Merry Mistletoe

I picked up two bags of this at some point. I’m at the bottom of the first bag, so I dumped the crumbs that were left in my steeping basket and added a small scoop from the new bag. This cup is tasting like a morphing of hot apple cider and mulled wine. The finish has a weird flatness to it. I don’t recall my other cups of this tasting quite like that and I’m attributing it all to it being the bottom of the bag dust. I do recall enjoying previous cups of this. I also could have sworn that I had written a tasting note on this before, but I don’t see it now.

When I first tried this, I found it to be a bit too tart with a weirdly artificial note that completely takes over the end of the sip. It has some herbs/spices mixed in that are just sort of strange together. Later I sort of liked it by keeping my steep time short and drinking it cold with plenty of sugar. The spices and tart fruit create a sort of mulled cider vibe that still has a weird artificial tartness, but it’s not awful. Unfortunately, I got tired of it before I’d quite finished my 2 oz bag, so I’ll be passing the rest along.

I have officially realized I don’t like many teas with apple in them. This one was just nothing special and the apple made it worse for me

DAVIDsTEA Advent Calendar 2021 – Day 1

First day of sipping on DT with Tea with Jann! Jann always does a video for each day of the DT advent, and I loved her videos so much last year that I was inspired to buy this advent! Highly recommend checking her out on YouTube if you haven’t already – she’s such a kind, funny, and genuine person.

Anyway, the tea! This is supposedly a white tea, but really it’s mostly a fruit tisane. I still steeped it as a white tea, just to be safe and avoid bitterness. I used the entire little tinful of leaf, partially because there’s so much fruit in here and partially because I don’t want any leftovers heh heh…

It’s a sort of generic red fruit-like tisane. I definitely don’t taste the white tea at all, and I question the point of it being included at all. It’s not too tart even though there’s hibiscus here, which is nice. I can taste the stevia, but it’s not awful. It does give it a somewhat artificial taste though. Hint of spices but quite subtle – I actually get the spices more in the aroma than the taste.

Anyway, it’s fine. I would like it much better without the stevia though…

A pleasant surprise to find a hit from the subscription box back again already to start the month. I still enjoyed the hibiscus/spice blend, though the spices were more mellow (or is it mellower?) in this particular tin than the pouch.

[I learned nothing from last year and so I have too many advent calendars again, including ones I swore I wouldn’t do this year.]

DAVIDsTEA advent, day 1

(DavidsTea 53)

Not sure what I expected from a tea named “Merry Mistletoe”, but perhaps something a little evergreeny? Not at all what this is, which is a “white” (haha, I see basically no tea) blend packed with fruit pieces and some really delicious Christmas spicing. It’s actually quite tasty – a mix of primarily apple, cranberry, cinnamon with hints of other spices. Apparently there is stevia, but since cinnamon can also impart a sweetness, it must have blended in and wasn’t offputting.

I liked this more than I wanted to, considering labeling it as a white jacks up the price, but I think I saw it half price and now I’m torn. Oh well.

Sneaky new advent tea!

As people likely saw ages ago in DT’s regular advent calendar – this is a new white tea blend! I know it was the advent tea for day nine this year, but I’m not actually sure what day it launched on the website. It’s been a chaotic last few months, and I may have just missed writing a tasting note for it when it came out? I’m… not sure…

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of this tea but I do think that it has a flavour profile that speaks to a lot of people. If I had to quickly elevator pitch/summary the blend I feel like you can kind of capture all of its essence by describing it as the “lovechild of Pomegrateful and Sleigh Ride”. It really does feel like those teas mashed together to me. Sweet and tart red fruit, in this case largely cranberry, with punchy hibiscus and warming cinnamon along with a hint of crisp cider-like apple.

As y’all know I feel ambivalent towards Pomegrateful and Sleigh Ride is one of those blends I personally feel is a bit overhyped and that I get sick of when I have it too frequently. Makes sense that this one isn’t for me. If you’re looking for something that’s a fruity break from holiday sweetness or that makes a solid iceable tea during the winter, then Merry Mistletoe has your back.

I also think it’s cool that there’s actually Mistletoe in the blend. I’ve been drinking the Korean Mistletoe from Soocha a lot recently and I love that profile so much; it’s like a toasty pumpkin with hints of grilled nuts and cinnamon. You don’t taste it too much here but some of those cinnamon-ish flavour elements to add to the undertone of warmth in the blend.

Aside from being in the advent, there’s a very limited amount of this blend this year so if you had it in the advent and liked it, I don’t believe that this blend will likely be on the website for a prolonged period…

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.