DAVIDsTEA

Revisited this one for an iced tea this afternoon. I had forgotten how delightfully limey it is. I tried a few sips warm as it was chilling and I really should also give it a shot as a hot cup of tea on of these days!

Second time drinking this tea iced and I was amazed at how much I loved it. I think I got a little bit sidetracked by my love affair with Tropicalia, but this was an excellent change of pace. Sour, but not bitter or even really tart – it reminded me of drinking limeade. I didn’t sweeten it this time, I think I did the first time I tried it, but it turns out it really doesn’t need any extra sweetening! I managed to run through my timolino in the space of an afternoon and I now have it in for a second steep. Really refreshing and super enjoyable, I could see myself stocking this one permanently.

Being a newbie to David’s Tea, and loose tea in general, this was the first tea I tried cold steeped for several hours in a Timolino. It made a fantastic cup of iced tea!! Fruity, refreshing, and naturally semi sweet. Initially I tasted the fruit notes, but the yogurt became more apparent as I continued drinking. A wonderful introduction to David’s Tea, I loved it!

Today is a DAVIDsTea sipdown day, which is not intentional, but isnt a bad thing at all.
This starts by tasting greener, and it becomes more creamy as it cools, and the vanilla flavor is really allowed to come into its own. This is so dense that it reminds me of vanilla yougurt, especially with the oolong green-ness, which is like vanilla greek yougurt.
Theres no urgency to this, but I might get some more of this at some point. But for today, its a sipdown!

Its been a while since I Ooolonged. So today its time to steep up a pot before an extra long work session.
I still like this. Its creamy, and I like creamy. But I’m not sure it inspires dizzying swoons of delight.
But a nice vanilla pot of tea before I have to go be productive, thats a very nice thing indeed.

Its a hundred degrees out (no exaggeration), my sinuses are giving me a hard time, and my stomach hurts.
I need a cup of creamy comfort. Save me, Vanilla Orchid. Save me.

As this cools it becomes even creamier and creamier. Yum.

Have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of this on my doorstep. I am trying out oolongs, and Vanilla is an excelent place to start.
Mmm, it smells like…. would it be weird if I said vanilla yougurt? Thats what I’m getting out of it. Thats how creamy it is.
I get more vanilla in the smell, and more grassyness in the taste. Ooolongs are relaxing, arnt they?

This is a really good one! Sweet, juicy, and tastes like real passionfruit with a little bit of apple.

My sister liked this one because she “didn’t need to add sugar!” Imagine that! Tea without sugar! ;-)

Ah matcha, how popular you are! I can see why this is so. This tea is a real pick-me-up with a crazy dark green colour. Instead of steeping, you whisk the powder in warm water. You have to be careful with the temperature of your water, however, or else it’s bitter and gross.

Overall I enjoy this tea-its nice and earthy. One negative about it though is that I don’t have the matcha whisk or strainer, so the last sip is undrinkable because of the settled matcha powder. I usually use a little less than 1/2 a teaspoon when whisking to try and combat this problem.

EDIT-if you are whisk-less like me, I discovered that if you put 1/2 a teaspoon in a draw-string teabag and bob it up and down in warm-hot (72 degree) water for just under a minute, the matcha will dissolve into the water through the filter and you will have a nice cup of matcha without the settled powder at the bottom. It might not be as strong as if you were to whisk it straight in, but it is still darker in colour than almost all “regular” green teas I’ve tried. :)

I got this as a sample when I ordered some tea online. It’s a light green tea with a dominant floral flavouring. I really enjoy it and it’s nice to have when I’m in the mood for a green tea that’s a little less “grassy/earthy” tasting.

I just brewed up an only sample of this that we had kicking around and, for once, I have to admit it really was not for me. I found the spicy, herbal taste strange brewed as an iced tea and even when I tried it brewed hot I just didn’t love the flavour notes. That being said, the tea brewed quickly with a good strong flavour, just not for me.

So this second time around I poured my whole bag into a bowl and made sure the teaspoon I got wasn’t heavy on fruit with no tea.
It’s definitely not as tart as it was when I first made it. But I didn’t really get any sort of definite oolong taste from it either. No hint of maple sweetness that I could tell, but I wasn’t really expecting much from that to be honest.
It was just a kinda fruity/berry, lightly tart-ish tea. With sugar it was a bit better, but kinda meh overall.
Going into the swap bin…which I really need to empty out soon. Lol.

I wanted a fruity tea this morning and I figured this would be a good one. What with all the fruit in it and it smelling just as fruity.
Lots of big chunks of berries when I measured it out, but not much actual tea. I probly should have put it back and stirred the bag up better. That might explain why this was so tart when I went to drink it. All I could taste was tart cranberry water essentially, with no hint of any sort of oolong tea. And since I have no idea what a Saskatoon berry tastes like, forget trying to pick that out. Lol.
I added truvia to this and it helped somewhat with the tartness, but not enough since it was still almost undrinkable to me.
Second steep – same temp – 4 min – weak/watery tasting with that tart/sour overlay.

I’ve held off rating this because I’m pretty sure didn’t get a properly mixed measure out of my bag. It wouldn’t be fair to rate it lower than I might otherwise have rated it if I had actually gotten tea with this. Lol.
I’ll add a rating when I make this again with a better mix…hopefully. In any case, I’ll rate it regardless on if I get the same tart/sour taste out of it. Lol.

Sipdown! Sweet bakery tea- enjoyed 50g worth, but not sure if I will repurchase. It is as advertised, but my taste buds have changed over the past couple of years.

