T by Daniel

I had a small sample of this at the Toronto Tea Festival yesterday, and it really did taste and smell like fruit loops! There must be some vanilla or pastry seasoning here in the blend in order to accomplish that.

It was tasty, but lord I have way too much tea already! I resisted buying this.

This really did taste like fruit loops. I’m so tempted to pick some up…. even though I rarely drink herbals these days. I’m a sucker for novelty nostalgia inducing stuff, what can I say. Hey maybe it’ll get me back into non caffeinated teas.
Yesterday was such a tease. I was only able to hit up the tea festival for an hour or two, and it was so crowded that I didn’t bother pushing my way into the crowded areas.
I don’t mind though, as the highlight was seeing my tea peeps! :)

Smokey-sweet sencha green tea taste with well-balanced flavour.

Mild chocolate flavour in the background. Mostly strawberry flavour. Very smooth.

Aroma of dry leaf reminds me strongly of Forever Nuts (it probably is the same blend, as was pointed out by Kittenna). Baked goods sweetness. Walnut. Cinnamon warmth. Thin mouthfeel. Unpleasant sour aftertaste. This is a tisane which requires a strong concentration to get good flavour but the parts of it are quite heavy resulting in a relatively expensive brew. As I have seen in the past with Forever Nuts, this tisane would not likely do well with a re-infusion.

Brewed aroma has a sticky sweet note- reminiscent of caramel popcorn.

The black tea base is very weak and has bitter notes. I enjoy the flavouring but it would be better paired with a higher quality black tea or, as Kittenna mentioned, an oolong. The sticky sweet aroma translates to the flavour as a caramel. Unplesant aftertaste, likely from the “flavour” ingredient.

Sipdown (125)!

Thank you MissB for the tea, and all you lovely Ontarians, Kittenna especially, for getting it to me.

Even wrapped in tinfoil this one still manages to make its presence known. It’s very, very aromatic with a really ripe papaya/mango smell accented by a bouquet of citrus notes. To me, it seemed obvious that the best way to prepare this one would be cold brewed.

After a long, probably close to twenty hour, soak I strained the leaves for this one and sat down to enjoy it. Taste wise it was very strong and lively with many fruit notes contributing to what was, overall, and explosion of tropical flavours in my mouth. Impressively, what was most present to me was the papaya. And I say impressively because papaya has a relatively mild flavour to begin with: it’s almost like watermelon in how watered down the taste can be. This was very concentrated and lovely. And following that powerful papaya flavour was the almost equally strong duo of pineapple and mango. Something about those two flavours matched together can make almost anything they’re in undeniably, almost over the top tropical tasting.

This one also has sweet blackberry leaves in it; personally I associate sweet blackberry leaves with a very rich “from concentrate”/puree type flavour. To further clarify, I think that whenever they’re added to a blend they don’t necessarily have their own flavour but they amplify the flavours of everything else in a blend ten fold. DAVIDsTEA also likes to use them in their herbal blends: Pink Passionfruit and Sweet Apple Cider both immediately come to mind. They just an a relatively “over the top” vibe to tea that I really like.

tl;dr If it wasn’t obvious, I was really happy with this tea and very impressed overall!

Final tea of the split ones we picked up at the Tea Festival. This one is actually not a blend I’ve had before, so I have a much more favourable opinion of it. Basically, it tastes like a fruity pineapple juice. Which is pretty tasty, though not my favourite flavour combo. I see that Sil rather liked this one, though, so I’m going to call this a sipdown (976), and she and Raritea can have the rest.

Another Tea Festival split purchase. Not bad, but unremarkable, with the same strawberry-papaya combo commonly seen in “strawberry” green blends. Sigh.

ETA: Retroactively calling this a sipdown (975) because I don’t think I really need to have any more of this. Too common of a flavour profile.

Sipdown! 977. Gotta make sure these T By Daniel teas are ready to visit Raritea!

As stated in both previous notes, this both smells and looks like DT’s Forever Nuts. And the ingredients are pretty much the same. I think it’s safe to say that T by Daniel is probably just another tea-reseller. Sigh. One day, I’ll learn. At least I like Forever Nuts, therefore enjoy this tea. I’m just disappointed in getting this blend from yet another company.

