652 Tasting Notes

89
drank Cookie Dough by DAVIDsTEA
652 tasting notes

Yummy! I truly taste cookie dough when I sip this. It’s pretty sweet, as you would expect, it would actually serve to replace dessert if that’s what you were hoping to do. I think drinking this along with a cookie would actually be a sweetness overload! I will probably go out of my way to buy more of this before Davidstea gets rid of it forever!

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99

Oh. My. God.

Could this be my new favorite tea?? I think so!! Just got this from H&S (along with a few others), and I knew immediately upon sniffing that I would fall in love with it. That really happened.

It’s so vanilla-y and sweet but not in a fake way, almost cookie like…. It’s perfect. The most perfect vanilla black tea. And decaf!! The other reviews aren’t wrong, you guys!

Crap, that means I have to order the loose stuff now. (the tin was prettier with the sachets :))

jessiwrites

Yeesh, like I wasn’t tempted by Harney & Sons enough already…

Josie Jade

I’ve seen so many good comments about this tea lately. Onto the list it goes!

ohfancythat

Oh I highly recommend it! :)

Froogle_jimmy

Just checked out the harney and sons website…..It is really nice

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90
drank Caramel by Kusmi Tea
652 tasting notes

I really want to love this, but I find it brews really weak! It’s so black and rich smelling in the tin, but when you add water it isn’t very hearty at all. I know there’s a real “tea word” for that but I’m struggling to remember it.

So, caramel. It does smell fairly caramelly, but doesn’t taste as much. I know I’ve been drinking a lot of super sweet dessert teas over the last few years, the kind that punch you in the face with their (often artificial) sweetness. Obviously this one is intended to be much more subtle and therefore classic. I am trying it with a bit of cream now which is weakening it more. I bet a small amount of sugar would bring out the flavour more but I have sworn off adding sugar to anything. I might try a bit of honey though that could be weird.

To summarize, it’s not as sweet or caramellicious as I’d hoped, but my taste buds have long been ruined by ridiculous saccharine confection blends so I will keep trying this as I hone my tastes!

Ellyn

Is there anything in my cupboard you would want to try? I really wanted to try this one and would love to do a swap. If you don’t do swaps or don’t want to I UNDERSTAND!!!!! Just trying to spread the tea love. :)

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84
drank St. Petersburg by Kusmi Tea
652 tasting notes

I recently ordered this and the Caramel tea from Kusmi and was really excited to try this, based on the description, it seemed right up my alley.

It didn’t disappoint me, I can taste the fruit, and the sweetness of the caramel, and of course the bergamot which basically seals the deal that I’m going to love it, since it reminds me of a fruity earl grey.

To me, it’s sort of like what Davidstea ‘The Earl’s Garden’ (which I love) would be if it tasted less artificial. I will add to this after my second taste!

I accidentally steeped it about ten degrees higher than recommended on the tin so next time I will do it accurately and report back!

Edit to add- it’s definitely more tea flavoured than anything else, I mean the flavouring is definitely subtle!!

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100

Edit – lots of exclamation points to follow…

Not to be dramatic, but if I was forced to only drink one kind of tea for the rest of my life, (the horror!!), this would probably be it.

In the interest of full disclosure, this is the only loose leaf Earl Grey tea I’ve tried.

However, before Davidstea opened up in my city, my favourite tea of all time was Tetley’s Earl Grey Vanilla. Looking at reviews on that, apparently it’s not very good according to the standards of tea connoisseurs, but it will always have a place in my heart (and in my cupboard, for those easy teabag sorts of days).

Then one day I decided to try something at Davidstea which didn’t classify as a dessert blend. This was it. I expected it to be fairly similar to the Tetley one, boy was I wrong!

It was like a flavour explosion in my mouth! So creamy and just the perfect amount of vanilla sweetness to balance off the delicious bergamot! I steep it usually twice per perfect spoonful, as per the directions. It’s good straight up but I almost always add a bit of cream (no watered down milk for this girl!)

