DAVIDsTEA

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Recent Tasting Notes

60

Wow, it’s been a few years since I had this tea. I received it as a sample in my most recent online purchase from DAVIDs.

I used the entire sample to make two cups of tea for my husband and I. I steeped it for 10+ min. Back a few years ago I rated this tea in the high- 70s, but I don’t think that stands anymore. Maybe this is just my sample, but I’m not getting much mint or citrus in my cup of tea- mostly just floral and apple. That taste is half decent, but the aftertaste is sour (like stomach-acid taste?) and has a drying out affect on my tongue. Maybe from the artificial flavoring (which I have no idea why is present in this tea)? I dunno. The aftertaste is really off-putting .

Overall I’m glad to have revisited this one but I have no interest in purchasing.

Flavors: Apple, Floral

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 8 min or more

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70
drank Love Tea #7 by DAVIDsTEA
2965 tasting notes

This is the end of this.
Today again its all strawberry, and very little of the chocolate flavor. This was not my favorite, so I am not going to get more of this.
I’m glad I’ve got some sipdowns happening, as I may have bought some more tea….. ooops. And so close to black friday, too!
Erp.
Well, Sipdown!

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70
drank Love Tea #7 by DAVIDsTEA
2965 tasting notes

I was hunting for chocolate, but I’ve come up strawberry today. Hmm.
Another DavidsTea cup that I find a little puzzling. Hmm.
Well, its still a nice enough cup of tea this evening, if not exactly what I was hunting for.

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70
drank Love Tea #7 by DAVIDsTEA
2965 tasting notes

Todays steeping has made is more strawberry-like than chocolate-ish. Not a bad turn of events. Its proving to be a light and pleasant cup for my second cuppa this morning.

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70
drank Love Tea #7 by DAVIDsTEA
2965 tasting notes

Tonights steeping of this brings me out much more of the strawberry flavor.
This tea is a puzzle. I like all of the components- strawberry, chocolate, and rose, but this tea somehow is less than the sum of its parts. I feel greatness lurking in the background, but I may not be the steeper to bring it out.
Hmm.
DAVIDs Tea always becomes experimentation tea. Where I keep tying, to see what it will do next.

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70
drank Love Tea #7 by DAVIDsTEA
2965 tasting notes

I am breaking a general guideline and drinking a caffinated tea after dinner time. If I suffer afterwards, so be it.
I’m trying to be brave and actually steep my Davids teas for the longer terms. Its yeilding interesting results. The longer steep on this really brings out the strawberry notes. It makes for an interesting blend.

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70
drank Love Tea #7 by DAVIDsTEA
2965 tasting notes

I can see that this is going to be a two pot problem tea. First feeling is positive, if a little weak. I’m not getting the rose, but I can get a hint of strawberry.
This may need more leaf to brew up properly. This has got the promise of being a rich tea, and perhaps the cup of chocolatty goodness that I have been looking for, but more experimentation is needed.

caile

I never noticed this at davidstea before – I’m going to give it a try sometime.

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86
drank Movie Night by DAVIDsTEA
1186 tasting notes

Sipdown #2 of the day! This is a very interesting tea, to me it tastes very much like apple crumble lol, not anything caramel popcorn or popcorn at all. The cups at the bottom of my 20 g bag were not nearly as good as the first ones though, this last one in fact is a little bit tart, must have some more apple bits and green tea in it than popcorn! I also did a 6 minute steep, and I am not sure I’m using the right temperature, I keep doing 185 but I can’t remember if I did lower or higher for the first cups, I’ll have to look at my old notes. I will probably pick more of this one up at some point, as it is one tea I made a cup of for my boyfriend’s dad and he enjoyed it, and he is not a tea drinker! So this one might win over my non tea drinking friends, and I like the flavor too :) see previous notes on this tea!

Oh, and I also had a cup of my Raspberry Vanilla rooibos and now have 1 cup left in the bag. Man, I feel like I’ve had that tea forever! A tasty rooibos that I will hopefully finish off tonight! My kitty is intrigued by my double cups of tea haha, he’s like are they both for me, and keeps trying to stick his nose in them! I’m scared they will make him not feel well, so I am not letting him sample haha. I should get that kit-tea from 52 teas for him :D

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 6 min, 0 sec

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86
drank Movie Night by DAVIDsTEA
1186 tasting notes

Backlog, but a very exciting backlog!

