New Tasting Notes
A sipdown! (M: 6 Y: 93)
A sad sipdown of tasty tea. But life is too short to drink bad tea. And all teas must be drank before they go bad. This one is from autumnal flush 2023; so year old tea. Nothing is telling me it’s “old”. I know… I have (and we all have) much older teas in our stashes.
I prepared it gongfu. And, oh boy, it works. First steeps were a bit weaker, however then the flavours I mentioned in my previous note started to glow. Baked bread with honey, stonefruity aftertaste, orange zest, all together with velvet mouthcoating feel. A little bit of astringency.
The aroma of used leaves is definitely a bread, made from rye, almost black one as mostly (or only) rye flour was used. And mixed with pumpkin seeds, that’s it; hints of dark malts are present as well.
Preparation
A sipdown! (M: 5 Y: 92)
Cascadia. An area I would like to visit one day. But when? With whom? Let’s see if this tea broughts me there at least virtually.
OK, I don’t know what to expect… for some reason I am thinking about Douglas firs and another association is Douglas Fir tea by Juniper Ridge. But this tea contains juniper at least. And barley. That sounds good to me and suitable to Cascadia region.
If I remember right, I travelled through this region only virtually, no matter if I was train driver, truck driver or just looking at the maps and Street View. As I wrote, I hope to see it once with my own eyes and not on screen only.
Well, this tea, as it contains only two ingredients, tastes after those ingredients. Crushing juniper berries brought a piny twist to the, well roasted, barley. It was like drinking grain fields with pines on the horizon. The aroma is just like grain field. Harvest is coming in just a few days. Maybe the harvester just didn’t come yet today.
Now I want to visit Cascadia even more.
Preparation
As the vendor description suggests, this tea lands somewhere in between a hong oolong from Taiwan and a wild black tea (e.g. taiwanese Shan Cha). It is more bitter than the former and more fruity than the latter. It also remains interesting for many infusions. Overall, I am quite happy with it, especially for drinking in this late autumn weather.
The aromas are flowery, vegetal, and leathery. The taste is spicy, bitter, floral, sweet, and woody. There are hints of mushrooms, nectarine, later on also malt. The mouthfeel is buttery and gets astringent towards the end of the session. The aftertaste is pungent, fragrant, and biting with a long-lasting sweetness.
This is a bottled gardenia oolong tea that I coworker brought for me to try yesterday!
I think she must have got it from T&T or one of the other Asian markets in the city because the packaging was entirely in Chinese except for a sticker slapped on the back with the NFT, the name “Zhi Zhi Oolong Tea”, and a translated ingredient list.
It’s unclear whether it’s gardenia scented oolong or oolong with gardenia flavouring because the ingredients just listed “oolong with gardenia flavour” which could honestly go either way pending on how much was lost in translation or not. However, taste wise it was light and refreshingly floral! Definitely a very delicate gardenia note, but well suited with this greener oolong used in the drink. I didn’t much care for the aftertaste which was sweet in an out of place way, and looking at the ingredients that does make sense because there’s erythritol in the beverage. But other than that small factor I thought this was really nice. I’m loving that gardenia seems to be becoming increasingly more popular!
Drank this earlier in the week but, unfortunately, it was right around the height of when I started to feel sick. Now, I don’t in any way think the tea is related to that but it definitely wasn’t a cup I was able to get into and enjoy because of how I started feeling as I was sipping it…
Flavors: Berries, Black Currant, Chocolate, Mulberry, Raspberry
Cold Brew!
This was so good! Pleasantly pithy yet tart and pucker inducing with a nicely balanced mix of pink grapefruit and lemon notes. Zesty, jussssttt sweet enough and a little bit floral in its undertones from the elderflower in a way that conveys freshness and adds an interesting nuance and sophistication to the profile. It almost gives off “craft mocktail” vibes in the way you might get from a nice high tea service in a hotel – which I say as a compliment!
Cold Brew!
Unfortunately this was underwhelming. It simultaneously tasted both generically sweet and sugary and also strongly of stale/dehydrated apples. The latter is unsurprising because the blend itself is made overwhelmingly of dehydrated apples – I guess I’m just a little saddened that the flavoring doesn’t do a satisfactory job masking that steeped out apple note. I still drank it because it was cold, refreshing, and not unpleasant. It’s just also not bubblegum, though.
