45 Tasting Notes
I made this tea a few weeks ago, and tried it again today — I steeped it using the maximum recommended measure of dry tea (3 tsp for a 15-oz mug), at the maximum time (7 min).
The result?
Meh. Again.
I may have to give up on David’s herbal/fruit teas, even though they’re handy and right around the corner. The ones I’ve tried just don’t taste like anything much, unless they’re artificially flavoured.
Bah.
Preparation
The dry tea smells terrific — burnt sugar and butter — but the steeped tea is just bland. My package says green rooibos (not green and red). Not much else to say about it.
At least (according to my package, which says “ORGANIC Crème Brulee”), it doesn’t appear to have the artificial flavouring that David’s seems to use so often.
Preparation
This was okay, but it didn’t really grab me. The steeped tea smells nice, and the flavours are pleasant enough, but kind of bland. Maybe I needed to make it stronger (I used 3 tsp for a 15-oz mug), or maybe it’s meant to be delicate and I generally go for stronger flavours. Thanks to Starfevre for the sample.
Preparation
Wow, this tea is delicious!
Hurray, I’ve finally made it! I’ve acquired a taste for black tea, unflavoured even! I thought that if I just kept at it, it (black tea) would be a taste that I would acquire, and yay it’s happened! Thanks to Starfevre for this sample, and for the whole adventure. I’m a happy tea-drinker. :-)
This particular tea is pretty special. I don’t get many of the flavours already mentioned here, but what I do get is a lovely smokiness, and the smell and taste of toasted whole-grain bread (organic spelt sesame bread, to be exact ;-), and perhaps some malt. It’s complex and smooth and fabulous. Mmmm…..
Oh yeah, and it IS lovely to look at… all those little soft curls.
Preparation
This is pretty nice. Thank you, Starfevre. The black tea base is smooth and not bitter. I wouldn’t mind a stronger caramel taste, but then again I’m (almost) always saying that about flavourings.
Btw, today marks a milestone in my evolution as a tea-appreciator. Today I found myself preferring tea over coffee as my first hot drink of the day. And it used to be that I didn’t like black tea (esp if not strongly flavoured), but I’m really enjoying this one, even though the flavouring is pretty mild and subtle (mainly just burnt sugar, not a bunch of strong fruit or spices).
Preparation
This tea smells fabulous in the package — a strong chocolate smell, with a little cinnamon. But the taste of the steeped tea doesn’t live up to the smell of the dry ingredients. For one thing, the chocolate flavour doesn’t come through all that much, and overall the combination of flavours just doesn’t quite produce a great taste. Disappointing, especially after the delicious smell of the dry tea.
Preparation
This is a fairly nice tea. I liked the combination of flavours — maté, cocoa, chicory, raspberry. I couldn’t taste the almonds, although I saw the big almond slices in the mix. As others have mentioned, there’s some other, indefinable taste that I don’t really like much, and I would have to attribute that taste to the “artificial flavour”. (It doesn’t taste like banana to me.) And to me, the tea tastes SALTY, although they don’t name “salt” in the ingredients.
When I’m done with the small amounts of various teas I’ve bought from David’s, I will be careful to avoid anything with artificial flavour. If I want artificial flavour, I’ll go eat some junk food or drink some soda. I really want to know WHAT IT IS that I’m tasting, and I don’t want it to come from a lab. To me, it’s like cheating to put in artificial flavouring, and it puts me off David’s in general, as only a minority of their teas are made without that. Bah.
(P.S. – Actually, to be fair, I’m not sure about which kind of ‘minority’ it is. I went in looking for flavoured teas w/o artificial flavouring, and there weren’t all that many.)
Preparation
A nice, fruity tea, with nice, strong passionfruit-like flavour. Very good balance of flavours: fruity, sweet, the right bit of tartness. I bought this at the local David’s, in the mood for just this kind of thing — I don’t mind at all that it’s sort of like a hot fruit-juice blend.
Although I enjoyed the tea, it puts me off that David’s uses artificial flavours in some of their teas. So, I like passionfruit, and this is a pleasant-tasting tea — but I don’t know if what I’m tasting is real fruit or some kind of chemical crap. Maybe it’s the chemical crap that produces that really strong fruit flavour? Sorry, it just bugs me.
(By the time I read the ingredients in the package they made up for me, I’d already committed to buying it, and the dry tea did smell wonderful.) So, bah. Next time, I’ll ask them what’s in it first.
Preparation
This was very good! I didn’t use nearly the amount of dry tea suggested in the description — I used 2-1/2 tsp for a 16-oz mug, and steeped for almost 10 minutes. A really nice blend of sweet, and slightly tart or tangy, fruits. (Thanks to Starfevre for this sample.) Great for when I’m in the mood for a fruit tea.
(And I, umm, ate most of the fruit afterwards. Hehe.)
