C-chan

I probably should start off by admitting that I am NOT a big iced tea drinker. As far as I’m concerned, the way to drink tea is hot. I’m literally the kind of person who will brew a nice steaming cup in 30-something degree weather (Celsius!) and thoroughly enjoy it.

So, if this tastes best as an iced tea… I’m probably missing out.

According to my estimation, I made the tea a little stronger than it’s supposed to be, and the flavours still came out being rather delicate — a little too much for my liking. It was certainly pleasant — I enjoyed two steeps of it in my two-cup teapot, but I just found it… not strong enough for the flavour to come through.

I had it both plain and with milk. I think I liked how the flavour worked a little better with the milk added personally, but it did work well both ways.

If you like light-flavoured teas, you might really enjoy this. Personally, however, I like my tea with a little more oomph with it.

No notes yet.

Bought a cup of this in store today. The liquorice and chocolate work well together, along with the strawberry to create an interesting flavour that hits over a few waves. The liquorice comes first, with a very strong and elixiry aftertaste that sits thick in the back of your mouth. An interesting and intoxicating cuppa for sure!

Day 89 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA. (Backlogged.)

1.5tsp in an infuser, brewed in-cup.

Light, relaxing. Very floral flavour. It’s not my favourite flavour ever, admittedly, but it’s not bad, nonetheless. And LIGHT — 10g got me more of this tea than anything I’ve had before. (Shows how little I buy herbal teas, I’m sure.) I’ll be glad to get my money’s worth out of the sample I got, but I’m not sure if I’ll rebuy.

Day 97 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA (backlogged).

Bought a cuppa in-store.

I found this to be a lovely blend. The fruitiness of the mango and “grassy” flavour of the green tea mixed very nicely, creating a harmonious and delicious blend. The first resteep was quite nice as well. A second resteep (what I’m currently on) leaves the tea much more strong than the mango, though the latter is still present.

Oddly enough, I think that the mix between the green tea and the mango is what makes it so nice for me. Mango Madness tasted too much like pure mango, and made me want it to have the vibrancy of the fruit instead, which I doubt I’m ever going to find in a tea. However, the equally strong green tea flavour gave a nice counterbalance and reflexivity, making the mango flavour more of a sweet fruity addition rather than an overdemanding flavour.

Definitely something I’d like to have more of. And if it’s this good hot, I can only imagine what it would be like iced, the way it was originally meant to be served!

Day 98 of my 101 day of DAVIDsTEA challenge (backlogged).

1.5 tsp in a tea infuser….

This is a lot like Crème Brulée, I found. The two had very simmilar flavour notes, including a creamy, caramel taste with just a hint of citrus. However, this tea seemed less… special than the other. It’s not bad, but given the choice between the two, I’m afraid I’d have to go with Crème Brulée.

Day 101 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge!!!!

Wow! 101 days of tea. Hard to believe, it went by fast. :)

I had a large supper, so this was a lovely post-meal drink. I had it over three steeps, with 1.5tsp in my tea ball, brewed for around 5 minutes each time, though slightly longer for each subsequent steep.

The first steep was quite strong — not unpleasantly so, though. The tea was murky and thick, the ginger was the predominant flavour, and there was a nice sweet, but grounded note to it. Ginger also was the strongest note with the second steep, but the weaker third steep let the pu-erh come through more.

I really enjoyed this — It was perfect for my needs. I’m going to continue enjoying the rest of the amount I have of this for sure!

Day 99 of may 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge. (Clearing up the backlog, again.)

Around 1.5 tsp in my tea ball.

This tastes rather… herby. Which is not a bad thing, just different than I’m used to. I actually quite liked it — it has a nice sweet note to it, behind the main… herby flavour.

I think I need a bit more experience with this sort of tisane, but still, it was a good experience.

It resteeped nicely as well — I got two good steeps and onen… weaker one out of my tea-ball!

Day 100 (yesterday) of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge.

Approx 3tsp in my 2-cupper.

This has always been a favourite of mine, not so much for the taste as the colour. It turns this great murky-green, which, which a dash of milk, looks so disgusting and… well, swampy. It’s always reminded me of a witch’s brew. In fact, I use this in plastic water bottles as “polyjuice potion” when I cosplay as Hermione. dork

The taste is light, but sweet and candy-ish. I generally prefer stronger teas, but it’s pleasent, even if I wish there was more to it.