Had this as a hot cuppa a few nights ago, and it was my first time trying this blend outside of being cold. It was very sweet – sweeter than I remembered, in fact. Also quite lemon forward with some apple-y and even pineapple undertones. That combination read as really lemonade like in a pleasant way. I got a little cucumber in the finish, but overall I felt like that flavour could have been stronger or just better balanced. Still, I enjoyed the lemon flavour a lot and it’s not surprising that drinking it hot especially pulled it even more to the forefront of the profile.
I forgot how busy this blend is when I pulled it out of my stash to bring to work on Monday morning, and then I opened up the bag and it was not the simple blend of black tea and cinnamon I was remembering. It was still good though with a cinnamon-forward flavour, but also notes of peppery ginger and earthy yerba mate and a really slick, coating and sweet finish of licorice root. Just different from what I’d been craving but close enough to the same wheelhouse.
What a throwback!
Shockingly age has been very kind to the walnut in this blend, but less so to the banana. Basically it’s still a smooth black tea base with that warm sort of nuttiness and a bit of a baked bread undertone but you can’t taste the banana at all anymore. It’s a fine cup of tea, but I have to acknowledge that if I was tasting it for the first time like this I’d been sorely underwhelmed. The nostalgia is doing a great deal of heavy lifting for me…
Had a mug of this earlier in the week and was a little bit just “whelmed” by it. It definitely has all of the flavours that it says to – pink grapefruit and rosemary in particular. Not sweet at all which does create a TINY bit of disconnect with the grapefruit because pink grapefruit is typically associated with being more sweet. It’s also not really pithy or especially bitter though, which is the other flavour combo I think of when it comes to grapefruits. Instead I felt like it was more earthy in its undertones, with clear notes of the beetroot that gives this blend its dazzling pink cup colour. Not unpleasant tasting, but not quite the fresh pop of fruit I was maybe looking for in the moment.
A cup from the start of the week. It was a pleasantly peppery and warming ginger flavour on a brisk black tea base, but as I believe I’ve noted before I find this tea really lacking in maple flavour and not really pastry-like in any way. It’s more just a bold ginger blend than a dessert one. But I knew that when I made the mug, so it wasn’t disappointing in the moment.
The last of these “RL” cold brews that I picked up from T&T.
Honestly, this was maybe my favourite. It was very smooth and nutty with notes of golden grains, a little bit of honey, and just a little bit of roast and minerality. It’s really a shame that I enjoyed it so much, because I actually only drank about a third of it before leaving it in the back of an Uber. Womp womp.
Very, very lightly flavoured but despite the fact it’s sort of lacking in both the strawberry and banana notes and anything that would make me think of a smoothie… I still sort of like it!? I mean, it’s smooth and that delicate albeit generic fruit note is kind of relaxing as a late night option to sip on when you’re just feeling something a little more gentle. And the rooibos that makes up the base is very nice!
The last couple of weeks I’ve been on a bit of a Bubly kick. First with the pineapple flavour, and then with the apple. Most recently I got a case of the raspberry, but unfortunately that sort of ended the obsession since I really don’t love the flavour…
I’ve been struggling with how to use up the remainder of the case, so as to not be wasteful, and I had the idea of trying one of these SuperBelly stick packs mixed in a can to make a sparkling version. Honestly, I’m going to call it a mixed success because it DEFINITELY improved the flavour of the Bubly but on the other hand it was less enjoyable than just drinking the SuperBelly on its own. So, probably not a good strategy to use up the rest of the pack going forward since these SuperBelly stick packs are expensive.
If anyone has ideas on how to finish off the Bubly I’m down to try different things though!
Cold Brew!
I’ve had the flu the last couple of days, so haven’t been drinking a lot of tea since my tummy is so sensitive right now (just water, really) but I had a bit of a craving for this tea so I figured I’d test my luck. I drank this ice cold straight out of the fridge, and it was so delicious. It definitely didn’t do anything to help my stomach, but it also didn’t do anything to make it feel worse either. Plus, I was in one of those moments where I felt like I was just on fire so having something so cool and refreshing to drink was actually soothing in that way too!
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.
