Tea Desire
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I grabbed more of this during the holidays, however I’m just cracking the bag now. Yep, it’s a lot like a gooey cinnamon bun, and much more enjoyable than the rooibos TeaGschwendner puts out by the same name. Much more! I did however oversteep this dramatically as I packed up teas to send off, so it’s a bit.. harsh at times. That’s my own darn fault though; I refuse to blame the tea for my oversight. ;)
Flavors: Cinnamon
Preparation
I’m sick, and wondering if I’m missing some taste bud awesomeness here, as this is tasting like… well black tea.
Opening the package, I smelled little other than cinnamon. Brewed, I smelled black tea, and tasting it was just like a simple black tea. Adding some Truvia helped bring the flavors out a bit more, and now it’s a nice, basic chai-like flavor. I’ll have to try it again when I’m feeling better to see if I’m doing this tea justice.
EDIT: Things must be clearing up as when I composed the tea leaves, I distinctly smelled cinnamon bun. Lovely!
ANOTHER EDIT: My teenage daughter says, “Yum! This is a lot like a cinnamon bun. Can I have the rest? No Mom, I’ll leave it without sugar.”
Preparation
This smells like a chocolate truffle – the earthy kind that you’d dig from the ground, and then add some dark chocolate to. Seriously, that’s the kind of truffle I get out of this – if you like that kind of earthy pu-erh, you’ll love this. Well, and if you love chocolate, too. It’s earthy, rich, deep and velvety.
Flavors: Chocolate, Earth
Preparation
This sounds sexy.
I love truffles!
Oooooh, that sounds amazing!
I love it, although I should note it’s probably something that new-to-puerh folks should wait to try out. Definitely sexy! :)
So you’re saying I need to get this as well as the caramel the next time I’m in Nanaimo? :)
Still tasty, and I can tell it’s the same base as my beloved Caramel Pu-erh from the same company. Really, um, truffle-y, in an earth sort of way. Hoped it would help settle my stomach down.. still working on it.
Preparation
Mmmmm…
Haha. You and your caramel pu’erh. Sometimes I feel like you could have that, a few caffeine free options (probably Lemon Meringue and the Candy Cane Rooibos from Simpson and Vail), and nothing else and still be happy.
Heh. Those are definitely at the top of my list of late. Mind you, I’ve really only been drinking things I know I love these days with my stomach being so off.
This is bag #2 that I’ve ordered of this specific tea from Tea Desire, so I must love it. :)
This cup is very different than my last however. Less “full”, it’s a bit thin to be frank. I still like it, although there’s also less earthiness to it than before. A bit tart, which is odd. It’s almost tasting like a black as opposed to a pu-erh? Weird. Much better with sweetener. Wonder what I did differently, or if it’s a re-blend.
Preparation
Dry, this smells very much like a chocolate truffle, and I inhaled for a few minutes as soon as I opened the bag. Steeped, the smell is similar if more faint, and you can definitely tell this is a pu-erh.
Drinking it is interesting. There’s a thickness to it that was the first thing I ‘tasted’, if that makes any sense. Heavier than buttery or creamy, more like, well, a truffle oddly enough. The chocolate does come through in the sip, although it’s further along, and it lingers interestingly along with the pu-erh. Some Truvia amped up the chocolate flavoring to a more candy chocolate -like flavor.
It’s nice. I’ll have to drink more to really determine if it’s something I’ll reorder or not. Right now, it’s enjoyable and… hard to categorize.
Oh yea, and I’m really enjoying Tea Desire, I just wish they offered more details as to how much to steep their teas. This is the second time I had to wing it, and really, I have zero idea if I got it right.
Preparation
Is this a sipdown? Hm. Got a sample size of this, and forced it on my friend last night who loves Earl Grey, and who told me earlier last week he had enough tea to last him a few months – because I gave him a small pouch of DAVID’s Tea. Seriously? Sigh.
Anyway, it’s out of my cupboard now, even though I’m a bit sad I tasted zero of it.
Let me just put it out there that I hate the name of this tea. Why is it Slim and Slender? Makes zero sense.
Anyway…
Drank a cup this morning and another right now. Tastes like an unusual chai; lots of licorice in here, some cardamom, and a few flavors I’m struggling to identify. Has the mate really pepped me up? Maybe. Little more than say a black tea though, which surprised me a bit. Normally mate makes me crazy focused and a touch fidgety. Oh, wait, maybe I am fidgety today.
I like this, and I’ll have zero issue sipping it down, however I doubt I’ll buy it again. It’s just okay.
Also, how am I supposed to steep this? Zero instructions anywhere, so I guessed.