Compared to the Tetley version this tea blew my mind, I will never not have a tin, at home and at work!!

(Would love to try some other brands’ versions of this sometime to compare!)

Chizakura

Hehe, you’re just like me, went from Tetley Earl Grey Vanilla (which was my favorite tea back in my teabag days) to this one which I ADORE. :D

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86

Hmm. This is the second oolong tea I have tried recently, so I think I can officially say I know what oolong tastes like. It tastes good. The first one I tried (consciously i mean, because a few of my other teas are oolong but it has been awhile) was Vanilla Orchid, which I lovvvvve.

The thing with this tea is that though it is nummy, it tastes mostly like oolong to me. That being said, I’ve never had an unflavored oolong so I’m probably wrong on that. I guess the thing is that I cannot really get a banana flavor out of this tea, whereas with the Vanilla Orchid, it’s clearly vanilla.

As a disclaimer, I’m not a huge fan of banana flavored anything, at least not artificial banana flavors (incidentally I feel the same about apple flavors). Now on the bag it states “banana” and “natural flavor” as 2 of the ingredients, I don’t know if the “natural flavor” comes from a banana or not. Maybe if it was “artificial” it would be more bananariffic. Anyhow, this tea is tasty, but I don’t need to own it because I own Vanilla Orchid which I way prefer.

The only banana flavored thing that ever really turned my crank was that yellow medicine we used to get as kids, I think they no longer make it, which is sad. Back in MY day, it was like “you’re sick, we are going to have to go to the doctor to get some medicine.”

GREAT, would this by any chance be a sickness curable with Banana Medicine???”

Kids today are missing out.

To summarize, tasty, yeah, super bananariffic? Not really. I prefer DT’s Vanilla Orchid oolong though.

Someday I will try a plain unflavored oolong and edit this note accordingly :)

(brewed as per the directions but I don’t find it overly flavorful!!)

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100
drank Paris by Harney & Sons
652 tasting notes

Mmmm. I was having such a hard time putting my finger on why I really like this tea, then I reread the description with the “bergamot” and it all made sense! I lovvvve Earl Grey. I wouldn’t say this tastes like Earl Grey, but definitely reminds me of it in a good way.

When I was remembering this tea before drinking it, it presents as a dessert tea. Realistically it’s not super sweet, it’s a subtly flavored “sweetish” black tea that consequently goes really well WITH dessert. Slightly vanilla/caramelly for some reason.

I had happened upon a tin of the sachets of this at Chapters and bought it upon first whiff, It was clearly a success as I’ve since ordered the loose tin from the H&S website.

Branching out from the super sweet dessert teas that I’ve been obsessed with for the last 2-3 years, this is an awesome direction to go in!

(steeped as per the tin)

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46
drank Chocolate Cake by DAVIDsTEA
652 tasting notes

I thought I loved this, and I was really heartbroken that it wasn’t permanent, that they chose Birthday Cake to keep instead. Then I met Red Velvet Cake…..which is way more chocolatey and delicious than this one. David outdid himself!

In fairness, I’m drinking a second steep of this right now, so it’s not as potent, but I just don’t taste the chocolate as much as I should for a tea called “chocolate cake”. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, but it just pales in comparison to the Red Velvet Cake so it’s not surprising that this no longer exists!

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72

Hmm. This is the first “plain” regular old tea of Davidstea that I have tried,
I had two other darjeelings in my life, Twinings and a random bag of Darvilles of Windsor, which seemed pretty fancy.

I actually think I prefer the Twinings over DT’s Darjeeling, but I can’t recall if the Twinings is “second flush” or not, I guess that makes a difference. EDIT ok, so I just looked up the ratings of the Twinings version and I guess it sucks?? I will have to do a taste test at some point, as I said I’m really not qualified to rate Darjeelings, so take this review as you will :) *

I steeped it as per the directions, and I did a second steep which was not as good as the first but definitely doable.