Sipdown! 970.

Except that’s totally a lie, because a fruit fly just committed suicide in my cup, and I can’t just pick out a dead insect, so this is more of a Draindown! Perhaps I’ll re-steep, perhaps I won’t. There’s something weird here. Like a weird strawberry rooibos. Not for me, no no.

Meh. Not bad, but not as decadent as I’d like a ‘red velvet’ tea to taste. It mostly just tastes like a strawberry rooibos. Definite plus, though – no nasty rooibos flavour, although there is a tinge of medicinal-ness about it (but not the characteristic rooibos medicinal, more like a flavouring aspect that’s coming off strangely to me.)

This tea I actually enjoy enough to try and drink up my share before it’s passed on to Raritea. A bit sweet and popcorny, it’s decent enough. Nothing much else to say!

Not bad – light black base, caramelly and nutty notes overtop. Not as rich as I would like, but to be fair, caramel popcorn isn’t usually “rich” in the sense I’m looking for, just intensely sweet and delicious. I would probably appreciate a bit more robust of a base tea in this blend – perhaps a roasted oolong would work better? – but I’m reasonably happy with the results here. Wouldn’t buy again, but should easily be able to finish off my third of the bag.

My first thought in smelling this tea is that it reminds me a lot of Forever Nuts by DAVIDsTEA, which is hardly a bad thing — I happen to quite like this one.
I think it’s sweeter, though. I’d like it a little stronger in flavour — I may use more tea than it suggests next time — but I do like it quite a lot. The aftertaste really makes me smile.

Sweet, creamy, and citrusy, this tea is making me smile (much like the charming owner of this fabulous company).
I love this tea’s scent. The taste is a little too citrusy for me, though I think it could make a beautiful London Fog (Brampton fog? Is there an official ruling for this?). Definitely a nice take on the Earl Grey idea, though, and is making me grin as I drink (my cheeks are going to be hurting by the time I’m done with these leaves, and I look forward to it!)

Mmmmm this is a happy herbal tea for me. Kittenna/Raritea if you hate this, just send the rest back my way haha Something about the blend of this one really works for me. it’s a juicy cup of tea..pineapple, papaya…blackberry…i like this one a bunch!

Sipdown! One of the shared teas between Kittenna, Raritea and I. I figure since they were easy sipdowns, i should at least try to get those down tonight since i haven’t managed very many sipdowns, and word on the street is that there will be a package here soonish. This one smelled pretty darn good when we were looking at it. Sadly, upon brewing it, it’s sort of a weirdly black, sort of caramel ISH kinda tea that doesn’t really make me think of popcorn OR caramel. How sad…

I suspect that some would refer to this as being similar to forever nuts by David’s Tea, at least from what i can remember it tasting like. I like the colour of this brew..it’s a happy place for me today. I like this one…a hint of cinnamon, some almond flavours kicking around..yep works for me tonight AND that puts me at 170 for the evening.

i think i can, i think i can, i think i can….

So this isn’t exactly cupcake tasting to me..but it does have that echo of “red velvet” taste about it. It’s a rooibos tea but doesn’t taste like that woodsy rooibos that i don’t like. instead it’s very muted and takes a background to the other flavours that are trying to hang out with this tea. Overall, not my favourite but not a bad tea. Just happy enough to be splitting this 3 ways haha

Picked this one up at the tea festival in a shared purchase with Kittenna and Raritea. Gotta love being able to pick up sample sizes and then split them 3 ways haha. This one is a green tea and the strawberry taste is pretty darn tasty. Only downside is that as it cools, there’s a floral note hanging out in the background that i don’t like. Did i mention i kind of forgot about it? heh. sooo many shiny things to distract me with tonight…

3 minute infusion muted the astringency and gave a buttery mouth-feel to this tea.

1.5 tbsp used for 375 ml

Strong floral taste on the sip. A little bit astringency present; I may want to change the infusion parameters. The astringency seems to cloud the fruity guava taste.

In the future, I’d like to try infusing 1 tbsp of dry leaf for 375 ml of water at 96 degrees C for 3 minutes.

1.5 tablespoons for 375 ml

Thin creaminess. Flavour less intense than the scent. Dilute Chocolate/coffee flavour. No astringency.