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Holy tea! Just got home from a day of touring loose leaf tea shops in my new city! I went to DAVIDsTEA, McQuarries Tea and Coffee Merchants, and Tea Desire. Overall, I think I liked the service at McQuarries the least – the sales lady seemed really impatient as I took my time browsing the aisles. In the end, I ended up buying 50g (the smallest amount I could get) of two different teas. This is one of them!

The packaging it came in (a small brown paper bag carefully folded over) has absolutely no information about how to steep this one – nothing on amount of leaf, steeping time, and water temperature. I didn’t really want to guess (even if it would have been an educated guess), so I checked their website to see if I could find any information and, thankfully, there’s some listed. Even though everything is SUPER general, it’s enough to go on and 50g of this one is enough to tinker with as well.

So, 1 1/2 tsp of tea steeped for only 1 min. I’m making my first cup by the book! Err… Website. The dry leaf smells very light and floral with berry notes, however the berry I’m smelling isn’t really distinct enough to pinpoint what kind of berry I’m smelling. Steeped, the liquor is a sort of medium yellow, although it starts off as more of a pale green.

Personally, I’ve never had Ontario Ice Wine before but my roommate Tre has & he says the dry leaf smells exactly like what he had. I think that’s a good thing, although he says he didn’t particularly enjoy the ice wine he had. Steeped, it smells less floral but I still get that unidentifiable berry smell.

First few sips and it tastes good. It tastes different than other white teas I’ve had so that must be the Ice Wine I’m tasting. Yeah, I’m personally not tasting anything floral anymore. I taste berry in the end of the sip, and a bit in the aftertaste. There is a mild astringency – but the keyword there is mild.

I don’t really want to add sugar to this cup, but I wonder if it would bring out the taste of berry or whether it would kill it. Since this cup is pleasant enough I’m going to wait to try that another time. I’d also like to try leaving the tea leaves in another minute or two longer.

EDIT: By the time I reached the bottom of my mug the tea had grown noticeably bitter, so I think I will try adding a small bit of sugar next time.

EDIT: Second steep! Followed the same steeping parameters as before, but added a level tsp of sugar to it. Still as flavourful as the first steep but I think I was right to add the sugar – it DEFINITELY brings out the berry flavour. I think I prefer the second steep more. Looking forward to what a third steep will bring out of this tea!

EDIT: Third steep of this one went to Tre. Steeped this for 2 minutes and, at Tre’s request, added 2 tablespoons of sugar to it. I snuck a few sips before I gave it to him and it just tasted like sugar water to me. I’m not sure if that’s because of how much sugar he wanted added to it or because three steeps is too many. Even though it just tasted like sugar water to me, though, he said he could taste ice wine. Interesting.

My first DAVIDsTEA white tea purchase! White teas seem to be hit and miss with me, but I’m making more of an effort to try them so I can see what exactly I’m liking and disliking.

The dry leaf (although, this one really is more of the other stuff than leaf – but maybe I just got a batch with extra mulberries? There’s a TON of them, way more than anything else) doesn’t smell good. Well, that’s my opinion anyway. And, after reading different reviews it looks like most people have an opinion different than mine. I can smell the coconut, and that part of the aroma smells good to me, but the rest smells… I guess the best way I can put it is ‘alcoholic’. Like a BAD sort of fermented wine type of smell? I’m sure I’m getting that from the mulberries and, since I’ve never tried anything else with mulberries, I really have nothing to compare it to and no idea if mulberries are supposed to smell like this. Still, this tea was VERY highly recommended to me by a close friend because of the “caramel” taste it has (she knows that I am a die hard fan for almost all things caramel) so regardless of the fact I think the dry leaf smells icky I ended up buying some anyway.

I’m not sure how long is a good time to steep this one for my first time drinking it, but I’ve read a lot of the reviews on this tea and it seems like this one doesn’t really get bitter if you steep it for a long time, so I’m probably gonna lean towards the higher end of the recommended steeping time.

Steeping, the liquor on this one is a very pale yellow. I must say, as it steeps it’s smelling a whole lot better than it did as dry leaf. Very coconutty, and I’m totally understanding the caramel comparison too! Sneaking a few small sips while it steeps I taste pure caramel goodness.

