639 Tasting Notes
THIS IS MY 400TH TASTING NOTE!!!!!!!!
Yay! I’m celebrating with a new tea! The dry leaf aroma smells really chocolaty. I don’t really get red velvet cake. Instead, it smells like gooey, sumptuous, chocolate cake! The brewed aroma has transformed yet maintains its cake likeness. It appears to be a bit scummy and oily on top, but that’s to be expected when there’s this many sprinkles in the blend.
Oh man! I don’t know if this tastes like red velvet cake per say, but IT IS YUMMY! I’m definitely tasting cake. A delicious cake! Some sips taste like chocolate cake; some sips taste like red velvet cake complete with cream cheese icing; and some sips taste like a slightly oily, sugary, cake batter-flavored tea. Oddly, all sips are equally tasty.
You definitely want to drink this while it’s hot. It’s kind of gross when it cools. But hot, it is super delicious! I sucked this cup down! I did add some sweetener and that really made this tea perfect. Second infusion for 6 minutes was pretty yummy too. Now I just have to keep repeating to myself…I cannot justify purchasing this. I cannot. I cannot.
Preparation
Damn you, 52teas! Why do you have to keep making such intriguing blends?! We purchased airfare and accommodations for our European honeymoon this October, so our bank account is hurting. I should not be buying tea!!! But I just couldn’t resist this one!
…and the new Pink Lemonade Iced Tea…
…and some more Lime Jello Iced Tea…
…I guess I got a little carried away there. Shh, don’t tell the husband! :P
The dry leaf aroma is strongly ginger. Like ginger overload. Like sticking my nose in a spice container of ground ginger. The brewed tea aroma is still very gingery but also a bit weird. The tea taste is surprisingly light. Ginger is the main note followed by brown sugar and something cake-like.
I couldn’t tell you if this has a coffee flavor or not. I feel like maybe I can taste coffee, but then the taste could be imagined because I expect to taste it from the name. This is called Gingerbread Coffeecake on the Zoomdweebie website, but the package has “coffee” crossed out and “tea” written in. So, is it Gingerbread Coffeecake or Gingerbread Teacake? I don’t know, but either way it’s definitely yummy!
There’s not much of an aftertaste at first, but it builds the more I sip it. I decided to add a tiny bit of sweetener halfway through the cup. Mmm, now the spice really pops and the cake is even more apparent! This is delicious! It is heavily ginger and heavily tasty. ;)
Preparation
It’s supposed to be a gingerbread coffeecake blend. I just despise coffee and don’t know why they have to call it coffeecake and not teacake.
lol, agreed!
Coffeecake is just a cake to be eaten with coffee. There’s generally no coffee in it, in my experience. :) If I make one, I tend to call it teacake.
Really? The one time I had coffeecake, it had swirls of coffee-flavored cake in it.
Do you ever walk around the house collecting dishes, start the dishwasher, and then find another cup that could have gone in? Agh, I hate when that happens. Oh well, a cup of tea will help me feel better!
I was all out of my Tazo concentrated chai tea mix this morning, so I decided to make this tea instead. According to my previous tasting note, I last drank it about 2 years ago. O_o
I really need to drink down all these old teas. Wow, you know what? I can actually taste apple in this! Usually all I get is spices. I think the lower temperature and steep time really helped coax out the apple. Age hasn’t hurt this one at all. Mmm! What a wonderful way to start the morning! Raising the rating from 68 to 75.
Preparation
I received this complementary teabag while in an office waiting room. It was fairly bitter and very grassy. Not something I’d ever want to have again. It’s even worse than Lipton hot tea. Blech.
Does my inability to enjoy cheap, grocery store brand, bagged teas make me a tea snob? If so, I’m totally okay with that. :P
I kind of forgot to set the timer for this one, but I think it was steeped for about 3 minutes. The dry leaf aroma is a lovely black tea that screams I WANT TO BE MADE INTO ICED TEA!!! I poured myself a glass and added sweetener. The verdict? This tea is much mellower than I was expecting. It brews up very dark, so I was a little intimidated at first.
