New Tasting Notes

This Dancong from 2023 was about $1 per gram, though it was slightly cheaper for me since I bought it during a Black Friday sale. Dong Fang Hong seems to be a pricier Dancong type for some reason, possibly due to scarcity. I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of charcoal, roast, oakwood, incense, honey, and citrus. The first steep has notes of oakwood, charcoal, roasted nuts, butter, and minerals. The tea is fairly drying. The next steep adds honey, orange peel, and incense, and the freshly cut wood smell is very noticeable. I get a kiwi and honeydew aftertaste that lasts for minutes. Steeps three and four add almond, honeydew, minerals, orchids, and other unidentifiable florals. In the next four steeps, the roasted almond, oakwood, honey, and minerals take over, with slight honeydew and orange in the aftertaste. The tea is developing a silky texture and there’s no real bitterness, just the roast and minerality. The next few steeps are very similar. The only thing of note is the lush honeydew aftertaste, which lasts for minutes after I drink the tea. The final steeps emphasize roasted almonds, minerals, tannins, wood, charcoal, and faint honeydew in the aftertaste.

This Dancong was a lot more enjoyable than I expected, even though the roast is more prominent than in the Baiye. The honeydew aftertaste is lovely, and the tea never gets too bitter. I even like the pronounced notes of freshly cut oak that I get near the beginning of the session. It’s amazing how much this tea has developed after just over a year of aging.

Lovely! The lemon is in the forefront of this tea, but there is enough vanilla to the cup to soften the tart lemon to a more subdued bright citrus note that was flavorful without being too sour. The lavender is so nice – pleasantly floral without tasting too perfume-y.

Nice!

This is deeeeeeeelish!!!
I went over to my ex’s Mom’s today for lunch and while I’m there I always pick a tea out of her teabox to enjoy while we visit. This tea bag was a lone wolf so I thought, what the heck!
What a pleasant surprise!
The flavour is so juicy, which puts me in mind of eating fresh mandarins/oranges/clementines/tangerines, with a candy-like sweetness that isn’t phoney or over-the-top.
I found this perfect for just sitting and sipping.
I would happily drink this again, YUM!

strong notes of lemongrass, very strong on the nose.

This lot of Jing Gu White Pekoe Silver Needled White Tea is dated “Spring 2022” and I received it June 1st of that year. I wasn’t impressed with it then, and today — almost 3 yr later — I am still unimpressed. Lots from several other years are listed here separately, and the notes recorded by others seem to be hit and miss. I found the dry leaf to smell of alfalfa hay. My first session used 2.5g leaf in 8 oz boiling spring water, oversteeped for 5 minutes. That was half my usual amount of leaf for western brewing, but the leaf was very bulky (long, hairy needles, as pictured) and I was hesitant. The pale tea was watery, with faint notes of malt, grass and astringency. Weakly sweet despite a nice thick mouthfeel. Resteeping was not too different. A second session was more to my usual process, with 5g leaf and a first 8 oz steeping of 30s, to result in a light blond infusion from the light-hued, olive-green leaves. The flavors were much the same, but less astringent, with weak stonefruit apparent. A resteeping of several minutes produced a golden broth with a grassy aroma, but a more substantial flavor, with malt, hay, and notes of chestnut, akin to a long jing (dragonwell) type tea. This infusion was the best of the bunch, with a nice aftertaste, but just not worth the fuss and price. I’d rather sip on true dragonwell. I’ll only rate this as a 55-point experience, and suggest you sip something else. [For example, EITHER the http://steepster.com/teas/yunnan-sourcing/103292-jinggu-sun-dried-silver-needles-white-pu-erh-tea-cake-spring-2022 , OR the http://steepster.com/teas/yunnan-sourcing/93180-2019-jinggu-yang-ta-camellia-taliensis-white-tea-cake , both of which looks to be made of identical-appearing C. taliensis material, but which were far better tasting, IMO.]

The time has come for this Man, Gingerbread Man. Tomorrow he would celebrate his third birthday (pressing date).

I used a whole mini in my gaiwan and steeped with various steeping time. Mostly around 30 seconds, with rather small increments. I wasn’t totally focused to the tea this time, but this tea is rather forgiving.

There is a thick mouthfeel; strong dark shu flavours, and while it is not gingerbread in any way, it is rich and a kind of sticky. I can’t point out any particular flavours, but it made me feel cozy and it was warming me up.

Enjoyable and easydrinking shou and off any funky and off flavours. Definitely it was worth 80 cents I paid for it. Would I get more of this? Maybe… it’s not so expensive and it’s drinkable.

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – February 2025 Tea #8 -A tea best for afternoons

Well, it’s in the name!  Afternoon!  An obvious choice, as usual. :) This is from Cameron B, thanks very much!  I like this one.  It’s unique and intriguing. It has a gentle smokiness, like a fragrant campfire.  Probably because there is rose here too.  So maybe if some roses were thrown into that fire.  So drama. There should also be vanilla and bergamot here, but I’m not noticing those as much.  I wish I were tasting all of these… what an interesting combination:  lapsang, rose, bergamot, vanilla.  Though I like the general effect of this tea, I guess I was imagining a better balance of the flavors.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug // 20 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 minute steep

A strange vegetal flavor, no vanilla. I threw it out.

Not a lot of flavor, and what was there was sweetness. Too sweet. Happy it was sugar and not stevia, though. Threw out.

