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Day 13/24

I’ve had this tea before iced and it didn’t thrill me, so I decided to give it a go hot.

I like the undertones of this—pretty heavy on the peach and slightly floral. Before, I didn’t really get the peach out of this, which was kind of disappointing, but it’s here in full force tonight. Unfortunately, this tea is very astringent. It’s not too bad but I steeped it at 80 degrees for 2 minutes (which is pretty conservative for how I would normally steep whites and pretty standard for greens) and it’s still has a pretty intense astringency; this tea would likely turn very bitter if you weren’t careful with it.

I’m definitely liking it more than my memories can recall, so I’ll boost it a few points. It certainly not my favourite and I think I would get tired of it very quickly.

Day 9/24

Didn’t have high hopes for this one. I’ve never been a huge fan of rooibos or cinnamon hearts (which this smells like). This met my not so high expectations perfectly. It tastes like cinnamon hearts, which is great if you’re into that kind of thing. The nice thing is that the rooibos isn’t too pronounced in this, but overall I found this a bit too sickly sweet and cinnamon-y for my tastes.

Day 10/24 (Falling a little behind)

I really enjoyed this one. In fact, it’s probably my favourite straight black that I’ve ever had. A little malty, kind of sweet, kind of bready—like dipping a warm baguette in honey. No astringency at all. Might even consider picking up some of this.

SIPDOWN!

So this tea has been different all 3 times I had it (and I’ll note that all three cups were from the same batch). The first time, I got heavy ginger and lemon notes (so what it’s actually supposed to taste like), then I got popcorn with salt and pepper (?!), and now this final cup had a very heavy almond flavour with a hint of lemon (not even enough to really call it lemon, just a overall citrus vibe that was noticeable, but really in the background).

Similarly, when I finished off my St. Petersburg I got a heavy chocolate note that 1) I didn’t notice before and 2) shouldn’t be there. In both cases, the teas were delicious (I’d even say they improved with age), but I kind of feel like I’m going crazy. They’re not that old (I think I got them in July) and they’re tea bags (individually sealed) then kept in an airtight container so I don’t think they could’ve picked up the flavours of other teas.

Good, but bizarre.

I think I steeped this for less time than I have in the past, because today seemed to be a much lighter, more floral tea than I’ve experienced in the past and I picked up on the base a lot more. There’s still a heavy cherry candy flavour to this, but it was more in the background. This is definitely a good sipping tea; it’s too delicate to chug back large gulps. Good for a springtime tea party, not so great for a stressful study session (hardest final is tomorrow :’( )

Day 7 of the 24 Days of Tea.

If we’re going to talk about things I go out of my way to avoid in tea, mint is pretty high on that list. It’s probably just one step below licorice (or fennel or anise or whatever it wants to disguise itself as) so I wasn’t thrilled to find this was today’s tea. I’ve yet to find a mint tea I’ve enjoyed…

Well this isn’t actually half bad. Kind of luckily, since I’ve never been interested in this tea, I’ve never looked at the ingredients so I didn’t know what to have in mind. Mint, obviously; I expected that to dominate over the green base. Mint is certainly the dominant note in this, but it’s better than other mint teas I’ve had. I’ll make it clear that I actually like mint itself, I just don’t find the taste transfers to teas well (at least not the ones I’ve had) and I find DAVID’s mint is particularly bad overall. This does actually taste like real mint. I can almost imagine myself chewing on the leaves, and it’s really rather nice.

Well it turns out there’s a lot more to this tea than just mint. Of course, I still didn’t know that when I felt the characteristic sickly sweet, cooling back of the throat sensation of fennel. Yes, fennel! My most hated of ingredients! I thought this was my imagination until I came to the tea’s page and it was staring right at me in the ingredients list. I felt almost betrayed.

So given the mint and the fennel, this should be pretty close to my least favourite tea, but it isn’t. Maybe DAVID’s finally got their mint right. Maybe I lucked out with the fennel because I had this on a day I woke up with a slightly sore throat and was already contemplating a tea with licorice. Maybe everything else in this tea just balanced it all out. Whatever it is, I’m actually enjoying the cup I have in front of me. Not “buy it again” enjoying it, but “I’ll enjoy the rest of the sample” enjoying it for sure.

A bit of a bittersweet sipdown as this tea is so good and now I have no more! I shall have to try to pick some up on my next visit to Quebec.

As for the actual tea, it remains delicious! I’ve been saving my last bag for a time I was really craving this one and tonight was the night. Rich dark chocolate (something I didn’t notice in this tea before), tart raspberry, and just a drizzle of caramel. Like a decadent dessert but with none of the guilt! Yes, yes, YES! I’m going to boost my rating here because this is so good!

Day 6/24 (Are we really 1/4 of the way there already?!)

Glitter and Gold was one of the first teas I tried at DAVID’s and I really enjoyed it at the time, but they’ve changed the blend since then and I’m not such a fan of the new stuff.

The after taste is really nice. Citrus (coming through very heavily now), oats, cinnamon, cloves, etc. Getting a kind of lemon bar vibe overall (which is great because I LOVE lemon bars!) The problem is the actual tea is very watery. Of course this is in part due to steep times (hopefully) and I still have half the tin to play with to create a stronger brew. Is batch I have in front of me, however, gets a 10/10 for after taste and like a 2/10 for actually drinking it.

Side note: I find this new blend a little lack luster when it comes to the “glitter”, and that’s like half the appeal of this tea.

Day 5/24!

So I’ll start by saying I’m not the biggest fan of banana bread. For me it pretty much has to be straight out of the oven and LOADED with chocolate chips. With that in mind, this was probably one of the teas from the advent calendar I was looking forward to least.

General consensus seems to be that this is good as a latte, so that’s what I decided to do (plus a latte uses up the whole sample so it won’t be hanging around). I have to admit, this is pretty good. They’ve pulled off the flavour perfectly, and I’m loving the walnut notes. If I was more in to banana bread this would be great, but because of my personal preferences this is just okay.

Day 3/24

Orange pekoe has never been one I’ve either hated or loved. If it’s there and it’s all that’s there I’ll drink it, otherwise I’m more likely to pick something else (provided it doesn’t have anything I tend to not like in it). That being said, this is orange pekoe. There’s nothing special about it. Kind of dry, kind of earthy. I can’t imagine steeping this for the recommended 4-7 minutes. I’m happy with the 2 minutes I gave this.