But I’m on my second glass now! This tea is very smooth and flavorful. If you like unflavored iced tea, this is the one for you! It’s a nice balance of bold and smooth. Personally, I prefer the flavored SBTs. This isn’t bad by any means. It’s just not very exciting, and I love how creative and unique the SBT line is. This was nice for a change of pace though.
Preparation
My husband and I have picked up tennis! We went shopping for new tennis rackets and then immediately went to a local park to play. I’ve never played tennis before, and I’m usually quite afraid of any sports involving balls flying at my face. My sports are swimming and horseback riding! But we wanted to start doing something new and he was practically begging me to play with him, so I decided to give it a shot.
And you know what? Tennis is really fun! My racket is pink and has a panther on it. And it only cost $20!!! My new workout shirt cost more than the racket! Why is workout clothing so expensive? Well, whatever sweat whisking properties it claimed to have were put to the test, and it seemed to work as advertised. I think half the fun of tennis is wearing the cute outfit. ;)
Anyway, this is a tea note not a sport note. But I just wanted to share my new experience with y’all! I see a lot more afternoons at the tennis court in our future. Maybe we’ll even make friends and then we can play doubles! I wish we could join a fancy country club. Then we could have afternoon tea too! Oh well, one can dream. :)
On to the tea!
The dry leaf aroma is mouthwateringly creamy and very strong. The brewed tea aroma is calmer, green oolong with a hint of something more. Mmm, this is super creamy and delicious! The aftertaste is surprisingly very akin to milk. I’ve only tried one other milk oolong before from Teavivre. This DAVIDsTEA version is much milkier and is also richer and deeper in flavor. I thought 4 minutes might be too long, but this is perfect just the way it is. Uber yummy! I hope it re-steeps well because I am going to thoroughly enjoy this for the rest of the day. :)
Preparation
The dry leaf aroma is potent, creamy vanilla similar to French vanilla ice cream. The brewed tea aroma is more balanced between the vanilla and the green oolong. The vanilla scent has developed and is almost smoky. It reminds me of the way a toasted marshmallow smells once it’s been melted over a fire or vanilla baked goods hot from the oven.
The taste is scrumptious! Unfortunately, as the cup cools, there’s a new flavor developing that tastes a lot like cardboard. What is that? I never add sugar to green oolongs, but I think this one may need it. Hmm, I’m not sure if it helped or just made it worse. Floral, buttery, green oolong and creamy vanilla may just not be a good combo.
If I tell myself what I’m tasting is vanilla, then I can trick myself into thinking it’s pretty good. But if I sit and really try to figure out what the flavor is, I keep returning to cardboard. I did use extra leaf…was that where I went wrong? I think it’s mostly appearing in the aftertaste, which is why I find it so bothersome. I’m used to green oolongs having a lovely aftertaste.
And now I have a really bad case of the hiccups! I’ve been hiccupping for about 10 minutes straight and trying to sneak sips of tea in between loud outbursts. How annoying. Second steep for 4 minutes was still more vanilla/cardboard with a touch of oolong than oolong with a touch of vanilla. Oh well. I guess this beloved tea is just not my thing. I’ll see if my husband is interested in it.
Preparation
Oh no! booo to the hiccups and to cardboard tasting tea. I usually use a cooler water temperature than the instructions give (sippably hot). I’m not sure if that will make a difference in the taste? If not I hope your hubby likes it :)
Thanks for the tip! I’ll definitely try that.
I don’t know what it is, but both this one and their vanilla oolong just taste… off to me. The vanilla is wrong.
I’m glad I’m not the only one. This tea is so universally liked, I thought there may be something wrong with my taste buds!
Now that I’ve catalogued my tea, I need to try this one again. I could drink it, but I didn’t care for it.