Thank you to Marshall for letting me try this one!! I might have to do two separate tasting notes. My husband is painting some minis, and the paint is horrendously stinky. >.< I’ve got my air purifier and the stove fan running. I’ll just keep my nose in the pot and call it a new type of mask hehe

Dry appearance: Little bit of everything in this one! A nice sized twig, and a variety of different leaf pluckings. Nicely pressed.
Flavor: A lot going on in here. I ruined my first steeping. Went too long. Many different woody tones. Some palo santo, some old decaying tree stump, fresh twigs.
I do not mind drinking dark teas, but I definitely feel like my palate just isn’t as suited to finding the deeper nuances.

The smell reminds me of the caramel popcorn flavor or various other flavors from the past. This one is nice and desserty. It’s best at room temperature with milk and sugar. The flavor is so strong and decadent.

2024 Advent Calendar #11

I was not much impressed when I removed the sachet from the packaging but I’ve definitely liked Healing Honeysuckle. Hopefully I benefit from it’s healing properties too, since another cold is haunting our house. It steeps up a yellow orange color with a vegetal scent. There is a nice blend of echinacea, lemongrass, and spearmint as the prominent tastes. It’s light and soothing.

A very decent Assam tea with an interesting aftertaste. Its aroma is like honey and rosehip at first, moving towards chocolate and raspberry notes during the session. The taste is quite smooth and herbaceous for an Assam tea, but has the classic woody and malty backbone. The finish and aftertaste is bitter with notes of mint, taro and other root vegetables.

I just added this tea to the website – it’s one of the most recent reblends! There are very limited quantities remaining of this one though!

Anyway – I absolutely love this tea. It’s a little different from my previous reblend of this tea. I used my blend of Yunnan & Assam teas, but it still turned out amazing. I really love this as a cold-brew. I made it into a boba tea, complete with brown sugar boba & a salted cheese topping! YUM!

Cold Brew!

I was really thirsty when I drank this, to the point where I almost feel like I didn’t fully process the flavours. Almost. Definitely a whole lot of lime in a pleasantly sweet but bright way. Like a flat Sprite, almost? I wish the cherry was a little richer, but it still comes through. It’s a refreshing and nostalgic feeling flavour profile!

Drank a mug of this a few nights ago while watching Nimona, which was very good and I would highly recommend watching. Super well animated, and just a really beautiful story. The tea was good too. I’d been craving it all day so the first few sips were especially satisfying, and I continue to just really appreciate the balance of sweet, nutty almond pastry with fresh and bright notes of citrus and melon. It’s so unique! The aroma did sometimes come off a little sudsy, but the tea never tasted like soap so while it was weird it wasn’t a damper on the overall cup at least.

Cold Brew!

So I decided to take my giant Stanley-style travel mug out for a spin again and see if I might enjoy using it more with another tea. For anyone who missed my first tasting note, this is a 40oz sized travel mug – so it’s a lot of cold brew.

I adore this tea so much though, so it seemed like as good a choice to trial run it with as any. The tea was really nice at first! Bold black tea with rich, aromatic notes of cherry blossom and a sweeter candy-type strawberry note following that. All wrapped up with a floral finish. But I think it’s simply just too much of any one tea flavour to drink at a time because I was just so sick of this tea by around halfway in…

I’m gonna try it once more with another tea – but I think this just isn’t a travel mug style for me…

Steeped this one up this morning and it was such a delight! Very oolong forward in the first half of the sip with a mix of creamier flavours (and mouthfeel) along with fresh, aromatic florals. The backend was more licorice-y with those smooth, mouthcoating notes of anise, fennel, and gentle-y pine tasting juniper. So easy to just melt and relax into the cup with this one!

Had a mug of this today but found myself slightly underwhelmed by it. It was a smooth and tasty infusion, but it definitely read a bit more maple-like to me with very subtle spice inclusions and a little white chocolate creaminess. Not so specifically carrot cake, and I think for it to be closer I would have wanted more of the clean, earthy carrot flavour but also just a more intense spice make up with obvious clove or allspice type notes.

Sipdown (2789)!

A very, very long time coming cold brew sipdown. Honestly, how this tea still tastes as nice as it does given the age is beyond me – but I guess it helps a lot that I picked out all the coconut pieces ages and ages ago.

The brew is very sweet and I taste the chocolate notes first and foremost – very much like a hot fudge sauce you’d have on ice cream. From there I get the sweet taffy-like banana flavour, and a little bit of a butterscotch sorta undertone. The finish does have a tinge of funk to it, I won’t lie. Not quite rancid coconut or anything but it’s sorta soapy in a lingering way. Does detract from the overall indulgence, for sure. But I still find this pretty freaking nostalgic and it’s a touch sad to see it go. I know I was a bit of an outlier and most people didn’t seem to appreciate how intense and sweet this blend was. That’s okay though, it just meant more for me for quite a long period of time…

Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

Tea Pop!

A coworker and I both made teapops of this on Monday but using the blackberry flavoured Bubly as our sparkling water. It was good, but the flavour of Sunny C is soooo intensely juicy and citrus forward that it was tough to taste the blackberry at all. Sort of just felt like a regular Sunny C tea pop but with a slightly “deeper” flavour? Probably could have found a stronger use for the Bubly, but I appreciated the refreshing cool down nonetheless.

Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

I don’t revisit this tea often for a few reasons. The primary is honestly just that I don’t love the taste of coffee, but also this blend reminds me of an ex quite a lot and that’s a feeling I don’t really love revisiting. However, I was DEEPLY craving a Coffee Crisp over the weekend but it was so incredibly cold and gross out that I wasn’t about to leave my house just for a chocolate bar, so I pulled this out instead and, honestly!? Kind of tasted like drinking a liquid version of a Coffee Crisp. Pretty dang solid, and way better than a fifteen minute walk to the closest grocery store in the ice cold.

Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.