Preparation
Sipdown (179)!
Yes! Finally finished this one off! And about time too, it was one of the oldest teas in my cupboard…
I really enjoyed this one when I first got it, but excessive consumption of it and the fact my leaf had aged/gone pretty stale made these last cold brews far less enjoyable. This one had some strawberry notes in it that were nice, but it was pretty dull too. So I’m pretty happy to have finished it.
Maybe in the summer I’ll look for another bamboo tea alternative because I do enjoy bamboo based blends – but I’ve had enough of this one to make do for a LONG time.
This is a queued tasting note.
Cold brewed this one; mostly strawberry but managed to stay light, fresh and vegetal which was pretty nice. This is definitely less flavourful than it used to be though; I need to start thinking of more creative ways to use up the rest of the leaf because I’m getting pretty bored of this one, as well…
Decreased my rating a little, as well.
When I cold brewed this one I found that even after 24hrs it was essentially flavourless. Do you think this tea doesn’t cold brew well it could it have been that the leaves were getting old? I didn’t really have it that long, and my hot brews didn’t seem to have a problem. Thoughts?
It could be that it was stale; my leaf of this is REALLY old and has lost a hell of a lot of flavour from when I first got it. If you didn’t get a lot of fruit chunks/rose buds in the measured leaf that you used that might be part of it as well – the bamboo itself really doesn’t have a whole lot of flavour.
Ah, that might have been it. It was kind of the bottom of my sample packet, so it probably didn’t have all the good stuff it needed for the flavour. It was a little old too, I suppose. Maybe I’ll try again when/if I get another fresh batch.
This is a queued tasting note.
Like VariaTEA, my tin of this is pretty aged. Though not nearly as old as hers, I think? Still the age shows badly, and like her I’ve also steeped most of the fruit chunks. So, this is pretty well just bamboo tea which I now have to sip through and finish off…
In other news, I hit 300 followers here on Steepster which is kinda cool.
EDIT: Just for my own records, this was a cold brew.
I hope everyone had a good Easter!
I spent most of the day drinking a random assortment of teas, but this one I slipped in as a cold brew just to enjoy a solid favourite that also happens to be a lighter, fruitier tea that seems worthy of drinking on Easter/in early spring. The flavour was a little lighter than I’d have liked, but the fresh vegetal bamboo note was pleasant.
I’m sure I’ll write about Easter shenanigans with my family at some point, but right now I’m gonna focus on the brief time I spent with both roommates Monday evening after I got home from a day with the family. They’d spent all week fighting about Shauna moving out and her cat Vinnie and the tickets she got on his car so I really wanted to do something to bring everyone together a little. Neither of them got to spend the holiday with family, so what I ended up doing was putting together a giant Easter egg hunt for them both.
I think it really cut down on a lot of the tension in the house, and they had a fun time and kind of got to do that childhood stuff they likely would have done with their families anyway. And honestly, the atmosphere of the house has been so much better since then so I think I did a good thing overall. Hooray for hiding chocolate in strange places!
aw that sounds like fun! I miss egg hunts :D
Eyy, Buddha Bamboo! Mine has been sitting on the shelf for too long, thanks for reminding me of a great tea. :)
Also, what you did for your roommates is very thoughtful and kind. I hope they appreciate your consideration!
This is a queued tasting note.
More dental work! This time a root canal and a filling; but both went incredibly smoothly, actually. No pain during OR after the dental work, and I didn’t have to take any time off to rest before drinking tea or eating real food. It’s amazing too ‘cause I was sure the tooth that was getting the root canal wasn’t causing pain at all but I guess the reality is just that I’d been living with it so long I was totally adjusted to it ’cause I can CERTAINLY feel the difference.
This tea was at one point a cupboard staple for me; if I’m being honest I probably wont restock it again once I run out because I’m growing a little tired of the flavour profile. It’s generally very consistent and while I appreciate that in a tea I’ve had this one a lot and it’s starting to feel boring. Light, refreshing and vegetal bamboo notes: a fresh red berry (strawberry/red currant) and lemony contrast. I’m sure I’ll go through this by the pitcher come summer but for now it was just something reliable for post-dental work haze.
This is a queued tasting note.
Hot, late night cup of tea to kind of relax me during a bit of insomnia. It didn’t actually do a whole lot to make me feel sleepy, but I really liked the rich strawberry, vanilla, and pineapple notes on top of the yummy bamboo base. This one is so consistently good!
Tea Soda!
