Dorothy

First of all, this tea tastes absolutely disgusting if you brew it at the suggested temperature (near boiling). I’ve gone through quite a few nests just trying to find the right temperature and time. So I went for a low temperature, and it doesn’t taste bad at all.

It certainly has a bit of earthyness to it, but the main flavor is floral (chrysanthemum). This reminds me of green tea with flowers. The liquor color from this attempt is pale yellow. Which I think is the color range you want to aim for. If it gets much darker (amber almost), you won’t enjoy it at all. Strangely enough, I think the earthy notes add a rustic warmth of their own.

Still drinking this, I’ve gone through about 2/3 of my 100g tea pouch. Its a very light tea, so it really fills up the pouch. If one were to get this in a tin, they would have to provide an “overflow” pouch as well.

Its very light and has a bit of sweetness to it. Not overly sweet, just enough to make the drink a more interesting.

This is just a follow up note. See my previous one for more tasting notes.

I prefer this company’s Monk’s Blend tea over Teopia. This is smooth, slightly fruity and sweet, though not overly sweet. You can taste the hint of vanilla and that unifies the overall flavor. It has a very nice fruity fragrance too, which makes it lovely to stick your nose in your cup for another sip. Best enjoyed hot.

You cannot buy this tea from the company itself or a retail outlet. I think they only sell it commercially, so you have to pick it up at a tea room or restaurant that sells it. I live in Peterborough, Ontario and there are two places to pick this up here; The Magic Rolling Pin and the tea room based out of The Whistlestop Café. You’ll have to look around for a place in your town that sells it.

This type of green tea is my absolute favorite. I decided to get this instead of the two other options from David’s: Butterfly Jasmine and Dragon Pearls. This is a bit cheaper, and I have faith that it still tastes good. Besides, unless I am brewing those in a glass teapot I can’t see it unfurl. Hence why I picked this tea over the other two, because I don’t mind if it doesn’t look fancy.

Anyways, this didn’t disappoint me. I like it because it takes green tea (which is enjoyable by itself) and adds a nice floral taste to it (not too little, not too much). I’m normally not a fan of flowers and tea, especially rose and lavender. But I love the smell of jasmine and it tastes fantastic with green tea. To me, this is not a “refreshing” tea its a relaxing tea.

In the future, I may buy a small pouch (25g) of the Butterfly Jasmine just to discover if it tastes much different. When I run out of Silk Dragon Jasmine tea I will most certainly refill my tin. Like I said earlier, this type is one of my favorites and it is going to stay in my permanent collection.

_{1yr reflection: Wow I can’t believe I liked this one so much… because it’s not that good. Removed rating}

This reminds me very much of Coco Chai Rooibos. Except well this is a black tea instead of rooibos and its also much harsher.

Just smelling the canister can overpower your senses. You would expect this to be somewhat weaker when its brewed but it isn’t. Once the liquor hits your tongue, the spices punch you in the face (I mean this in the best way possible). Its the sort of thing I’d expect a “rugged” guy to drink, and not what a nice old lady would.

I recommend drinking this in the morning. Especially if you can’t seem to keep your eyes open.

I’ve been wanting to buy this since it came out but never got around to it. In the canister the coconut and vanilla are really strong scents. And since I bought this during December at the mall, I had to ask the ladies to break out a new bag of Buttered Rum. There was hardly anything left in the canister.

Onto brewing this stuff. It reminds me a lot of the Bourbon Vanilla tea from Teaopia. Except that is lacking the coconut, but otherwise smells and tastes similar. Between the two teas I really prefer this one, it is really smooth and the coconut completes it.
The liquor tastes so rich and full of character, while still remaining refreshing too. It doesn’t weigh you down, it gets you to relax and put up your feet. The aftertaste is good too, the coconut, rum flavoring, vanilla and cornflowers just linger for a bit. Then you just taste the creamy black tea fading away. (I brewed this for 6 mins and the black tea was still enjoyable, not bitter)

When it comes to flavored black tea I prefer blends like this. I don’t like it when David’s Teas loads the blends with candy. Even though I don’t specifically drink tea for its health benefits, I do like to minimize my sugar intake.

I have not had a good cup of Earl Grey tea in a long time. The bergamot is very present in this tea, and its enjoyable. Usually I have bagged Earl Grey tea, since that is what most places carry when I ask for tea (bleh). And in the bagged tea you never taste the bergamot and the black tea itself is kind of bland and bitter.

