58 Tasting Notes

83
drank Red Velvet Cake by DAVIDsTEA
58 tasting notes

Hmm,I don’t think there are hardly any white chocolate chips or even chip pieces in mine. Go figure! Maybe the finished out the bottom of a larger tin when they filled up the 50g to send my way. No issue, I hadn’t noticed they were supposed to be in there!

The flavor really reminds me of Ice Cream Cake, which is one of my favorites. Other than a slightly less prominent icing flavor, this pretty much is Ice Cream Cake. It’s good, though I don’t know if I would order it again, simply because I have a large quantity of Ice Cream Cake on hand already.

Preparation
4 min, 30 sec
Reasoned_Melody

That’s one of my favorites!!:)

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85

So let me see how “in a nutshell” I can make this before I wind up rambling on and on in this tasting note.

I bought this really because of my obsession with the “A Song of Ice and Fire” books, and the catch phrase of this tea is “fire and ice” so I decided to give it a shot. And I really love DT’s Bamboozled. I bought it to be an ice tea and really have no plans of trying it hot.

First of all, you get A LOT of tea for 50g. Like, one of DT’s tins was overflowing when I filled it up with this, usually 50g only takes up about a third of the tin. So it is a very spacious tea. I doubled the amount of tea suggested and doubled the steep time as well. Mixed in two teaspoons of rock sugar while it was still hot and let it cool to about room temperature before pouring it over ice. I used ice from my parents ice machine as opposed to ice cubes I made myself, so the flavor was a bit artificial but I really attribute that to a batch of fridge made ice that added that slight chemical note. Blah. Good to know for next time though.

Flavor-wise it was a bit.. strange. A warm feeling for sure, but a somewhat lack of flavor.. mid conversation with my mother about something, I reached into a candy jar on the table and ate a Dove Dark Chocolate, then proceeded to absent-mindedly take another sip of this iced Blazing Strawberry tea. And… BAM absolute total perfection. That is what this tea is lacking… chocolate!!! For some reason, the hint of dark chocolate really brings out the strawberry flavor and melts in nicely with the subtle sweet spice.

So… since then I have blended in a handful of dark chocolate chips to the rest of my 40g or so of tea and ever brew since then has been spectacular! Go figure!!

Preparation
8 min or more
leafyq

Ooooh, this may be what I need to finish ASOIAF. =D

Meowkattack

Yes! But add chocolate, it’s really.. meh.. without chocolate. ^^

Terri HarpLady

Nice improvisation!
I love the Song of Ice & Fire books, I read the entire series over the summer, & my only complaint is that it will probably be another 5 years before he finishes the next one….

Meowkattack

Agreed. I am going to be camped outside my local bookstore DAYS before it releases. Muahaha!

leafyq

Five years will be lucky.

tigress_al

I am on book 4 right now. Great characters!

Uniquity

I still have two books to go, but I am annoyed that he brags about how he hasn’t even started the next one yet. What a tease! : ) I prefer stumbling onto things after they’re done being written or filmed so I can enjoy it in one sweep.

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67
drank Apple Cinnamon by Teaopia
58 tasting notes

Thanks to Reasoned_Melody for sending me some of this!

I really wish that the hibiscus wasn’t in this, because other than that this is a really yummy blend. That darn hibiscus is just a wee bit over powering and drowns out the sweeter apple taste. Ah well.

Going to try this one over ice and see if that makes it less tart.

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 4 min, 0 sec
Reasoned_Melody

I prefer it iced with a generous helping of rock sugar. Although I’m also a closet hibiscus lover lol. Don’t tell!:p

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67
drank Apple Cinnamon by Teaopia
58 tasting notes

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91
drank Baked Apple Pie by Teaopia
58 tasting notes

Big thanks to Reasoned_Melody for sending me a bit of this in a swap!

I am always a bit cautious with apple pie type teas because they always seem to have a heavy artificial apple after-note to them, but I don’t get that feeling from this one at all! The fact that it is an oolong blend really give this tea that rich oolong consistency and the apple cinnamon aspects of this combined with that yummy warm taste really make this one a winner. I am more than pleased with this and would definitely consider ordering it!

Edit: Did a second steep on this and it brewed another nice cup of tea, second steep really brings out the earthier notes of the oolong as opposed to the sweeter apple cinnamon flavors that are much more prominent in the first steep. Increased temperature and doubled the steep time for the second round. I think a third steep would be far too weak.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 4 min, 45 sec

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78

Big thanks to my tea twin Amanda for sending me some of this to try!

