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Day 10 of the 24 Days of Tea calendar! I drank these in order, I swear. Just catching up with impression notes…

I’m not a fan of baklava. I’ll eat it if someone puts it in front of me, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy any. So again expectations were low with this one. I don’t like ginger (in it), I don’t like rose petals in my tea (in it), and I’m not a huge fan of baklava (inspiration for the tea). This isn’t exactly a recipe for success.

Smelled the tea in the tin and OH MY GOD HEAVEN. Not sure where exactly the “baklava” comes in, but JESUS MOTHER this smells good.

Made the tea. The smell of it was making my mouth water, it smelled so good while it was steeping. Wanted to try it so badly I burned my mouth on the first sip. Way to go, self. A bit more self-restraint for sip two, dontcha think?! Waited a bit for it to cool.

YUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. The taste still isn’t baklava to me. Sure, it’s a bit nutty, a bit rosy, and a lot spicy. Even though I think it missed the mark with the name of the tea, the tea itself is still THA-BOMBIZZLE.

Verdict: Will definitely buy before it’s discontinued.

Day 11 of the 24 Days Of Tea calendar!

I had very, very low expectations for this tea. I hate chamomile. With a passion. HATE. IT. But…deal with myself…try everything except coco chai rooibos, which makes me gag it’s so gross.

Made a cup. Drank the full cup. THE FULL CUP. I did it, guys. It’s very minty, almost disturbingly so. Definite hint of lemongrass, but not nearly as strong a flavour as what you would expect given the appearance of the tea (95% lemongrass, maybe?). Not very rosehippy, even though I could see big chunks of rosehip in the half-tin I steeped. Very strange indeed. And not entirely unpleasant…but still had that not-so-tasty aftertaste of chamomile. So I drank the cup quickly to avoid the after-taste, and then finished it off with a small glass of raspberry lemonade. lol.

Verdict: not nearly as gross as I thought it would be, it is very nearly “good” if it wasn’t for the chamomile. Still a yuck after-taste. Would not buy.

Day 8 of the 24 Days of Tea calendar

Well…I knew it would happen sometime between the 1st and the 24th. A coconut tea. Yuck. I detest coconut. Bright side of this tea: the coconut flakes are BIG and can be picked out. The downside of this tea: there’s also “coconut flavouring” in the tea that obviously can’t be removed. Lovely. Why you gotta put so much coconut in your teas, David?! WHY?

I was expecting not to like this one at all. Not. At. All. Grossest of the Grossness. The smell, though…wasn’t so bad. Sure it was coconut-y, but almost like sunscreen? Not like actual coconut. “Simulated coconut tropical sunshine smell”. Weird. You don’t expect to ever drink that scent, but it is what it is.

Picked as much of the coconut crap out of this as I could prior to steeping, so my review is somewhat biased. Still got the wha-bam of coconut flavour once I added the water, though. And I must say…it almost tastes like I’m drinking watery sunscreen. This isn’t a pleasant taste. It’s not NEARLY as terrible as I thought it would be, thanks to the mint leaves, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to say this is good. Nope, definitely wouldn’t.

Verdict: you couldn’t pay me enough to buy it.

Day 7 of the 24 Days of Tea calendar.

As far as tea goes, I’m not a HUGE fan of plain black teas. It doesn’t matter what kind of straight black tea, I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy it and drink it. That being said, it’s not that I dislike plain blacks…I just prefer other teas more. So when I saw there was a “boring straight black tea” in the calendar, I was disappointed. BUT…I’ll drink it.

I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised. I made sure not to over-steep, because one of the things that makes me actually dislike straight black teas is the astringency they can have. 4 minutes tops, then out of the water it comes. I think this one might have been 3 minutes. Not a bit of astringency, and a pleasant after-taste. After the first few sips I added some maple agave (what can I say? I’m a sucker for flavour), and it was GOOD. I will definitely use the rest of the tin this way!

Verdict: may or may not purchase a small bag. It would be a good way to use up the rest of my maple agave!

Day 5 of the 24 Days of Tea calendar

I had never had this one before, and honestly had no intention of trying it. When I saw it was in the calendar, I thought “uh, oh. Another one I’ll just end up giving away. Boo.” But…convinced myself to try it after smelling it. Smells interesting! Like lemongrass, a bit of…ginger? An interesting mix of flavours that I wouldn’t have thought to put together, and that’s the best way to describe it.

The taste was much the same: an interesting mix of flavours that I wouldn’t have thought to put together. It wasn’t unpleasant, it was just weird. And because there are so many other teas that I actually LIKE instead of it being “not unpleasant but weird”, I doubt I’ll ever buy this. If someone was offering me a cup, I wouldn’t turn it down.

Verdict: am unlikely to buy, but it’s not bad.

Day 3 of the 24 Days of Tea calendar!

I’ve always wanted to try this tea, but never actually bought any because I don’t like milk. Anything with the word “milk” in it I instantly assume I’m not going to be a fan of, whether it’s true or not. Since this was my perfect opportunity to try it before I bought it (sort of…), I was excited.

The smell: milky. Uh, oh. This is not starting off well.

The taste: a little milky, a lot oolongy, and a wee tinge of bitterness. Definitely over-steeped. It’s certainly not horrible, but so far it hasn’t been enough to wow me. I’ll try again with the other half of the container tomorrow and make sure I pay attention to the steeping. I’m not prepared to write it off yet!