This tastes sharp and the bergamot is so zesty! I will definitely buy more when I run out of this.

I’ve decided that I don’t really enjoy cider-type drinks. So I added some black tea (mystery brand!) and milk (1 teaspoon of winterberry wine, 1 teaspoon of black tea and I eyeballed the milk). Unfortunately the black tea I used gets undrinkable after 3 mins, so the spices didn’t get to sit for the full 6 mins.

I like this combination a lot better. Its like a sweet and fruity chai with a bit of a kick (not much of one unless you spike it w/ something else).

Like I said, I am not crazy about cider but I am looking forward to working it into some other teas I want to get rid of. Some peppermint or sencha are next on the list of things in my mind to throw in with Winterberry Wine. Or perhaps I will mix the Chocolate Chili Chai with this too, since I hardly drink that.

Will I buy more Winterberry Wine when I run out? No. But I am enjoying mixing it with other tea I have. :)

Note: This isn’t a bad drink, I just don’t care for cider (“fruity spiced water”).

Finally finished my bag of this and overall I’m not very impressed. Whether it is the tea or the fact that maybe I don’t like like white teas in general I don’t know.

I probably won’t stock up on this again, even if I don’t have anymore white tea in my cupboard. Its one of those “meh” teas for me. When I have more experience with white tea I will form a stronger opinion on this one.

I am starting to have better luck brewing this tea but it is difficult to get it right. A big thank you goes out to Jaime for suggesting a lower temperature.

After rinsing the leaves (which I don’t know was good enough), I smelled the tea. Right away, I was put off by how dusty it smelled. I’m not sure if I didn’t rinse the leaves enough though so I can’t argue about the dust too much. Then, drinking it I was pleasantly surprised. It’s very light in color and taste, but still the dust was starting to irritate my nose. So I wasn’t able to pick out the different flavors of the tea. :(

On the second brew I let it sit slightly too long and I ruined it. I’m not used to teas that are this fickle. When I say I let it sit too long, I mean an extra 30 seconds. If you see this tea darken all of a sudden, it is completely ruined. Unless you like dusty, bitter, watered down Timmy’s coffee.

I still have 5 or so of these left so, I’ll use the remaining ones to figure out how to make a good cup of tea. I’m going to try and rinse the leaves a bit better next time and watch my tea timer very carefully.

This is a nice cranberry cider drink. Which is not something I usually look for, but I have cider sometimes during the winter season. So it is a welcome addition to my tea cupboard.

The cranberry is not overwhelming, just a nice sweet and tartness to the cider. The spices make this a lot less boring than it could have been. Overall I like it, but it doesn’t really impress me a whole lot because I am not a big fan of cider anyways.

Recently I was making some pulled pork in my crockpot (just a pork pot roast, onions, chilli sauce, etc). Since pork goes well with fruity things I brewed a cup of Forever Nuts and dumped it in my mixing bowl along with other seasonings. Then poured everything over the roast and let it sit in there for about 10 hours.

I’m really glad that the finished product was not too sweet. The Forever Nuts is pretty noticeable while you’re eating, but it’s kind of a different flavor because its been mixed with a bunch of other ingredients.

The recipe is pretty average, but if you want it just send me a private message.

At David’s Tea I was looking for some plain black tea and this caught my eye. I usually keep 1 of each “type” in stock at my house. The canister in the store had just enough for a few more scoops of Black Needles before it ran out. So I guess this is popular at my location.

Anyways, onto drinking this stuff. I was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly this goes down. It tastes like a nice, strong flavored black tea. What more could I expect? The fact that it has the strong flavor and it goes down really smooth, is a nice feature.

If I don’t feel like trying out new black teas I will probably just buy more of this.

I tried “rinsing” the pu-erh twice with boiling water. Then steeping it for a short time and drinking it. Not exactly David’s way but something I picked up from a tea book. (Hey I am a pu-erh noob, cut me some slack! hahaha)

It tastes better, but I am still not crazy about it. Its flowery and earthy. Like you wandered into a garden the morning after it had just rained.
On the 2nd steep (counting real steeping, not including the two I chucked out), it was especially mouth-watering. Unfortunately there is this funky aftertaste present with each sip.
If this is from the chrysanthemum flower, then I am beginning to think I don’t really care for that type of flower. If it is the pu-erh, well then I really ought to find some good pu-erh one of these days because I am tired of being so disappointed.