Now fully steeped, Gold Rush taste delicious! I wish I’d made a pot of this instead of just a mug – I could spend all day drinking it. The flavour is very full, and even though I’m mostly just tasting ooey gooey caramel I can see how the coconut is contributing. A very creamy cup with no need for anything added to it! Everything about it is pleasant, including the aftertaste which lingers for a LONG time. Definitely a rebuy.

I’ve kept reading reviews and it looks like it can hold up to an even longer steep time, so I think I’ll try that next time. Anyone know how well this one resteeps?

I’m so glad my first impression was so wrong! Thankfully I have friends who know my taste, dare I say it, better than I do.

Drinking iced :)

The more I drink this iced the more I think I might actually prefer it iced as opposed to the hint peppermint tea I’m more used to…

Making a note to drink it hot again sometime soon so that I can make sure I still like it that way!

I might just end up shooting Tre! He decided to make a cup of one my DAVIDsTEAs for himself and chose Red Velvet Cake. It’s not that I don’t want him using my teas (he has permission to make himself whatever he wants so long as the tea balls aren’t already filled with leaves for things I plan to resteep later), but that he blatantly ignores what the tins say about amounts to use for a cup and what I’ve told him.

So, earlier today he made a cup of DAVIDsTEA’s Hot Lips for himself (the tea I bought specifically with him in mind), but halfway through his cup decided that he didn’t want Hot Lips anymore so he boiled up some more water, filled the mug up to the brim with new hot water (without dumping the old tea) and then, when he thought I wasn’t watching, took out a tablespoon it filled it so it was heaping and then proceeded to try and cram all of the leaves into a tea ball. THEY BARELY FIT. The leaves are gonna have no room to expand :/

If it weren’t one of my least favourite (if not my least favourite) DAVIDsTEAs that I currently have stocked, and if I didn’t have so much of it I would be so much more upset than I am right now!

He also added in about two full tablespoons of sugar to it! So, he has a mug of watered down Hot Lips that was then resteeped with AT LEAST twice the recommended leaf for Red Velvet Cake, and he then added a ton of sugar to it. YUCK.

Anyway, that’s why I’m drinking Red Velvet Cake right now – he was just going to trash the leaves, but it seemed like such a waste especially considering how much extra leaf he used. So, I resteeped the leaves and added a small bit of milk (maybe 1/2 a teaspoon if that). Like I said, Red Velvet is not one of my favourites, but this resteep is actually better than I usually get and almost as good as when I steep this one for the first time. I’m going to attribute that to the fact he used so much leaf for his cup.

I swear though, I better not catch him wasting leaf for any of my favourites! I might have to start hoarding some teas in my closet where he can’t get at them…

I was in the mood for something fun and citrusy, but also minty so I decided to mix these two DAVIDsTEA Herbal teas. For my mug I used a heaping teaspoon of the Pink Flamingo and a level 1/2 teaspoon of the Peppermint Amour. Since this is an experimentation I’m going to try to be be fairly thorough in my documentation of it.

Just smelling my little tea ball with the mixed dry leaf, I still get all the juicy citrus notes from Pink Flamingo (especially the smell of oranges and grapefruit) but it’s accompanied with a pretty strong smell of mint that makes it seem really “fresh”.

As it’s steeping I can smell Pink Flamingo, but the Peppermint Amour is getting buried under all the citrus and I can hardly smell it at all! The colour of the liquor is a much lighter pink than I’m used to seeing with the Pink Flamingo.

I ended up steeping the tea for almost exactly six minutes, and now that it’s done steeping I can smell the peppermint a little bit more, but the Pink Flamingo is still the dominating scent.

First few sips and immediately I’m tasting tangerines and oranges and a pretty strong note of hibiscus (that’s ok, I lie hibiscus). However, on the tail end of the sip and in the aftertaste I get my peppermint! It’s a lovely taste that leaves my mouth feeling cool and fresh. This was a good decision! The Peppermint compliments the citrus really nicely. It’s sort of like that sensation of peppermint in your mouth after you’ve been chewing a really strong peppermint flavoured gum.

This would be a great tea to drink in the summertime and so far it’s been really relaxing (and since it’s all herbal teas it’s caffeine free) so it’d probably be a nice cuppa before bed too. As soon as I finish of the pitcher of iced tea already in my fridge I’m excited to cold brew some of this.

I’d offer some to my roommate but he’d likely just dump a bunch of sugar in it and this combination is one that really doesn’t need a sweetener at all because the peppermint really helps to cancel out any unwanted tartness. So no tea for him.