Verdict: will have to try a second time to know for sure.

Day 2 of David’s Tea 24 days of tea.

Disclaimer: David’s has never, ever made a chai that I actually like. Expectations: low.

This smells like artificial vanilla extract. EXACTLY like artificial vanilla extract. Which is a byproduct of wood pulping for paper…so not off to a good start. But I swore I would try everything except that cocomint cream one, so here we go.

The steeped tea smells very similar to the dry tea, but more…astringent. I didn’t even let it steep all that long (2-3 mins, I think), so it’s not like it’s over-steeped. The vanilla flavour does come out, along with some cinnamon, but that’s about it as far as the “spice” goes in the chai. I’m disappointed. I really, REALLY want to find a David’s chai that I actually like but this definitely isn’t it. The tea isn’t TERRIBLE, it’s just not…good. Too artificial for me, and not enough of the traditional chai spices. Give me a good chai, David’s!

Verdict: would not buy, but glad I got to try it.

Disclaimer: this tasting note is based on 2 samples in-store, and both of them were cold. Yes, that’s right. Today this was being served as an iced tea. WTAF?!

Second Disclaimer: I don’t like pumpkin. So keep that in mind.

Every year David’s introduces this tea I always write it off as soon as I see the name. I absolutely HATE pumpkin, so why would I like a pumpkin tea? Especially one where the rave reviews talk about how much this tastes like pumpkin?! NOT my idea of a good time. This year I decided to be adventurous and at least try it. I told myself if it was introduced in the fall collection again this year (they’d be crazy not to!), I would try it. I might even try a whole cup of it. But I would try it.

And so I tried it. And it was cold. Which was sooooo weeeeiiirrrrdddd. The tea guide emphasized over and over how much better it was hot, and I kept asking myself why the hell they would serve it iced. This makes no sense. I did get a bit of a pumpkin taste. A bit. It wasn’t enough to gross me out, which was probably good. It was spicy, but not traditional chai spices (no cardamom, I don’t think…and I really like cardamom). Mostly just cinnamon. A sweetness from the candy pieces. And almost…creaminess? I’m not sure. Something else. Can’t quite put my finger on it. It wasn’t terrible. I’m still going to reserve main judgement until I try a full cup of this. Next time…

Verdict: judgement reserved for next time, but based on this sample of the tea alone I wouldn’t buy it.

Oh, Snickerdoodle. I will admit: I judged you prematurely. And I do apologize profusely.

I smelled this in-store yesterday (you know the shot glass sniffy samples they put out of the dry leaf? Yeah. Those.), and was 100% grossed out. It smelled a bit like the bottom of a garbage can. And I don’t usually drink from the bottom of garbage cans. Instantly put-off, and completely wrote this tea off. I did really want to try Pumpkin Chai, so I came into the store today for that, and that alone. I was going to refuse this sample, but then…since when do I refuse anything that’s free?! LOL. Not happening.

3 sips…and yum. I don’t know if I could tolerate a big tin of this (I doubt I’d get through it), but I do like it. Cinnamon-y, sweet from the monkfruit, and a bit of je-ne-sais-quoi as an after-taste. I basically didn’t taste any rooibos at all, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Based on the 3-sip sample, I was convinced to try this as a latte (yep, that’s right. Go big or go home), and the tea guide also convinced me to have cinnamon in my milk (twist my arm and call me Wilma…I love me some cinnamon). Sweet LAWWWWWWDDD!! This is good. I STILL don’t know if I could finish a tin (I think this would get old pretty quick), but a 50g bag? Sign me up. I’ll be getting one next time I go in.

Verdict: surprisingly yummy, despite a disgusting smell. Will buy a 50g bag, but unlikely more than that.

Disclaimer: this tea note is based on two of the in-store samples. Yes, I got two. Cuz I asked and smiled pretty.

I thought it was unusual that one of their teas of the day was iced, since their iced tea promotion ended yesterday. Why could I not bring my cup today and get a $1 iced tea if you have pre-made iced tea?! Come on, now. Hook an addict up. Anyway, somewhat of a moot point.

The other reason why I thought it was weird to be iced was that the tea guides in the store yesterday said all of the teas were better hot than iced. So why do you right away give people a tea they’ve never had before in a form that’s not as good as another form? Seems weird. But, of course, I’m going to drink what you put in front of me. I’m a student. We’re good at this “free” thing.

ANYWAY. Still not quite on topic…

This tea was good. It was weird, but it was good. I would never in a million years think to combine cloves with cranberries. Apples, sure. Oranges, absolutely. CRANBERRIES? No. Maybe that’s my “I like my cranberry sauce with cranberries, sugar and water, thankyouverymuch” talking, but that’s a weird combination. And my mouth screamed “THIS IS A WEIRD COMBINATION!!!” as soon as the first sip hit. And then…it grew on me. And it grew on me. And it grew on me. It didn’t grow enough for me to buy a cup of it today, but I probably will sometime soon. I may or may not actually purchase any of the loose leaf, though. We’ll have to see.

Verdict: it was…weird. I don’t think I could stomach too much of this at once because it was so weird, but it wasn’t unpleasant weird. You can REALLY taste the cloves, so if you don’t like cloves you will not like this tea. At all.