I am far from a connoisseur of darjeelings, (or even breakfast blends and such classic staples), but I think this one was pretty good. I don’t feel it is a tea I would keep stocked, I only bought it as a sample pack on sale for 50 cents. My opinion is biased as I definitely prefer the more flavorful dessert teas over ones like this. Maybe I will come back to this in the future with more experience and more insight :)

Indigobloom

try steeping at a slightly lower temperature. I find it really makes a difference with Darjeelings! :)

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50
drank Red Velvet Cake by DAVIDsTEA
652 tasting notes

Strange that I am pretty sure I didn’t love this the first time I tried it. Or perhaps I did, but I may have gotten it confused with DT’s Birthday Cake tea, which to me just tastes purely of rooibos, which I don’t love. I was a huge fan when they came out with their original cake teas, including Birthday Cake (meh), Ice Cream cake (very artificial but also pretty true to the intent!) and, my personal favorite, Chocolate Cake.

I figured that the whole world would agree with me that Chocolate Cake (hereby known as “CC”) was the clear winner of the three, I was wrong! DT ended up keeping the Bday Cake as a permanent tea instead, and so I was left clinging to the rest of my CC Tin.

Until now! I know this Red Velvet Cake has existed for awhile, but clearly “David” took the original CC mix and ran with it! Now THIS is a definite winner. I am still a novice when it comes to writing these reviews and as far as being able to taste different notes within a single tea, however this one is easy. I swear I can taste the frosting! And somehow it is cream cheese frosting! It’s definitely a good chocolatey tea, not in a gross fake way. I will try some more of my beloved CC tea later to compare, but I’m so glad this one is permanent! I can see this being a great craving killer, it really tastes like dessert! It is VERY sweet. I’m drinking it straight up and followed the steeping directions on the bag.

I’m actually drinking it for breakfast as we speak, which is kind of sick. I have never denied my sweet tooth though. Incidentally i am also in the middle of making homemade mayo for some deviled eggs to bring to a gathering later, and just in case you were wondering, as far as smell goes, mayo and chocolate tea do NOT mix.

To summarize, another win!

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Bio

name change alert – going from whatshesaid to ohfancythat

Hello!

I love tea. I love my mini-me daughter, my husband, my dog Wally, Netflix, shopping, and tea. Some other stuff too, but these are the most important!

Some favourites -

My new favourite tea company is A Quarter to Tea. I love the flavouring used and how it doesn’t seem fake, and the combinations are so delicious. Right up my alley.

My favourite teas are black, I love Laoshan Black and Taiwanese Wild Mountain Black tea from TTC. Also many of Teavivre’s black teas.

Butiki teas RIP, I loved how the flavours were subtle and not fake tasting and didn’t overwhelm the tea base. Trust that I am dramatically mourning the loss of this company!

Teavivre, Whispering Pines and Mariage Freres are some more tea companies I appreciate. Along with Davidstea as it was the ‘gateway drug’ to my tea addiction. Though I’m mostly over it now, I’ve definitely moved on from the artificially flavoured teas and am trying more quality straight teas!

My ultimate goal is to try as many French teas as possible – and to finally find a source in Canada for Mariage Freres so I can buy Wedding Imperial, and Black Orchid for sure.

I would like to try any Taiwanese Assams that exist in the world!

Also continuously on the hunt for Fauchon – La Naissance. If anyone has some of this I would pay for it!!! It’s my number one all time favourite tea.

When I rate, it goes like this:

85 -100 = WIN! awesome, I love this and keep it on hand
70 – 85 = pretty darn good but I don’t NEED to own it
55 – 70 = not necessarily terrible but not a tea for me!
30 – 55 = missed the mark as far as I am concerned. Wouldn’t drink it willingly.
0 – 30 = I likely won’t rate this low very often, so if you see it, consider the tea a great big FAIL and probably disgusting.

Location

New Brunswick, Canada

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