Day 93 (yesterday) of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge was

Another one of those teas that brews a nice, dark red and gives an amazing, dry flavour. It gave a lovely mulled flavour — sweet, fruity and spiced.

Unfortunately, it is a one-steep wonder — while some herbal teas at least give a decent second steep, this gives an extremely watery and only lightly flavoured second go.

Day 92 of my 101 days of tea.

Cuppa bought in-store.

I have to say, this is one of my favourite teas of the month in a while. It reminds me of Secret Weapon, which is one of my favourite teas ever, except less chocolatey. It’s the coconut and white tea combination. Currently enjoying a second steep, and it’s certainly just as good as the first was — the flavour is coming out a bit stronger, probably because I’ve left the bag in this time.

This is the kind of tea that benifits from the bag staying in, I think. It hasn’t produced any bad notes yet, and the flavour only seems to be improving as the bag sits in and the temperature decreases.

I might have to get more of this before the month is out……

Day 91 (yesterday) of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge.

1.5tsp steeped in-cup in my tea ball.

This is one of the teas that… I think was misnamed. I see that there are cocoa nibs in it, but the primary taste for me the first steep was that of the cinnamon, and the flavour of the next two was oddly reminiscent of marshmallow….

That being said, I quite enjoyed the tea…. it just wasn’t as chocolatey as the name suggested it might be.

Day 88 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge.

1.5 tsp in my tea-ball, brewed in-cup.

I have to say, this is pretty much what I wished Dreamsicle was. It…really does taste like a creamsicle, and it’s LOVELY for that. There was a slight metallic taste, but not enough to dampen the enjoyment of the tea, really. For the most part, it was just a very nice creamy orange flavour.

On an off-topic note, I also love the unicorn on the DAVIDsTEA page for it.

Day 87 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge.

1 1/4-ish tsp in my tea-ball, brewed in-cup.

This is one tea that I’m sad to see discontinued. It has an intriguing, but very balanced flavour. The peppermint and pu-erh seem to come out the most, with the green tea providing a balance between the two. The result is a multi-layered tea that is somehow both earthy and fresh.

I really enjoyed this cuppa. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a bit more of it before it’s completely gone…..

Day 86 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA.

3tsp in my 2-cupper.

First cup, brewed just over the suggested minimal steep and drank clear, was too strong in the flavour to the point where it wasn’t as pallatable as I’d like. Cut with milk and with sugar added, however, and the good points of the flavour were able to come through. Not bad in the end, when served with milk and sugar, but that first cup ruined it for me, I must say.

I might re-try this, keeping the milk-and-sugar knownedge in mind and seeing how it tastes then so I can better understand how the tea tastes when done in a way that compliments it, but my idea of a good cuppa is still one that is great with or without additives. So, this is not amongst my best teas ever, I’m afraid.

Day 85 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge.

I have to say, this tea confused me. Enough so that I made some fresh today to make sure it wasn’t just my… less than ideal tea-ball (I have a better and a worse one I will admit) playing tricks on me.

You see, I had this in store once before, and it was VERY cinnamon-hot. But when I had it yesterday… it was much less so, and more… cinnamon-sweet if anything, with only a hint of the spicy-hot.

However, I made it loose in my two-cupper today…. and even over-steeped it. While it was at least somewhat spicier, it was still far more sweet (and not at all bitter, thank goodness!).

So, this tea certainly confuses me. Perhaps it was different batches, and thus different degrees of spiciness. Still, I’m a little alarmed that it could vary in spiciness that much!

Either way, it smells JUST like cinnamon hearts. And that, at least, is lovely.

Day 84 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge, and the very last of my Advent calendar teas. (Yes, it’s February. I know.)

Dumped the container in my Chinese tea pot and made it with around 3 cups of water.

Sweet Dreams is caffeine free. Who am I to disagree? I’ve travelled the world and the seven seas, everybody’s looking for something…..

Ok. Admittedly I’ve been singing that ever since I’ve heard of this tea. Unfortunately, this tea appears to not be what I’ve been looking for.