Not about this tea, but super exciting (to me)

So if you have been following me on Steepster for a bit, you will know that I have a severe peanut allergy, and thus avoid all nuts in a paranoid manner. You may also recall my excitement at trying Almond matcha, which doesn’t actually have almonds in it, but the concept was a huge step for me to actually try other nuts that I am not allergic to that I know of. Well, yesterday, I decided to go a huge step further. I went to DAVIDsTEA to get some apple teas to try for a co-worker, and I decided to get an ALMOND TEA. Real almonds, no simulated flavors. I was between Forever Nuts and Long Life oolong, and decided on Long Life oolong. So when I got home, it was with great apprehension that I took an almond out of the bag and first rubbed it on my wrist to see if there was a reaction. After 20 minutes, nothing. Good sign. So I pondered for an additional 15 minutes about whether to eat it, and had a small breakdown in the process lol. But finally, I went for it. I ate the piece of slivered almond! It tasted like peaches haha, but it was an almond, and it was in my stomach. The last time I had eaten an almond (which I’m not even sure I am recalling correctly) was when I was 4 or 5 in soccer and we sold those chocolate ones, but that could even be a flawed memory lol. Regardless, it was at least 15+ years ago! And GUESS WHAT! NO REACTION!! Woot! I got a bit worked up so I was worried I’d notice little things like my cat making me sneezy and attribute it to the almond, but it was fine! This opens up so many possibilities in the way of foods I can eat, and teas! So yes, I thought I’d share that with y’all in a long rambling note. Sorry about that, but it is a super big deal for me and I am very pleased with the results lol.

Tasting note about this tea

In my waiting to see if I was allergic to the almond (see above if you care), I made a cup of this, one I bought for it’s apple qualities. Mmmm, man this smelled like apple crisp and tasted spot on like apple crisp! Very filling too, a rich tasty treat. Happy I tried this!

Lala

Congratulations Hope you can start eating more kinds of nuts too.

mrs.stenhouse12

Me too! Baby steps though, it’s a scary yet satisfying process, there are some I will probably avoid forever anyways (pecans and walnuts) but I’d like to try pistachios and hazelnuts at some point!

Lala

I have a friend who is allergic to only tree nuts. So he can eat any nut except if it was grown on a tree. Not sure what the difference is.

Indigobloom

yay!! Glad to hear you can truly eat almonds now, and hopefully other nuts as well!
One thing I would watch out for though, is the occasional bitter almond. Apparently it happens to about 1 in 100 of them, and most distributors manage to catch them before packaging, but the odd one does slip through. My Mum is allergic to almonds (but not peanuts) and her doc says it may have been that she ate a bitter one, to spark her allergy.

mrs.stenhouse12

@Lala – Oh, he can probably have peanuts then, as they are actually grown in the ground, I should research about how they are grown to see if that might impact which ones I try!

@Indigo – Yes, it’s exciting :D I can eat macarons now too, so excited! Eep, yes I will keep an eye out for those, I will go very slowly with the amounts of almonds I eat to begin with too, in case a larger quantity triggers my reaction to go off!

Indigobloom

Good idea. Fingers crossed for you MissLena! :)

OMGsrsly

Macarons are definitely worth it! So exciting that you have figured this out.

mrs.stenhouse12

Thanks all! Pumped about the world of opportunities available now :D

ashmanra

Hooray! So glad for you!

Ysaurella

that’s really Great news MissLena !

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66

Here is another older one that I have brought to work in an effort to sip down. I am not a fan of green tea in general but some of the fruity blends with sencha aren’t too bad. I remember when we bought this it was marketed as similar to something else we liked at Davids – but I can’t for the life of me remember what that was anymore. This was stored in the zip pouch it came in and still has a lot of aroma, a mix of sweet and tart fruit, almost like dried cranberries if that helps.

Hot, it was lackluster. The green tea was very mild (that is a plus) but so was the fruit flavour. I am not a huge fan of plums so I wasn’t over the moon about the flavouring idea, but it didn’t taste like anything plum to me. Just generic. Where this really shines though (and very unexpectedly) is cold. I had a bit left in my mug which became room temperature and that is very flavourful . Again, not plum, but much more flavour than hot.

I do not tend to like iced tea but that could be the way to use this one up. I am leery of cold brewing green teas as I understand them to be finicky and I do not like astringency at all. I could certainly make a pot of this hot and put it aside to cool though. I might take it back home to do that with as I think the beau would really like it that way.

Bonus points for iced tea options.

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95

I can’t say enough good things about this tea… I love it and I doubly love the fact that it’s caffeine free! Cinnamon and honey with creamy rooibos… it’s just so naturally rich and indulgent. It’s wonderful.

Oh hey… Look at that! It’s time to go home! Too bad it’s not Friday though! :)

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95

Just finished a wonderful evening playing a new (just arrived in the mail) board game, it was a blast. And to make such a wonderful evening even better my partner and I indulged in some of this tea. Warm and spicy, yet still sweet and creamy it was a great compliment to our evening. I love the honey flavors in this and that hint of orange just rounds out the profile so nicely. I just want to keep drinking and playing!