Flavors: Candy, Raspberry, Tart, Yogurt
Gongfu!
This is my favourite of Hojicha Co’s offerings, and it’s perfect for a brisk late-Autumn afternoon. Deeply toasty and mineral tasting, with a notes of charred peanuts and hazelnut, espresso beans, barley, roasted dandelion root, burnt sugar, and just a little bit of bitter, earthy cacao peppered throughout. Not a ton of rested value here, so definitely a session on the shorter side. However that small handful of steeps you do get are wonderfully delicious and rich!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCuhTDky_AT/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orjmWv5ReRw&ab_channel=TheBottlemenVEVO
Whisked this up as an eggnog latte that I paired with a batch of freshly baked Quebec blueberry scones topped with marscapone and fresh berries. The scones are warm, buttery and very flaky and obviously go quite well with the smooth, complimenting blueberry flavour of the matcha latté, which is very much channeling a “berries and cream” kind of vibes when whisked up this way! It’s making for a pretty relaxing mid-afternoon tea break as the weekend winds down!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCw-P_KyHLg/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueGlMl97fy0&ab_channel=TaliaRaeVEVO
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.
Don’t let the cute name of this tea fool you; though it does make for a sweeter cuppa it’s also very full bodied and packs quite an intense punch of flavour. The initial notes were very chocolate-y with a pastry element to them. What started as warm, buttery chocolatines quickly became dense, heavy and super decadent – much more like a molten lava cake. The finish is rich and slightly saline, with very evocative notes of salted toffee or butterscotch. Throughout there are undertones of malt and dark breads with just a hint of plum and leather. Though it’s obviously quite different than a typical English, Irish or otherwise similar breakfast blend it did make for a really nice alternative to start off the week!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCz1vbfSghb/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBfmMACvjjw&ab_channel=JAWNYVEVO
Gongfu Sipdown (2671)!
I got this tea ages and ages ago, but it ended up forgotten about way at the bottom of a sample drawer. Since first getting this tea, I’ve learned that it’s just not a style I really have a preference for. There’s a light toasty nuttiness to most of the infusions and a fairly potent and present jammy apricot note that hovers near the front end of the sip before dipping into a more grassy, floral and woody mid-sip. It’s a touch coarse, but not undrinkably so. All of the tasting notes are ones I enjoy individually, and in particular the stonefruit notes are a highlight of this tea. However, I’ve just learned about myself that I prefer the two more extreme ends of the oolong spectrum: very light, fresh and floral low oxidation productions or dark, dense and heavily oxidized or roasted ones. The middle ground, while nice to visit, isn’t where I want to spend most of my time.
Maybe that’s why this sample sat so long before being sipped down today. In fact, I think I may have even gotten this tea sample before moving to Montreal, so, when I say ages ago, I mean it. Still ended up a not half-bad session, though! These cakes do have a lot of life shoved in them, so they’re great for a longer session or one shared with tea friends.
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DC16Yfppnx7/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccB8ULwmeI&ab_channel=FutureIslands
Gongfu!
The end of the month snuck up on me so quickly this year, and it’s wild to think that in less than a week advent season will start, and ,with it, my yearly tradition of live blogging Adventageddon. So, I’m sneaking in some sessions now while I have the time! This was a very interesting black tea; it’s sun-dried so it has some more savory and refined characteristics and less upfront sweetness. Still very brisk and full-bodied with top notes that make me think of the dried apricots that my grandma kept in her pantry as a “sweet treat”. They weren’t really all that sweet, but there’s still something mighty nostalgic about that taste to me. The body of the sip is dark and woody with a bit of a molasses note and some walnut with plenty of warming spices. Even if the stonefruit isn’t so much a bright and jammy flavour, it contrasts well with the other spice cake-like flavours. The finish is the most savory, but tinged with lingering sweetness. Miso caramel comes to mind – heavy on the brothy, umami notes though.
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DC4unvtyHn0/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yxxTKt7txA&ab_channel=BloodWizard-Topic
I made a special stop at Natural Grocers to snag a new box of French Roast—they carry a limited number of flavors (not, unfortunately, Dark Chocolate). But it was perfect for a damp, chilly evening—this time, accompanied by milk and an itty bit of maple flavored syrup. (Ooh…next cup…Hershey’s!)