I really love the combination of coconut, almond, and vanilla. This is a tea that I feel has a lot more potential then what I gave it. (Just a normal steep with sugar). I am for sure going to have to make it again and add a splash of cream (or almond milk in my lactose intolerant case) I am really interested in finding out what that would taste iced as well. Iced snowflake late anyone? Sounds good to me!

Will post a note when I try that experiment. For now, a generally good dessert black coconutty almondy tea.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 30 sec

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drank Murmur by Handmade Tea
58 tasting notes

I received this in my super amazing sampler box from LiberTEAS!

I think I must have made this wrong… I just got a grassy bland flavor from this that I am sad to say that I ended up pouring out. The description sounds lovely and the tea looks delicious too. Bah.

Caleb Brown

I’m so sorry to hear this didn’t brew up well for you! It can be a bit sensitive to water temp but I trust your skills! Email me your address and I’ll send you a few other Handmade Tea samples! Caleb@handmadetea.com

Meowkattack

Aww, thank you Caleb. You don’t have to do that! (Though… free tea… hmm) Really though, I think I didn’t really know what I was doing steep-wise. What temp do you recommend for it?

LiberTEAS

For this, I personally went with a very low temperature (160 is as low as my breville goes, but it was good for me), and a longer steep time… about six minutes. Because this is a blended tea, not a flavored one, you won’t get a strong, heavy flavor like you would with a strawberry chocolate FLAVORED tea.

Meowkattack

Ah ha! That’s what I did wrong then… I was closer to a 200 temp., bad habit from brewing black teas all the time. That makes total sense why this turned out so… blegh. I have enough for another cup or maybe two, so I will have to steep much lower and see what that does.

LiberTEAS

With white teas, I always go low temperature with a longer steep time. I find that this is the best way – for me – to get the most flavor out of a white tea. There are those that will disagree with that, I’m sure, but, that’s how I do it and I’m very, very rarely disappointed.

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84
drank Gingered Peach by Kally Tea
58 tasting notes

First to review this? I feel so special! First off let me say that I am very impressed with Kally Tea, their product packaging and everything is super spacey and I am very excited that I have a whole huge box of their teas to try!

I bought this to have as an iced tea, and I doubt that I will be trying it hot, so this is an iced review. I mixed roughly 3 teaspoons of rock sugar in about 10 oz of water and steeped 2.5 teaspoons of tea. Poured over ice this made a medium size pitcher worth of iced tea. (recipe rant, sorry!)

Now to the flavor! The balance of ginger and peach is actually rather spot on. One sip you get a really peachy note, and the next is gingery, then a mix, then more ginger, etc. I really like that about this tea! It almost creates a “What is this sip going to taste like?” (between ginger and peach)

Overall, pretty impressed and glad I found a good ginger/peach tea. I’m lucky enough to live where it is hot most of the year, so it’s nice to have a lot of variety in ice teas. I am really looking forward to tasting the rest of what I ordered as well!

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 4 min, 0 sec
LiberTEAS

I love Kally Teas too. And they are super nice!

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97

This is such a lovely oolong and is definitely everything that a good oolong can be. In a fit of clumsiness, my tea strainer decided to burst open, so I had to strain out my cup of tea so I wasn’t drinking sludge. I was able to get a good strong 5 steeps from this over the course of the day. Delicious!

leafyq

Luckily oolong is easy enough to strain out! (Imagine if that happened with a rooibos!) I had ti kuan yin earlier as well!

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41
drank Crème Brulée by DAVIDsTEA
58 tasting notes

I received a sample of this with my last DavidsTea order and I have to admit, I’m pretty disappointed in this tea. For one, it doesn’t taste a thing like creme brule and the flavors don’t really make a whole lot of sense. It tastes like a really watered down version of DavidsTea’s Creme Caramel. Pretty mediocre and I’m glad I didn’t spend any money on this.

Preparation
5 min, 0 sec
Azzrian

Awee bummer sorry :(

Meowkattack

On the bright side, the other two samples they sent me were teas they don’t even have on their site yet. A sneak peek of what is to come perhaps! I’m pretty stoked about that.

Azzrian

NICE!! :) Makes you feel special I am sure – I know it would me :)

Azzrian

Oh not to imply that you are not special haha

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Dessert Tea Lover. Massive Iced Tea Drinker. Mate Obsessed. Hula Hooper. Go-Go Dancer. Book Eater. Jam Band Listener. Etc. Etc.

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