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95

I love chai teas, but this has got to be one of my favorites. And the best part? It’s caffeine free so I can have this right before bed if I want! It’s also great for those chilly mornings when you need something to brighten up your day. (Like today, when you really start to notice that it’s almost fall, well at least where I live :D)

Dry this tea definitely smells of cinnamon with a hint of clove coming through. This is a bag that you might not want to leave open for long though as the scent of cinnamon can really take over a room (great if you like cinnamon, not so great if your family isn’t as much of a fan.)

Like most red rooibos blends this tea gives a beautiful red-brown liquor that is very distinctive and the aroma of cinnamon is very soothing. Oh and the taste of this one… Yum. The rooibos gives a wonderful flavor to base this chai on, building it with just enough cinnamon to leave a pleasant tingle in your mouth, while the clove to gives it a nice round flavor. The citrus just kind of peaks out at you every once and a while, a nice way to brighten up this tea. Overall it’s got a very smooth mouthfeel, rich and almost creamy without being overly heavy. As the tea cools off a touch the honey really starts to come out too, which gives a nice finish in conjunction with the cinnamon.

What a wonderful way to start the day!

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 8 min or more

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72
drank Bear Trap by DAVIDsTEA
150 tasting notes

This herbal blend is tart and sometimes savory! Adding the tiniest bit of sweet really pulls out the berry flavors and makes a delicious cup. The berry taste was very much like blackberries to me, pith and all. Good warm or iced.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec

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70

I wish I’d read some of the notes before I finished this off! Then I might have tried it iced, which I think I would have enjoyed better. Though I actually did like this blend – the blueberry jam flavor was pretty accurate most of the time – some days the stevia was more pronounced, even though I was making it the same way. I think putting this over ice would have done the trick. In any case, while this did taste of blueberry, I think I’d rather put in the sugar myself.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 30 sec

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39
drank Mamma Mia by DAVIDsTEA
224 tasting notes

So I wanted something today, but I couldn’t decide which tea. I didn’t really want to drink a tea I have already, but I didn’t really have a taste for most of the new teas I do have. And the ones I did have a taste for were all multiple steep teas and it’s much too late for that.
I had made the Konami Mystery tea from Adagio, but it turned bitter because I think I used too hot of water. So I dumped it and grabbed this one to make instead.
It’s supposed to be fruity, and while I have serious doubts with anything that has so many different ingredients (especially cinnamon & hibiscus) it smelled so good in the store I figured I’d give it a shot. I had gotten a 2oz bag from a bin on the counter for $3.
The dry mix reminds me strongly of cinnamon apple pie and I don’t really get much else unfortunately except fleeting vague other fruit scents. I added about 2ish tsp, closer to 3 tsp really, to a teaball and dropped it in a cup of a little over 8oz of water. Not exactly sure since it was more than how much it’s usually filled, but not quite up to the top. Lol. Steeped for about 5 min.
The brew is a dark red and still smells like cinnamon apples. Taste wise it’s very tart and cinnamon-y. So much so it overpowers everything else. Which is really unfortunate. I had to add almost a full packet of truvia just to be able to drink it, which I’ve never had to do with a tea before. And while it tones down the tartness somewhat, it’s still very tart. Hibiscus strikes again. Really I should’ve know better I guess.
Ah well. It was still nice to try. And as it cools it’s still nice. Makes me think it could be used for a nice fruity cold drink. I might try that with some of what I have left. But this one it definitely going in the swap bin.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 5 min, 15 sec
TeaLady441

I think I bought this one as part of the same deal and I hated it. It was the worst of hibiscus that I had encountered. I never did try it iced, but maybe that was the fix…

Shadowfall

It was a 2 for $5 deal bin, but since I was buying 3, one cost $3. XD
I try to stay away from hibiscus after trying one tea with it and hearing all the awful experiences people have had.
Honestly, I’m not sure if I really want to try it iced, though it might tone down the tart if it was diluted with ice…Ooh. Maybe make ice cubes out of a strong black tea and pour this over it. /ponders/ That might be tasty. I have to get over this experience first though. Lol!

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drank Mango Fruit Punch by DAVIDsTEA
1271 tasting notes

Well that sucks.

I got this tea as a sample with my last DT order. I understand this is a heavy tea, but dannnng at least put enough tea in the sample bag for me to make the suggested serving on the package!

photo evidence:
http://wp.me/a3NHpm-Dn

Flavor? Really iffy as I probably added too much water. I did under 6oz, but still hard with the little amount of tea I got. The flavor reminds me of Tropicalia without the coconut. I get a pineapple taste, maybe some mango, but it’s pretty light. Maybe I’m wrong? Either way, if you want to sample this tea, get like 30 to 50 grams so you can have a couple runs with it.