Brewed this one up specifically with my brother in mind; he loves DT’s Bamboozled so much that I thought he might like this blend. Even though it’s not peachy there’s another more obvious connection between the two…
And, he did like it which is a success in itself – thought not as much as Bamboozled or Just Peachy (his reigning favourites). I’m liking it too; the bamboo is the most prominant flavour and tastes sweet, light, crisp, and a little vegetal. The strawberry notes follow shortly after and are delightfully sweet (like the light, sweet flavour of strawberries in strawberry shortcake) but quite fleeting. It also maybe tastes a touch lemony?
My day just took a turn for the better but also more confusing and equally stressful…
I just got a call from Value Village; they’ve offered me a F/T position starting at $11.75 an hour (which is definitely fair; minimum wage is $10.20 in SK) for an entry level position where I’d be working both as a cashier and within the donations center. My understanding is that being cross trained in both these departments is not a common occurrence and combined with the wage they’ve offered is their way of showing that they really want me there: if I were working in one department they wouldn’t be able to offer me fulltime which is something I had expressed I was looking for so they’ve merged the positions for me.
At the same time, I was also contacted by DAVIDsTEA today about doing a group interview for a seasonal position as a Tea Guide. Assuming that, following the interview, I’m offered a position the downside here is that despite DT obviously being the job I’m more passionate about, there’d be no guarantee I’d be offered a position after Christmas and I likely wouldn’t be making as much.
So; thinking forwards, I may very well have to make a decision between the two and while I know where my heart lies I don’t know if that’s necessarily the realistic choice. I almost feel like I have to accept the DT position if I’m offered it though – regardless of what’s more realistic. It applies directly to what I’m studying, so it’s worth the chance…
I’m feeling stressed all over again; though this time it’s for a good reason? Wiser, older Steepster users I need advice…Follow your bliss.
I would say the other job (with longer term security and a decent wage) has done some things to show they really want you. Any way to do the DT part time AND do the other job – especially since DT is just seasonal?
First off, congrats on the job offer! That’s great that they’re trying to give you FT. That’s becoming so rare in retail. But that said, yeah, you wouldn’t get that many hours at DT, and who knows if they’d keep you after. And even if they do, they probably won’t give too many hours. I know people who worked for them both in Edmonton and Victoria and could never gain more hours no matter how long or hard they worked there, unless you become at least an assistant manager. I know I’m being a downer, but I followed my passion working at LUSH, kept being told I’d get more hours eventually. 2.5 years went by and it never happened.
@MzPriss Doing both isn’t very realistic; if the hours of operation were different enough I’d consider it but unfortunately the overlap is pretty bad and I’ve applied at Value Village with complete availability with the exception of the days I’m doing my Sommelier class.
@Fjellrev Don’t worry about being a downer – hearing the pros and cons of both options is definitely important! And not getting enough hours (and the risk of not being hired after the season) are very real concerns.
It just really makes me sad that so many companies are doing things that way. Like why not just reward hard work, passion, etc with more hours? Just to save money and not bother with benefits? I guess to them it’s worth it, even if it means hiring more people who aren’t as hard working and passionate. Sigh. It would be cool if you could reserve one day out of the week for DT, and work like a shift a week. Have the best of both worlds!
I am definitely older. Not sure about wiser. lol In my lifetime I have consistently made practical choices from my brain and not my heart. This has not always led me down the right path. If David’s Tea is speaking to your heart, maybe that is the right choice. But where do you want to go from there? What do you want from the job? What will you do when the job is not there? Some questions to ask yourself if you make the choice for David’s Tea. Good luck in making your choice. I’m sure either way, it will work out just fine.
I may not be much older, or much wiser, but there is something fantastic about a stable income. I work a few jobs that I am good at, but not passionate about, but they let me follow my joys in a stable fashion. With my hours and the money I earn I can buy lots of tea, and theatre tickets and weekends away, and so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on my joy, just financing it through other means.
I guess my thing is, if you are living at home and don’t have a ton of financial responsibilities, when will the time ever be better to take a chance? You are mobile and if they wanted to train you for management you could move to another store for that because you aren’t encumbered by kids/husband yet. In retail management mobility is a big draw.
Congrats on the job acceptance! I wish you good luck in what you choose
I agree with Marzi. I would go with DT. With your tasting experience and sommilier classes you might be able to move up or make some connections. It will be on your resume. When I was still in college I was offered a temp job during tax season in one big accounting firm. At the same time I was offered a full time job in a small unknown law firm. I was torn. I went to my college professor for advice. He told me that it’s my choice but he would take temp job in big accounting firm. I did. It was the best decision cuz when I was looking for a job again I had interviews almost every day. They were impressed with me working for that CPA firm even though it was 4 months only
Had this one cold brewed, as I quite often do. Not much note worthy or out of the ordinary; primarily vanilla/strawberry taste in a way that I can only describe as “Froot Loops” which a very light, watery vegetal backdrop from the bamboo. It’s hard to describe the flavor of bamboo as anything other than bamboo, to be quite honest.
