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Latte Sipdown (238)…sorta. The rest is off to Sil who appreciates this tea much more than I do.

This tea is a decent tea. It had chocolate and orange flavors and is nice enough but its not the chocolate orange tea for me. It just falls a bit flat. Perhaps that is because I had high expectations going in and it never quite lived up to the hype for me.

This time I made it as a latte and I think it is better but still not what I hoped for. The orange comes through nicely but I feel like I want more from the chocolate. It’s present but not overly so – its more cocoa like than milk chocolate and I think I expect these types of teas to be closer to the flavor of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange.

It’s just past 3 am. I have submitted a paper for school and placed two Black Friday tea orders. I should probably go to sleep before I spend more money. Though I do have plans to possibly buy something at noon tomorrow…I guess today.

I drank this tea much earlier as an iced latte. It had a whole lot of rose to it, which can make this nice. However, sometimes the bergamot tries to compete with the rose, which makes this too floral and that happened slightly with today’s…well yesterday’s…latte.

I taste honeybush. I don’t taste much of anything else. Maybe apple. Mostly sweet honey-like honeybush. I have more to try and this cup has cooled a bit so perhaps that is on me. I steeped it for 8 mins in 190F water – I will try different parameters next time.

Latte Sipdown (239)

I dumped what was left in my sample tin of this into 8 ounces of milk that was being frothed. I don’t love turmeric, because its always more earthy than I would like it to be, but I had this before with a drizzle of honey and it was pretty good. I made this the same way, though I might have put more honey than I intended. It helps cover the earthiness and provides a nice counter balance to the spice. However, the extra amount of honey I added by accident has made this too sweet and now instead of balancing the spice, it is trying to overpower it. It’s fine but as a rooibos matcha that focuses on turmeric, this was never going to be a favorite. I am surprised at how much I did enjoy it though.

This is the last of the teas from my swap from 2018 with Cameron B. Personally, I much preferred St. Petersburg to this one. I think St. Petersburg focused more on vanilla, caramel and red fruits whereas this tea is more of a citrus blend. Unfortunately for me, that means the citrus flavor builds on the bergamot. Where it was nice blended with the flavors in St. Petersburg, here it is too strong. Plus, the whole tea seems heavy and dark between the bergamot, citrus, and base and yet citrus should be light and bright. Overall, it’s okay but I definitely much prefer St. Petersburg. I am always happy to try something new though so thank you Cameron B for sharing!

Sipdown (238)

Thank you Sil for the sample of this one. At first I thought I maybe didn’t like it as much as DAVIDsTEA’s Sweet Potato Pie. Then I realized that was an unfair comparison because despite both being sweet potato teas, they are very different and both very good in their own ways. This captures the flavor of an actual sweet potato so well. It is starchy and sweet (almost caramelized) and smooth. Simple, but great! The DAVIDsTEA has a lot more “pie” elements going on which makes it like dessert in a cup. This is nicer for almost everyday drinking because its got a nice flavor that isn’t overwhelming on a rather smooth black tea base.

ETA: Check out the pic of this tea and donut here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIBx5uPgLoG/

I was really excited about making this as a tea lemonade earlier today. Probably about hours ago. But then it has just been sitting next to me all this time and I only just tried it. Thank goodness the DAVIDsTEA tumblers keep things cold forever since this was still icy. However, I didn’t really enjoy it much this way. It’s fruity but in a way that conflicts with the lemonade rather than working with it.