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How could I almost forget that I got to try this?

I stayed a night in Stratford, Ontario over the weekend and across the street from our hotel was a Balzac’s, the only place I have seen Mariage Freres in Toronto. I stopped in for a cup and this was an easy choice after reading so much about it here.

I was given the little sachet in my large cup and wanted to get rid of the teabag before leaving the cafe so that this didn’t get bitter. Thus, the steeping conditions weren’t ideal and this ended up weaker than it would have otherwise. Despite that, the black tea was nice and rich. The fruity flavours and floral ones were balanced really nicely, and I was getting some kind of bakey feeling from the combination of the black tea and the fruit as well as the milk I added. Delicious! I got a delicate feel from it while the flavours were rich and complex.

I love all the tea recipes floating around lately. I was intrigued by the Cocomama Lime chicken idea in the March newsletter, and decided to give it a try, albeit with turkey. I steeped some Cocomama Lime extra-strong and marinated the turkey with the tea, lots of garlic, salt, and a tiny bit of lime juice for a few hours then baked it.

The flavour was really interesting! It tasted very Thai-inspired with the coconut and lime. I sprinkled a little extra coconut over the meat when serving, and it looked great as well. I think this would work well on fish especially, maybe lightly breaded. I’ll also have to try it in a more Thai-themed meal. It’s very cool adding flair to meats with tea. So many options!

I need to be warmed up and soothed today, and my headache needs to be chased off so that I can write. I knew what I was going to indulge in: Pumpkin Chai. I’ve been craving it lately but trying to ration it carefully. Today is the day.

It’s incredible how vividly opening the tin takes me back to the fall. I discovered DavidsTea in October, and opened up my first order when I was at my family’s cottage for Thanksgiving. This tea makes one think of fall anyway, but it’s very closely associated with my first memories of DavidsTea. Look how far we’ve come.

Anyway, I love anything pumpkin and anything with bakey spices, so this tea is perfect for me. I’m typically left wishing this one was a bit stronger, so today I brewed it extra-strong and allowed myself to use a little extra leaf. Also helping is one of my new favourite things, this bag of coconut sweetener I found at a health food store, extracted from the nectar of coconut flowers or some such thing. It surprised me with how low-glycemic it is so I had to try it. It is delicious and gives me that brown sugar taste I crave. I hadn’t put it in tea before as I really never sweeten, but it’s working well and it’s pumping up the flavours in this really nicely. Also, a bit of half-and-half. So decadent!

I’m down to just the tin of this now and no back-up baggie. I really hope it reappears this fall! It seems like such a fan favourite, for good reason.

This was a tea featured in the tea and honey tasting I attended at Tea Leaves. It paired quite nicely with the amber cantaloupe honey in particular. The fruity notes of the honey worked really nicely with it.

I liked this oolong well enough to pick up a small tin, and I had three nice infusions of it last night. It’s light and delicately floral, but also has a touch of fruitiness on some sips. I got a bit of a nectar-sweetness especially on the second steep. The floral notes are really incredible, especially after listening to a description of how the tea’s processing leads to the flavour. It’s really mellow and avoids any perfumey quality.

I love the format of Upton’s samplers, and grabbed the black tea one as I would like to get more familiar with my straight blacks.

This Darjeeling was really pleasant before breakfast today. It was nice and smooth but with a little bit of a bite. It’s flavourful but relatively light.

This smells great, but the flavour was just alright for me. It was either just too sweet or I wasn’t in the mood for it or the combination of creaminess and pear isn’t for me. The vanilla is nice as is the pear but I find them a bit weird together. I’m glad to have the sampler but won’t be buying any of this. However, I’ll need to try it again to be sure.

I’m increasing the rating for this a little, because it’s really growing on me the more I drink it. It never called to me so it took me a while to try it, and then it took me a while to warm up to it but I think this is potentially my favourite red rooibos at present.

Lately I’ve felt like I’ve had my fill of that very particular red rooibos taste, but I think the flavours in this one work marvelously well with it. The rich berry flavour and the slight floral quality are nicely balanced and tame the rooibos a little. It’s very relaxing, and I tend to drink it a lot when taking luxurious Lush baths. Lush and DT are a winning combination.

I just had this as a latthé from the store. I had a stressful meeting and decided to stop in “on my way” home (not really on the way, especially not for a $4 drink, but it made me happy). I chose this one on the suggestion of the lovely employee who has now, shamefully, seen me twice in the past five days.

I love this tea normally so I thought it couldn’t be a bad choice, and it wasn’t. As soon as she mentioned it was like a London Fog, I was in. I have recently become pretty hooked on Second Cup’s London Fog lattes, made so delicious by what looks like several pumps of vanilla syrup.

Anyway, yes. This was tasty, though mild. I left the bag in while I drank and it remained pretty innocuous throughout. The bergamot cut through the milk pretty nicely though I don’t know that I could taste the tea much. Of course, the vanilla worked well in this format. I don’t know that tea lattes are worth the carb-counting and insulin-dosing required of me for the milk when the milk seems to render most teas quite a lot less flavourful, but it’s a nice indulgence and this made for a good alternative without the generous serving of (delicious!) artificial sweetener-laden syrup.

I am further into this tin than I would like to acknowledge. But today I was running late for class for no particular reason. When I stepped outside, it was raining. In March. Yet again. On the still freshly-dyed red hair I’m trying desperately to protect. Well, it was just a light drizzle I thought, and no time to go back upstairs for an umbrella.

I did make it in time to get a seat but I also learned that “just a light drizzle” really accumulates during a twenty-minute walk. And that sitting through two hours of lecture is unpleasant when you’re soaked through and have to repeat the drizzly walk to get home.

So, when I returned this tea helped me avoid looking out the window for the rest of the day and pretend that the weather was just dandy. It’s well-named, as Fantasy Island really helps with escapism. I love how rich this one is; each time I drink it I decide that it tastes like a different delicious baked good. Today it was macaroons. The coconut is definitely the star here, but the raspberry really adds so much. It gives this tea a wonderful little tang that I think is what sets it apart so much from all the (many) other coconut teas I’ve tried.

I’ve read that a rinse of black tea or rooibos is good for red hair. I’ll try it with some cheap tea, but if I used this I would be so tempted to leave it on my head and smell incredible all day.