Had this as my breakfast tea this morning before family showed up! Re-steeped it and found that it still tasted pretty good, although the taste of raspberries was hardly discernible at all. Didn’t save the leaves to steep a third time – I find most teas to be pretty weak after being steeped more than twice with few exceptions to that rule. Maybe that’s because most of my favourites are black teas which many people, including myself, seem to agree don’t re-steep well.

When I first discovered DAVIDsTEA (Birthday cake was the first one I ever tried; and I discovered when I was searching for a birthday present for Skylar, my best friend Taylor’s girlfriend. Skylar is a tea enthusiast and I thought Birthday Cake would be the perfect birthday present for her) this is one of the teas where I was like, “Damn! I need to try this!”. I love caramel. LOVE IT. In all varieties. It is my kryptonite, and so I was shocked to see that teas came in flavour other than “fruit” and the sort of tea names I’d just heard growing up like “Chai”, “Earl Grey”, or “Chamomile”. It’s one of my first purchases from DAVIDsTEA and since I’m pretty new to Steepster I haven’t had a chance to log it properly, so I’m gonna do that now…

The dry leaf smells like really rich caramel. It sort of reminds me of Werthers chewy caramels, but with the obvious addition of black tea leaves. It could probably sit on my couch all curled up and just sit and smell the dry leaves for hours, and I’m not gonna rule that out as something I wont do in the future. I remember when I first saw it I was shocked that there were honest to goodness, actual, real bit of caramel in it; it wasn’t just an added flavouring (some days it’s really hard not to just pick the caramel bits out).

With this tea I have a tendency to over steep (if you steep the full 7 min. it says to on the tin it just doesn’t taste right, in my opinion) so I’m just going to steep it for 4, maybe 5 minutes. The liquor is a golden, sort of ambery brown and, because of the steeper I used (I should really invest in a better one) there are lots of little bits floating around. For this one I always steep it and then pour it through a more fine strainer a second time before drinking. It also gets an oily sorta ‘skin’ that forms on the top, though that doesn’t really bother me a whole lot.

Through experimentation I’ve found that this tastes pretty good with just a touch of milk or cream (I never add a lot; I don’t like adding things to my tea). If I had rock sugar (maybe Butiki’s Brown Crystal Sugar) I might add just a touch of that – but I have no qualms drinking it without added sugar.

Crap! I still ended up steeping this one longer than I wanted to – I’m really bad for that. At least it didn’t get the full 7 minutes; more like 6 this time. The smell is still caramel – rich, gooey caramel. My apartment smells lovely too! I swear, unless I’m making tea the place has this sort of permanent smell of “Maple Sugar Oatmeal”, heavy on the oatmeal… It’s not bad smelling exactly, but this smells MUCH better. I don’t really get the “salted” part of the tea, but I’m not going to complain since my only real “caramel turn off” is caramel with large bits of salt… Lightly salted caramel? Sure! Heavy on the salt? NO! I am NOT a salt fan at all (in general, not just in regard to caramel).

The black tea base is really present on the first few sips, but it’s quickly followed by the caramel which just suits it really well. Smelling it now, my roommate asked if there was something chocolatey in it. I don’t really get that from this tea, but it makes me curious what would happen if I added in a little bit of chocolate to it (maybe some of the chocolate chips from my Love Tea #7?). I bet that’d taste really good.

I just can’t get the caramel taste out of my mouth though! After even a small sip it lingers for what feels like forever, which makes this a really good tea to take my time enjoying; no need to gulp it all down at all.

I’m really enjoying this one!

Adding this in because I find it entertaining (and also sort of bothersome): right now my roommate is enjoying a cup of DAVIDsTEA’s Hot Lips that I made for him (which is one of the few green teas I actually like), and he just drowned the cup in about 3 tablespoons of sugar. I have no clue how he can douse a perfectly good cup in so much sugar and think it still tastes good. I’m not sure if there’s a single tea he’ll drink without adding sugar…

Peppermint tea has always been a staple in my tea collection, and this is definitely one of my favourites that I’ve tried which is good because I’ve got about 100g of it at the moment which is enough to make A LOT of peppermint tea.

I made a small iced pot of it last night with the intention of filling my water bottle today so I could have some tea at Robyn’s (she, unfortunately, left her steeper at home before she moved into her dorm so for a few more days at least she’s going to be “tealess”).