Haha I thought I was the only one too. Cardboard sounds about right! Trying to remember what exactly was wrong with it. Their other vanilla oolong is like plastic vanilla to me.
The dry leaf aroma is surprisingly chocolaty. Granted, the ingredients list does mention cocoa in three forms. But this tea is called Cookie Dough, not Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough! So, it still came as a surprise. There was no tea smell or anything recognizably cookie-like. Hmm, here’s hoping the tea tastes good!
The tea itself was comprised of big unbroken white peony leaves, some crushed leaves, a few large stem pieces, and a smattering of chocolate, caramel, and one walnut. The instructions say to brew at boiling for 4-7 minutes. I normally would never submit a white tea to such torture, but I have enough in my sample for several cups. So, I’ll try the first cup their way. Who knows, maybe they actually know what they’re talking about! :P
Oh wow! The brewed tea aroma is spot on raw cookie dough! That’s shocking!! I actually can’t believe it. I hope it comes through in the taste. I’ve often found with DAVIDsTEA blends that the aroma is perfect but the taste is lacking. Okay, enough stalling. Time to drink it!
First sip…wow what an interesting tea. While the tea is in your mouth and for a split second after you swallow, it tastes EXACTLY like cookie dough. Which is awesome! But the aftertaste is almost nothing and after about 1 minute, I get that scratchy feeling at the back of my throat that I got with Ice Cream Cake by DAVIDsTEA.
So, where does that leave this tea? It’s partly a great success. But I hate that itchy scratchy feeling. Whoa, wait a minute! This tea is currently 72% off!!!!!!!! It’s a web special and you have to buy 250g of it, but that’s pretty darn cheap. And if it’s a web special, that could mean that it’s being discontinued never to see again!
Decisions, decisions…okay that’s it. I’m buying it! I had my eye on that new Takeya iced tea pitcher anyway. Gahhhh!!! Why do you do it to me, tea?! I’m so poor. LOL! And by the way, I really enjoy this tea. It might not be a 100, but it’s spot on with what it tried to achieve and it sure beats making my own cookie dough from scratch and eating all those calories.
Preparation
I was looking at that deal today too. So far I’ve managed to resist it, but only because I have a couple unopened 25 gram pouches of this one. It really is a good deal though…hmmmm…arggh!…must…resist…
This is how I ended up with 650 grams of tea. Go ahead and do it! Put it this way… Are you going to buy, in the near future, teas at least similar to these? Maybe you might even want these and you end up purchasing them a couple of weeks/months from now for double the price?
lol – I totally caved. You’re right it’s just too good a deal to pass up
Hahahaha!!! You’re awesome, canadianadia. :D
tea budget destruction enabling…. gack! i need eye bleach. i can’t until august. i can’t until august. i can’t until august.
SIPDOWN, and a gongfu brewing session!
In the first infusion, the jasmine flavor overwhelmed the tea base, not that I’m complaining. ;) With each successive infusion, the tea base grew a little more present, slightly less sweet, and more balanced with the floral notes.
Wow. This tea is just so beautiful. All in all, I enjoyed seven lovely infusions. I started the first three at 10 seconds each, and then increased the time by 3 seconds per infusion. This is a delightful tea that I highly recommend!
Preparation
the three second increment increase is excellent! i, however, tend towards being a distracted moth and forget that i’m steeping anything at all. it’s become a benchmark… if a tea still tastes brilliant after 20 minutes of steeping then it’s a keeper, lol.
LOL! I’m always so excited about tea that I’m more likely to flutter around the cup while it’s steeping than to walk off and forget about it, but it still happens sometimes. That’s why I always set a timer now. :)
hah! you are far more organized than i am!
Congrats on 400!!! Sounds like a tasty tea to celebrate:)
Congratulations on 400!
YAY!! congratulations on reaching 400 :)
Congratulations! Mine keeps coming out bitter. How many teaspoons did you use?
I probably used 2 tsp in 8 oz. of water. That’s my go-to style of brewing.