More than anything I just wanted to write about the fact that…
Tea Sommelier class resumed today!
Since I’ve now completed “Tea 101” I have seven other ‘classes’ to complete before I can take my Tea Sommelier certification; I know I discussed in prior tasting notes which I’d be taking next since I can now do those seven in any order – the plan was to take Tea 105 From Bush To Cup but not enough people registered for it so rather than lose a month of class I switched into another class – Tea 103 Sensory Development: Tea Science of Taste. The first online session for that class was today!
So far it’s definitely more science based which I get; it’s important to understand how taste works and to find some sort of ‘common shared ground’ for something that can be so subjective. This past week focused on mapping out the places on the tongue where we experience each taste: Sweet, Salty, Sour, Bitter and Umami. For whatever reason there’s been no mention of “Spicy” as a taste so far. We actually haven’t even had any tea tastings/cuppings yet for class and we don’t this week coming up either. Instead this week we taste tested salt, honey, coffee beans, lemons, and tomatoes.
Next week we’re doing tastings of water (distilled, spring and tap), olive oil, chocolate, and coffee beans (Brazilian, and a few others I don’t remember). The broke as fuck cashier part of me is kind worrying about the cost of buying three different kinds of olive oil I’ll probably never use again; I can’t even remember the last time I cooked with olive oil, and I know from my experience as a cashier that even buying the smallest bottles that’s not gonna be cheap. Picking up like four different chocolate bars? Simple. We even sell loose bulk coffee beans in all the kinds we need to test; realistically I can just buy a cup’s worth of each kind of bean and it wont add up to too much. The other thing I don’t really want to buy? Distilled water. At work we only sell it in 4L jugs. What the hell am I going to do with the other 3.9L after I drink my little sample amount!?
I thought that whole notion of mapping the tongue for different tastes had been discredited. Can you just get some friends or coworkers to give you a couple ounces of whatever olive oil they have at home? You could probably get samples of a few different varieties that way.
For the most part it has, and that’s actually a part of what we’re discussing in class – what the flaws with mapping out the tongue are, but also the consistencies. It’s really interesting, honestly, even if I don’t TOTALLY buy into it. I ended up getting olive oil samples from our in store chef – he had bottles of everything I needed. I did buy the chocolate bars/coffee beans today though.
Cold Brew!
So glad I’ve got lots of this; now that it’s Spring I think I’m gonna be burning through it really quickly again; it’s fun, fruity, and light which just completely goes along with the weather. This brew in particular was really heavy handed with the ripe, sweet strawberry notes and softened a bit by some more mellow, silky vanilla.
So, since Brenna (my sister) is coming up for Easter I took advantage of the holiday to sort of go “All Out” and put together a GIANT Easter Basket filled with all sorts of tooth rotting treats and fun marine biology related ‘swag’ – marine biology is her latest ‘phase’/dream job. It’s amazing; she’s 10 currently and the only jobs she’s ever really wanted to do are super sciencey animal related things. A few years back the big one was being an entomologist (“Bug Scientist” – she had to dumb that one down for me). I don’t even know how she learns those names/terms: while my family has always encouraged these interests we’re not the ones prompting them or teaching her the ‘lingo’. She’s coming up with it on her own!
My siblings and I are so different though; in school I hardcore excelled at English and Arts classes and all things creative, empathetic, and emotion/passion based and, for the longest time, my ‘career path’ was going to be English/Arts teacher or journalist (neither of which happened). Now I’ve found tea…
My brother is very logical and mathematical and excels greatly at all things math and sciences like Physics that rely on formulas. These last few years of highschool he’s done very well with hands on stuff like electrical work or engineering – and right now he says he wants to be an environmental engineer.
And Brenna’s the best of both worlds; she has the sciencey stuff in the bag, but with the emotion driven and empathetic animal tie in – when she gets to highschool she’s gonna kick biology’s ass!
And that’s my random story/rant thing for the night, I guess. I’m just so proud of my siblings!
My sore teeth are back; have been for the last three or four days now. And, surprisingly, it’s on the same side and the same area as where the dentist fixed my cavities last time. It’s not constant, and I haven’t really broken down and really cried yet from the pain like last time – but it’s something I think I probably need to check out and get looking at again.
I’ve taken to chewing up like three or four advil at a time (yes, chewing) on the sore side and just letting my mouth go totally numb. I think I might be developing a resistance to whatever is in Tylenol or Advil, ’cause I can take like three or four at a time and it does nothing.