I put a whole bunch of leaves into the pot since I like my peppermint teas really STRONG (I threw in probably three tablespoons of tea leaves). I can’t stand teas with a more faint and subtle note of mint; in my mind mint is meant to be a more dominating flavour.

Regardless, the tea was really, SUPER good iced so I’ll likely be making some more of it really soon. Since I now know that not only is this tea absolutely amazing hot but can also hold its own as an iced tea I feel really good about logging it and giving it a killer rating. Next thing on my list to do with this one is to try mixing it with a couple of my other teas (maybe something with citrus).

Decided that I’d have this today for my breakfast tea! I’m probably going to need the energy boost since I’ll be venturing the public transit system to the University today to see Robyn! It’s not that I have anything against public transit (I depended heavily on it over the last year for work), it’s just that I have know idea what any of the routes are since this city is new to me. This is the only Mate tea I have stocked right now (but I’d love to find a few more), so for a guaranteed energy boost I have fairly limited options.

The dry leaf of this one reminds me of late nights spent camping; something about sitting around the campfire roasting marshmallows and making s’mores then lying under the stars all curled up in a sleeping bag. It smells earthy, but a nostalgic kind of comforting earthy smell – if that makes any sense. The raspberry is definitely present in the dry leaf, but it doesn’t take over and instead compliments the mate really well. I’ll be honest, I don’t really distinctly smell the almond, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing and I’m sure it’s contributing to that ‘camping smell’ in its own way. My roommate hates the smell of this one, but that’s alright: it just means more for me.

Steeped, the liquor is a clear red/brown colour (or, at least, it would be clear if it weren’t for all the little bits and leaves that managed to get out of my tea ball – bleck!). My whole kitchen smells comfortingly outdoorsy (I should point out that I HATE the outdoors, so it takes a lot for something to smell ‘comfortingly outdoorsy’ to me). I can still smell the raspberry, but it’s more subtle now. I’m also smelling chocolate. Delicious.

Before I take my first sip I have to do something about all the extra leaves floating around, so I pour my tea into yet another mug, though this time through a strainer. My first sips remind me a little bit of an earthy coffee, with a lingering raspberry note and a bit of a chocolate taste. I know it’s not going to take me a long time to finish my mug this morning – which is good because I’m sorta in a rush to get ready (don’t want to miss my bus to the university).

It’s not the best tea in my cupboard; but it’s good and there’s a reason I keep it stocked! Definitely a nice start to the morning.

I’ve never tried resteeping this one, so I’m definitely going to try to remember to hold onto the leaves to resteep it later today. I’d also love to try it iced eventually, though I have a feeling this is probably a tea that I’m only going to enjoy hot.

This is one of those sort of generic “Superstore” type teas that I keep stocked up on for when I have family or friends over who don’t really drink tea too often or who aren’t familiar with loose leaf teas (especially some of my more “odd” flavoured ones) and would prefer a more ‘basic’ type of tea. I hardly ever drink these teas (the exception being my Stash Moroccan Mint and Riverblend Plantation Saskatoon Berry Black Tea), so it’s been a long time since I had this one; long enough for me to apparently forget just how awful it is.

I decided on this one for my “bedtime tea” tonight because: A) it’s caffeine free, and B) for whatever reason I was craving lemon, which was unusual since I don’t really like lemon as a flavour unless it’s in baked goods, and I don’t actually own any loose leaf teas with a prominent lemon flavour.

The bagged dry leaf doesn’t actually smell that bad, but as soon as it had started steeping the whole kitchen just stank of this sort of medicinal lemon scent – it kind of reminded me of Neo Citron. I took a small sip, and immediately knew that if I was going to be able to finish the cup I had to load it up with sugar.

I added about five teaspoons of sugar to the cup, which just BARELY makes the tea palatable. I find I’m drinking the cup in large gulps with the goal of just pushing through and finishing it off. The aftertaste of this is just horrid – even after adding all of that sugar it’s still pretty tart and awfully bitter. And there’s still that nasty sort of medicinal quality to it.

To think that this is my Grandma’s absolute favourite tea! Bleck. Oh well, I guess I’ll just hold on to the rest and, as she comes to visit, she can drink it all up. I don’t think I’ll be having any more for quite some time.