. It’s quite tart and has a somewhat medicinal quality to it overall…definitely feels like a tea you would drink for the health benefits and not for the flavor!

It’s a very healthy blend but to me it tasted almost like a medicine. The color and taste are quite strong on the first brew but the second one is so watery, I stopped trying to brew it more than once.
You get a tartness, or sourness, that is not unpleasant but not to my liking either. It tastes quite chemical and the sourness really lingers on the tongue. You cannot taste the teas in this at all (not white nor green). The tartness envelops the mouth strongly and then, I cannot taste anything else. It smells better that it tastes.
DT is saying that this is a “last chance” tea, but they’ve brought back teas before, so we’ll see. I won’t buy this one again.

TTB. Quite light, fruity, and fresh. Tastes like a white nectarine. A bit floral. Hibiscus isn’t overpowering and compliments the blend nicely.

1.5 tsp dry leaf in ~600mL cold water + ice. I just left the teabag in while I drank a large glass of it so it coldbrewed while I drank.

This is a nice floral tea that is mostly herbal. I didn’t find the hibiscus overpowering at all (quite surprising!), the rose is strong. It reminds me of a rose flavoured Turkish Delight. A bit perfumy but also natural. The tulsi is nice in the base, it gives a lightly herbal flavour and something almost minty. I wouldn’t have expected any mint in this because it is so faint. Overall, well rounded and makes for a good iced blend.

I’m really behind right now on tasting notes in general, but I really wanted to have notes up for this and the other new Mother’s Day tea much earlier than now. I’ve just been having a lot of sleep issues and headaches recently, and it’s very unmotivating with keeping on track with a lot of things, including tasting notes.

In fact, I’m up right now with some pretty bad insomnia, kind of my fault because I had a wicked migraine all afternoon and I decided to try to sleep it off/sleep through it. So I messed up my own sleep schedule a little in doing that.

I’ll be perfectly honest – I’m not a big fan of either of the two new teas so that probably had something to do with my not being as excited with writing about them as well. I prefer this one the least of the new teas – it’s not a bad tea but it’s just a profile that really doesn’t speak to me. It’s essentially a hibiscus rose – and you do get that sort of hibiscus tartness coupled with a bit of a berry profile, but it’s not as sweet and juicy or even tart and punchy as most DT blends with hibiscus tend to be. I find this is more the drier and actually somewhat floral tasting form of hibiscus and while it’s not altogether unfamiliar with how you normally would see hibiscus presented in a blend I do think it’s different feeling. The rose is nice; I like rose flavours a lot in tea and this is the best part of the blend for me – I personally wish it was stronger but I see this rose are probably being right on the line of what most people would be able to handle in a blend if they aren’t rose tea junkies like myself.

I’d say it’s probably more light to medium bodied, and in my opinion better hot than iced. The main thing is that this is just overall quite floral and drying – and ingredients like ashwagandha and shatavari don’t really help the flavour profile in my mind. Both tend to be more herbal, earthy and bitter tasting. Tulsi is also pretty herbaceous, which adds to that flavour. If you’re looking at the blend from a wellness type perspective and you want those ingredients because of their associated benefits then I think all things considered that DT has done a really solid just of presenting them in a more palatable way than they would taste straight up. They’re not completely masked though, and as someone who is not seeking out those ingredients for a wellness function then I just don’t love their contributing flavours. So I guess what I’m saying is that for the ingredients in the blend, I think it’s a good blend but I’m not the customer for it.

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.