Preparation
Boiling 8 min or more
wheezybee

Thanks for the laugh – we ran into the exact same thing, and I appreciated your “photo evidence”!

OMGsrsly

That is both hilarious and terrible!

Claire

I can’t believe they actually expect people to sample with that little!

mrmopar

Maybe they just wanted to wet your lips with it. Or use a 2 oz. cup.

jeweledthumb

I actually steeped this “hot” and then stuck it in the fridge for 24 hours to cold steep. It was pretty flavorable that way. But I agree, the 5gram sample packet is pitiful for this one!

Fiddling

I used the same method as jeweledthumb. I picked up several of the iced tea pitcher packs since they are marked down to $2 right now. The method that seems to work best for the non-hibiscus herbals is to brew them hot and then let them sit overnight. The results have been excellent.

Uniquity

Yikes, that is pretty bad. When I tried it I used an entire pitcher pack for the pot.

Alchemist's Fire

Wow, that sample pack is pretty sad, I’m sure glad I decided to get it as an iced tea in-store (you should’ve seen all the pulp in their steeper!!!) This one made an awesome tea-pop, I don’t remember whether I needed to sweeten it or not

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91

As the weather finally starts to warm up, I like to start having this tea cold steeped. Surprisingly though, I also really, really like having a cup hot. I find that drinking this tea hot really helps to bring out the yogurt flavour in the blend. The strawberry notes are still there, the rhubarb is tart, but their is an underlying smoothness from the yogurt that really completes the flavour. This is always a win when I brew it up!

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91

This was my take to work afternoon cup. I love how the tartness from the rhubarb and the creaminess from the strawberry balance each other out so nicely. The yogurt is such a nice finishing touch to round out the flavours. A great classic staple!

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91

My other cup of tea for knitting night. Much as I do love this cold, I think I might love it even more hot. It is so strawberry heavy and fruity when brewed for a short period of time. This was a great start to the evening!

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91

The more I drink this, the more I like it. I am struggling with the start of a back to school cold (a perennial teacher’s pitfall), so I am guzzling tea by the gallon today to try and flush my system out a bit. This did the trick for me, hot with not sweetener it was a cup of strawberry goodness. I find the rhubarb is really apparent when cold brewed (adding a big tart note), but, brewed hot, the strawberry really shines (making for a very juicy berry heavy brew).

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91

Tonight I shook things up and tried this hot. Still such a versatile tisane! Whereas the cold brew turns downright sour (though not in a bad way, I like a good tart iced tea), brewing it hot beefs up the juicy strawberry notes and really tempers the tartness of the rhubarb. As a side benefit, my tea turned a gorgeous ruby colour! Too pretty!! I tend to shy away from drinking my fruity iced teas hot, but this may have just really convinced me to give it a shot more often! (My next plan is to toss in a tiny bit of Lemon Myrtle to round out the flavour just a pinch.)

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91

Lord do I love a good fruity iced herbal! I had tried this hot ages back and not been blown away, more fool me! Cold the initial note is a mega strawberry hit followed by a tart rhubarb ending note. I find that the mild, but slightly sour, yogurt just serves to mellow everything out. Crisp and refreshing, it was perfect for the plus forty something we were stuck in yesterday!!

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85
drank Forever Nuts by DAVIDsTEA
1792 tasting notes

Oh wow, I haven’t had this in years, apparently, nearly four now according to my tasting notes. Seriously? Time flies. DAVIDsTEA just had to come out with those damn adorable printed tins and have a free tin promotion with them, didn’t they? I went in not sure what I wanted 100g of yet, going between this, Blueberry Jam, and Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait. Well, I initially opted for SRP since I know I would easily rip through it and was still giving Blueberry Jam the stink eye for having that fleeting stevia note in it, being wary of getting so much of it at once, so I got 20g of that anyway. I was going to get 20g of this after deciding on doing 100g of SRP, but then at the last minute, opted to also get 100g of this for two of those tins. Sigh. So yeah. More tea.

I’ve been randomly craving this lately? I was thinking about ATR’s Brioche the other day, wishing I had more of that and then remembered that this tastes very similar. We also had an abnormally windier, cooler day the other day which felt very autumn-esque, and naturally, that makes me want autumn things. This is like an autumn thing, right?

First cup in four-ish years and I am definitely happy with my decision. I love the warm, well-rounded cinnamon in here, the toasty nuts, and I swear there is like a bready note in this too, hence the Brioche association. Maybe I can hypnotize myself and convince myself that this is a freshly baked cinnamon bun topped with chopped nuts and gooey baked apples, and then my brain will think I just had dessert.

Autistic Goblin

A cinnamon apple bun sounds quite yummy!

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