Anyway; this tea is sweet strawberry/currant Fruit Loops! And then, the bamboo brings that sugary fruit sweetness down a bit, and makes things more “gentle” and a bit vegetal. Best bamboo tea EVAH.
Try clove oil applied with a q tip. It tends to numb the pain. Be careful with it though its pretty intense.
i was going to say, my other half uses an actual clove when he has issues…
yes to cloves or their oil.
My teeth have a tendency to get food stuck, & then the aching starts. I use a water pic regularly, which has helped a lot, & you can even put warm salt water in it, which is really helpful.
My tin is so empty, and I’m so sad. I don’t know when I’m gonna get to Tea Desire next, either – and I don’t want to run out of this one. Boooooo!
But yeah; fresh and really fruity with bursting strawberry and red currant notes accompanied by soft vanilla over a light vegetal bamboo base. I must have really been craving bamboo today (at least some part of me anyway) so I pulled out both of my bamboo teas to drink today…
PS. This one still reminds me of Fruit Loops. Every time…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVs9hOPMaE8
#ZachAttack #FruitLoopDingus #BigBrother&TeaThings
Made a large mug of this as a sole tea to sip on last night while watching the Double Eviction episode with Tre last night; it was a rollercoaster of an episode! My second favourite houseguest ended up going home. I hate double evictions…
This was delicious! As always, of course. It’s my sweet Fruit Loops tea with red currant and strawberry notes and loads of vanilla! Mmmm!
I’m actually running relatively low on this one, so restocking is probably a thing that will be happening very shortly. I think I may need to stock up on Caramel Pu’Erh too so at least I wont be restocking just one thing.
Flavors: Fruity, Red Fruits, Strawberry, Vanilla
It looks like VariaTEA also decided to have this today; though mine was cold brewed (I think fifteen hours?) and then brought to work.
I normally really love this one and can find no faults with it, and I thought that was the way this brew was going, until I reached the last sixth of the thermos and then, for some reason unbeknownst to me, this went from light, refreshing “Fruit Loops” to this really weird/funky medical strawberry/red currant flavour – almost like the total clusterfuck of a mess that DT’s Currant Affair was. Umm, what? Hell no!
I’m thinking it was just from sitting all day though, because this was mostly really enjoyable and that list little bit was left alone for well over five hours during my shift today…
Until it happens again, I’m calling this a fluke!
I actually made this earlier in the day when I was talking to VariaTEA about Fruit Loops tea/David’s Bamboozled. I made a cup and then stuck it into the freezer to enjoy later as an tea slushie. I think it was Sil whom I got that idea from…
Anyway, lets just say I forgot it was in there until I went into the freezer to grab some FroYo. At first I thought it had frozen solid, but after poking it a whole lot with a spoon I cracked the thick, top layer of ice open only to realize a thick layer had frozen solid all around the edge of the cup but the inside was still liquid – albeit very, very fucking cold liquid.
Not really so much of a success as my first tea slushie because I sorta just made a crappy Popsicle, sans the stick, but it was cold and refreshing anyway. Now that I’ve drank all the liquid, I just have a thick “Buddha Bamboo” flavoured shell of ice in the cup which I’m waiting for to melt…
EDIT: I pulled out a few more I thought would be interesting to try as slush. I’ll experiment with a couple tomorrow…
Now I’m craving some sort of slushie! Wish there was an easy way to go about making one.
hahahaha “crappy popsicle, sans stick”
another thing you could try that someone else..uh i think it was the teafairy does, is make the tea into ice cubes and then use a blender to make it a slushie once the ice cubes are frozen
This might sound sad, but I don’t actually own an icecube tray… When we were buying kitchen things before moving in we missed a few things, including an ice cube tray, oven mitts, Tupperware containers, strainer, wooden spoons for cooking, and a can opener. We’ve bought all those now, minus the ice cube tray.
You guys are so hardcore when it comes to different ways to enjoy your tea! :D
So I messed up when prepping the bamboozled to cold brew and forgot to take some water out of the bottle. I was only able to fit 3 tsps instead of the 4 that was needed to make it the right amount of leaf. Also, that only leaves me with 1 tsp which is 1/2 of what they say to use for a cup so now I am stressed that my bamboo tea experience won’t be awesome. Basically I am saying all this because it seems we both messed up out bamboo teas today :P
Make a really small hot cup? Like – really small…
I made it in a normal sized cup because I am dumb. It turned out weak but what flavor I could taste was pretty good.
Oh yeah, this one is so freakishly tasty.