I didn’t expect this tea to taste so “heavy.” The chocolate really weighs it down. I can best describe this as being a comfort drink, and not something meant to refresh you.

Snacking on some blueberries made this taste a lot better. If you’re serving this drink to others, supplying some sweet fruit would be a welcome addition.

Not sure if I am going to drink a lot of this during December. I’m around so much sweets and junk food as it is. Also, I am not a big fan of chocolate so I didn’t enjoy this as much as others might. For me, this is a special occasion tea. Tasty, but not something I can drink more than once a week.

I smelled this tea in the store, and was blown away by the strange scents.

Tasting notes: it’s incredibly creamy and has an unusual flavor layered on top of the usual oolong. My husband and I really like this oolong, so it might soon become one of our favorites.
This is definitely worth trying once, because it is such a unique tea. It smells really good before and after brewing.

I’d still be able to have a cup of this. However one of my cats (I don’t know which, and they won’t admit to it), RIPPED the bag apart. I guess they really liked that tea too.

I said to my husband “my cats ripped apart my sweet dreams!”

Tried some of this iced tonight. It’s still pretty good but I prefer it hot.

This smells like a mild apple cider. It tastes of apple, spices, and a hint of almond.
I think it tastes a lot better than an average spiced cider, and it has a lovely deep pink color when you brew it.
It’s very light, and has a warmth to it that is enjoyable during the colder seasons.

Personally, I enjoy having this all the time. Because it is so sweet and not full of caffeine.

It’s starting to cool down quite a bit. So I’m more interested than ever to stock up on some chai blends.

The spices add a special ‘warmth" to my day. Tea leaves before and after brewing, have a strong scent. I think that the ginger really comes out in this blend. It’s not overpowering, just enough to please your senses. As a chai blend, I usually prefer more caffeine but because it tastes really good I’m willing to overlook it.

Small note:
Had some of this with a bit of Peppermint Amour thrown in (2:1). It’s weird, but I kinda like it. I’ll have to put in less peppermint next time, it’s really strong.

For some reason, my husband said that this smells like funnel cake when it’s brewed. I guess it smells good for a dessert tea.

It tastes just like you would expect it to. The green tea is very mellow, and the lavender is pretty noticeable too. My husband thinks it’s rather “creamy.” I’m not a big fan of lavender, but this tea is still pretty enjoyable. Overall it is a light tea, not heavy on any strong flavors.

After my husband and I had David’s Champagne tea, we decided to get a “regular” white tea. At their store, we smelled a bunch of tins and decided on this one. It smelled really good and I liked how they were all rolled up.

Now onto drinking this stuff. The liquor is a very light yellow color. It smells slightly vegetal and buttery. The taste reminds me a lot of an oolong I tried: Tie Kwan Yin. Except this one has a slight astringent taste to it. After a few sips, I can almost taste something floral in it too. Overall, it has a very light flavor. When I resteeped, it was slightly more creamy.

I have not really tasted a lot of white teas, so I’m not sure how I feel about this one. Usually I prefer strong tasting teas. I like it enough to keep drinking it, but I don’t know if I’ll refill it when I’m done.

First off, on the information for brewing this tea it says 4-6 minutes. When I tried this for the first time, at their event. This stuff was SO bitter. I asked one of the tea ladies to brew some hotter samples. Thinking that the tea had cooled too much and perhaps the real flavor wasn’t shining through. Nah, it was still really really bitter. :( I don’t blame her though, 4-6 minutes is the suggested time.
Determined to “get it right”, I tried this at about 3 minutes. It tastes a lot better.

This reminds me a lot of their Pure Chai tea. The cinnamon and cloves in Marsala really express themselves. Black tea leaves and the “Marsala flavoring” are there too. The bitterness is still present, but it can be lessened with a shorter steep time (3 mins worked for me). Overall, it has a strong and delightful flavor. I loved their Pure Chai, so this was an enjoyable cuppa.

I’m not a wine drinker, so I can’t compare this to the real wine equivalent. Seriously though, if you like the Pure Chai blend this is a good pick. If you want wine, get yourself a bottle of the real stuff.