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A longer cold brew (about 15 hours) brings out a bit of the guayusa. All the same, it’s not overpowering. I do prefer this with a bit of a shorter cold brew, but there’s not a huge difference.

Rarely do I go for floral teas, so I surprised myself by craving one this evening. Decided to give this a go and was sorely disappointed. This tastes almost exactly like sugar coated fennel seeds which, unfortunately for me, tastes like sweet black licorice. It was so unexpected I went and double checked that I’d grabbed the right tea bag—twice! On the bright side, I have had worse teas when it comes to black licorice, but it really wasn’t what I was expecting. Towards the middle of the cup some lemon came out and the aftertaste even contained a bit of a velvety floral note. This definitely improved as it cooled. Still not a winner for me.

This to me is basically Kusmi’s Ginger Lemon Green tea, but with a black base. And while I might have shied away from the idea of a black based ginger lemon tea, I rather like the result. A hint of vanilla does come out in the aftertaste as well. This is also rather similar to Kusmi’s Christmas tea, but lemon dominates vs orange and, between the two, this would be my pick. This is an excellent sipping tea; I feel I could drink this all day and not get tired of it. The only downside to that would be that I prefer it piping hot (which is unusual for me) and wouldn’t want it to cool down as I sipped.

This tea really reminds me of DAVID’s new Glitter and Gold. Slightly spicy—mostly ginger—but nothing really in your face. Pretty heavy citrus note as well. I let my cup cool down a little too much on this one; it seems like a tea best drunk piping hot on a cold day. I’ll probably wait for the weather to deteriorate before giving this another go. Even the name implies this is the wrong tea for summer.

This was…okay cold. Blackberry dominated, but it was still very floral. Kind of reminded me of Elderflower Spritz, but much better. Would be interested to try this hot as that’s usually my preference for jasmine teas. Haven’t written it off completely, but so far just kind of “meh”.

Finally some Kusmi tea that hasn’t been sitting in the cupboard for several years!

This was an excellent wake up call this morning (okay, afternoon). With the black base present, but not overpowering, and strong raspberry notes, I could see myself drinking quite a lot of this in the future. Next comes a fairly light caramel note and there’s just a hint of floral in there too. I wouldn’t have guessed that berries and caramel would mix that well, but it works. Haven’t had much from Kusmi yet, and I’ve got quite a few new ones to try, but so far this is my favourite by them.

This was, up until my introduction to DAVID’s Tea about a year ago, what I would always think of when someone said “tea”. However any time I have tried this before was in my tea hating days, so I could never say too much about it. However, my grandmother makes a pot every morning and these days I’ll never say no to tea.

I can see why this is popular. It’s super basic. Not bitter, even if over-steeped (my grandmother leaves the bag in, much to my chagrin). Slightest citrus note, but nothing in your face. I, personally, would get bored of it, but to each his own.

I got this when I was downtown today as it was the tea of the day and, as I’m in Quebec and don’t speak much French, that seemed to be the easiest thing. Overall this is just kind of meh. No specific flavours really jumped out at me; I’ll just describe it as “green”. It’s definitely fruity, I was thinking maybe melon, but it would seem that’s just my imagination. Hint of floral notes as well. Certainly not bad, but nothing special.

This one’s pretty high rating so far gave me high hopes, but this blend isn’t my favourite. I wish there was a little more mango and the lime was a little less artificial. While I enjoyed my cup, I wouldn’t stock up on this. Though occasionally a sip would include just enough mango and it was really good. Like many of DAVID’s creations, this isn’t really strong in terms of actual tea. Again, I could be fooled into thinking this is a herbal.

Visiting my grandmother, which opens the door to a few new teas I wouldn’t otherwise have tried. The tea base its self in this is quite dry, kind of like dried out grape branches. However, most predominantly there’s a sweet, syrupy strawberry note, with perhaps just a dash of cream that makes it a really nice, summery dessert tea. There was also a slight floral note around the middle of the cup, and a hint of white grape at the end. Not at all what I was expecting given the ingredients, but it was rather nice regardless. A surprisingly long recommended steeped time considering it’s a white tea (5-7 min) and I had to guess what temperature my water was at (I just threw a large ice cube into my cup of hot water), but it didn’t seem to make it bitter.