Felt like something sweet this morning and this was my original go-to tea for a dessert kick. I forgot how weird it looks in the cup though- very oily and cloudy with a red froth on top. If I didn’t know that is just how it brews up, I probably would have been worried, lol. I added a dash of whole milk to give it more creaminess and it tastes pretty good. It is lacking in the chocolate department, but still has that maple-y background and the sweetness from the sprinkles and chips.

In other news, it is supposed to snow today, so I need to pack a tea stash and survival bag for work in case I get stuck. Here in Georgia, if there is a raindrop, sometimes it seems like everyone immediately swerves on the interstate to crash into one another. If there are snowflakes, we are doomed! Last time we didn’t even have the actual snowflake (or any ice) and they closed schools. Hopefully someone will show up in the morning to take my patient assignment since I am supposed to be back Thursday and Friday already. I don’t relish the idea of living at the hospital until Saturday, ya know?

Dry: Pretty loose black tea blended with white and semi-sweet chocolate chips along with red and white sprinkles. Has a wonderfully rich, sweet, and decadent aroma right out of the bag- this is a dessert tea for sure!

Steeped: Dark red-brown cloudy liquor with slight film on top. Not the prettiest tea liquor, but I attribute that to the chocolate and sprinkles melting into the brew during steeping. Smells like caramel cupcakes to my nose straight from the teapot.

Taste: After drinking primarily unflavored teas for a while before this one, I was a bit taken aback by how rich and sweet it is. I made it a few more times though and each cup was more appealing than the last as I started to pay attention to the nuances of the flavor, tea, and wonderful cake-y aroma. I get maple, vanilla, caramel or brown sugar, and chocolate notes and they somehow work together beautifully. Now this is probably my favorite dessert tea and I enjoy it for breakfast on days I am craving something sweet as well. This blends nicely with other breakfast black teas if you want to dilute the red velvet cake sugary notes and holds up to at least two steeps pretty well. I prefer it with a dash of milk and my only complaint is the artificial ingredients, though I guess some are required to make a tea that really does taste like a bakery creation. Yum!

Not overly chocolatey, but it has just the right balance of sweet mint and a hint of chocolate to make it delicious. If you just want chocolate, this might not satisfy that craving, but if you want something light and sweet for after dinner on a cold night, this is perfect.

This was actually my cold brewed tea from Monday, which, again, I’ve only just got around to logging now. Courtney sent me a very generous sample, so I tried a cup hot and then used the rest to make a litre of cold brew. My first thought upon trying this was that it’s actually really sweet – sweeter than it seemed when I tried it hot. The watermelon flavour comes out really well, although the other ingredients are a bit lost. That’s not a bad thing, though, given that this is supposed to be a watermelon tea and not apple or carrot or beetroot.

I did find this sweet at first, but I also found that it grew on me as the day went on. You can’t deny that the flavour’s there, and it almost had that sweet, juicy stickiness that real watermelon has. Great stuff – very enjoyable on a hot day!

Today has been HOT. That’s how I knew without really having to think about it that this would be my tea of choice this evening. It was calling to me. I could smell it. Pleasingly, because the scent of the dry leaf is beautiful. It’s sweet and slightly tropical-fruity (it’s making me think of um bongo, which I haven’t thought of in years…) I’m getting melon, although it smells more like honeydew than watermelon to me. There’s just that little extra sweetness that watermelon doesn’t really have. Still, though, let’s not split hairs.

The dry mix is interesting. There are some quite big pieces of fruit, watermelon among them, and some very fine powdery green flakes. I’m not 100% sure on the identity of any of it, except the watermelon. A sneaky peek at the ingredients list reveals apple, carrot, beetroot, watermelon, honeydew melon, and strawberry leaves. I’m rather pleased to see that there’s some honeydew in here — my senses weren’t deceiving me after all. And the fine, powdery green stuff is strawberry leaves, so there’s that mystery solved.

Brewed, the liquor is a beautiful red-orange colour. It really does look like watermelon flesh, but I suspect it’s a result of the beetroot. It smells much like it does dry, but the taste is something else! The dry leaves reminded me mostly of honeydew melon, but to taste this is definitely watermelon. It’s sweet, juicy and refreshing — perfect for a night like tonight. I think I can taste a slight hint of apple in the background, but this is mostly like drinking watermelon juice. I’d really love to try this iced — hopefully I have enough left for a small jug.

Many thanks to Courtney for sharing this with me — I’ve really, really enjoyed it!

This smells AM-A-ZING dry, like a posh chocolate biscuit, or hot chocolate mix. There’s something slightly “green” about it, too, which at first I assumed was the green tea. It’s not the characteristic dank small I associate with green tea, though, so I’m actually thinking it might be the green rooibos. I don’t have any previous experiences with green rooibos to compare, though, so I could be wrong. Either way, it’s a nice smell, and I like it. There’s a slight hint of cinnamon, too, and the combination is somehow slightly Christmassy.

Brewed, this smells much the same as it does dry. The taste is slightly weak, although that might be my fault for being cautious with the brew time. The initial sip is a little bland, but the flavour really develops in the aftertaste. I’m surprised how well the chocolate emerges, especially given that it’s up against two strong flavours in their own right. Mostly, this tastes just as it smells – chocolate first (if blindfolded, I’d probably be convinced this was hot chocolate), a hint of cinnamon, and then a subtle earthiness from the base teas that gives the whole thing some depth.

I’ve got enough left for a couple more cups, and this is certainly one I’m going to enjoy trying again. Maybe I’ll be brave and extend the brew time a little! This is lovely as it is, though – thank you to Courtney for another generous sample!