The large array of ingredients in this tea makes for a rather deep flavour. That much was intriguing. However, I found the overall taste to be, while not bad, not something I’d want to have on a regular basis. It also bittered quickly, which again muted my enjoyment of it.

I suppose I’ll have to keep looking for that “something”.

Day 83 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge.

1.5tsp in my tea ball, brewed in-cup.

This tea smells AMAZING. Just like lemon curd, I was so excited to drink it. Unfortunately, the taste was not quite as good as the smell suggests. I totally wish I could bottle up the scent and turn that into a beverage! Now THAT would be amazing.

Day 82 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge, along with their green rooibos!

1.5 tsp in my tea ball, brewed in 1 cup water.

I found this to have heavier flavour than the green rooibos, which makes sense knowing the fermentation process. This is something I was more used to, and quite enjoyed. However, I found that given the choice between the red and green versions, I wanted the green more. The heaviness is nice, and mixes with some flavours like vanilla wonderfully, but on its own, the lightness of the green is more refreshing.

Day 82 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge, along with their other straight rooibos!

1.5 tsp in my tea ball, brewed in 1 cup water.

I found that this had a much lighter flavour than the red variety, while still having that rich, hollow flavour that defines rooibos. Wonderful on its own, I found it a VERY good cuppa… something I’ll definitely be wanting more of.

Day 67 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge (and my final backlogged day).

1.5tsp in my teaball, brewed in-cup.

You know the saying “where’s the beef”? Well, with this tea, it’s more like where’s the raspberry? The tea itself isn’t bad at all, but while raspberry makes me think of a succulent, tart, juicy sweetness, all I get from this tea that is remotely like this is a hint of fruity sweetness. The predominant flavour is the citrus. Which, while nice, does not seem to match the raspberry-inspired name.

And it looks like this tea just got discontinued, so I’m glad I tried it when I did! I hope if they try creating a raspberry flavour again, they put more effort into making it, well, more raspberry-y.

Day 81 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge.

The tea has a nice full-bodied flavour to it, flowery with a bit of smoke. Probably one of my favourite straight blacks so far!

My mark for a good black tea is something that I can — and want to — drink with or without milk and sweetener. And this fits the bill. I tried it first plain, and had the rest of my first steep (which had by that time slightly oversteeped with milk and honey). It tasted wonderful both ways. The resteep wasn’t bad either. :)

Day 80 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge, and my 100th tea note on Steepster. (Wow!)

10g of this dumped into my Chinese teapot, which is approximately a 4-cupper.

This has a lovely flavour to it. It has a subtle flavou to it that really highlights the rice as well as the tea itself. I found it very relaxing to drink, which is always wonderful. Resteep was lighter on flavour, but not to the point where it wasn’t worth the resteep.
As the tea continued to steep both times, the flavour did intensify. I found that it got slightly bitter as it cooled as well (poured from the pot), but not to the point of it being off-putting.

I’ve had some genmaicha from another company in my cupboard for quite some time, and I think I’ve been brewing it wrong, after making this. I’m certainly going to want to try that as well, making sure it’s done properly to see if it will be just as good and relaxing as this was.

Adding a second note because I had a note done for this right when I drank it, but I forgot to post it. Aaargh!

Advent calendar sample dumped in my 2-cupper. Waited a day to post this because I wanted to have it resteeped before I made my final decision….
Sunday was a day of heavy meals, and so it seemed appropriate to have this, which has a lot of digestive aids.
…unfortunately, without any label quite on my little sample and separated from the advent calendar itself, I seem to have mistaken it for an herbal tea. Oh well…

First cup was wonderful – it tasted… kind of herb-y and citrus-y. I think the oolong flavour was coming out as well, and this was confusing me a bit – the first hint that I wasn’t dealing with an herbal tea after all. Second cup, which had been brewing longer, was quite bitter (oops! That’s my fault, so I’m not blaming the tea for that), but still drinkable at least.
Thank goodness DAVIDs usually labels their teas quite clearly – it makes it harder to make mistakes like this. Still, a nice tea, and certainly did help settle my stomach after too much heavy food for one day.