DAVIDsTEA

This is a bit bland today, could have probably steeped another couple of minutes for it to taste better in my timolino, but it’s ok. The ginger in this tea reminds me, I need to get super ginger from davids this week!!! I loveee ginger :D, anyways, back on topic, please see previous notes on this tea :)

Again drinking this out of my timolino, it’s soooo cold out today so this is hitting the spot. I actually am finding it prefer this in the mug than from a cup at home. I should however mention that I brew it in a basket in a cup and then transfer it to my travel mug. Yay I might actually finish my massive 50 g bag lol – I bought it back when I didn’t realize in store at Davids you can get smaller sizes.

Also, reallly hoping some of my black Friday orders arrive today, I hate waiting :/

I put this in my timolino today. Lately I’ve been craving warm, gingery teas and this was the choice for today. The flavor is actually growing on me :) the dry smell is very orange smelling. It brews up a very dark brown, and i steeped for 5 mins. The flavor is very dark roasted tasting, with quite a bit of orange in the background with a hint of ginger. This does very well in the travel mug, i almost prefer it in there as it doesn’t seem to taste as strong. This is also the first pu erh I’ve had in tea (not counting Yabao as it’s an interesting tea not sure how to classify it).

Overall, the flavor is definitely growing on me. It also is very warming and feels healthy to drink. Good choice for mug, oh and I couldn’t smell any fishiness that others have associated with the tea, which is nice haha. Will probably start drinking this a bit more often if my ginger kick keeps up haha.

Backlog, i will have to do a full review of this at a later date. However, this is not my favorite tea, it’s drinkable, but not one I’d seek out when my bag is done.

SMELLS LIKE FRUIT LOOPS! This is like a far better version of their original Earl Grey, which is far too bitter. I can definitely taste the vanilla in this.

Spicy and sweet, this chai is a dessert in a cup. Coconut, cinnamon, ginger and more blend together in perfect harmony. I pick up a kind of butterscotchy flavor. I’m going to go off on a tangent. Are you with me? I have one suggestion: if you feel that rooibos based chais are a little lacking in a sturdy base, go ahead and add some loose rooibos, and add some more time to your steeping. I have found that in general, there is not enough rooibos and that steeping time tends to be under-estimated. If your approach to rooibos is, “where’s the flavor?” just try it: double or triple the amount of rooibos used, whether you are brewing straight up rooibos or a blend such as chai, and add several more minutes to your steeping time. The result is an infusion with more oomph, and a richer mouth feel. This approach is extra important with blends, where the exuberant spices and chunks of deliciousness can crowd out the rooibos, literally. This message has been brought you by The Rooibos Awareness and Appreciation and Tolerance Society (RAATS). Who died and made me queen of all things Rooibos? Well, I could tell you, but…

This tea nails velvet cake on the head; it has the smell, the taste, and even the oily and creamy soft texture. It’s a bombardment of dripping buttery icing and sugared chocolate chips.

I can taste the semi-sweet and white chocolate chips distinctly-they remind me of the chocolate chips my mom used to put into her baking. They’re bad straight but are amazing when melted into baked desserts. The black tea is mostly buried beneath layers of cake and chocolate but, despite the oily qualities of the liquid, this tea is leaving my mouth somewhat dry. Maybe that could be attributed to the tea leaves?

I do like this a lot but the richness, coupled with the artificial tone from the sprinkles make it something that, like red velvet cake itself, I cannot eat drink all the time.

Cupcake flavoured tea, tea flavoured cupcakes….this tea would make Pinkie Pie proud!

Wow… jasmine. So… much… jasmine. Tastes like I’m eating a bunch of flowers. Very floral and smells oh-so-pretty. The black tea is hidden a little by all the jasmine scent, but from what I can tell it’s a solid black tea base. The mouth feel is really nice, just dry enough. The leaves unfurl SO much and expand to surprising sizes… It’s fairly balanced though for a jasmine tea. Very yummy and relaxing for my hubby nerdswing and I to enjoy on our one-year wedding anniversary. :) Love you baby.

Haven’t had this one in a while!

It really is a great rooibos. It leaves a film on my tongue, which I don’t really like, but it is naturally sweet and tastes like icing. And I love me some icing!

For whatever reason I’ve steered away from the caffeine free teas in my collection but I really do need to change that. This one is far too good to go 6 months (!?) in between cups!

Mmmm, cake.

I love that this is a go-to option when it’s too late for caffeine. Now that I’ve had the Oh, Canada blend I definitely taste the maple undertones, but still this is predominately vanilla frosting to me. Which is good, because I can eat frosting with a spoon. (I know, I know – bad for you, etc. That’s why I don’t keep it in my house.)

But at least I can keep this in my house! It’s sweet without being sweet, if that makes any sense. And I have a big tin set aside for it so I can always have it on hand.

WOW. I have NEVER had a rooibos this good.

Steep notes for myself: no additives, 1.5 tsp. leaf, below parameters.

The dry leaf is so fun with all the sprinkles! It smelled alot like the Red Velvet cake – a vaguely caramel/maple note moreso than actual cake, in other words. But something really magical happens to this stuff when the hot water hits it- I’m getting the funfetti/vanilla icing note really strongly in both taste and aftertaste. Actually, it is dead on for a cupcake. I will have to add milk to this at some point and see what happens, but really it is just fine on it’s own…better than fine, actually.

It’s hands down perfection!

This still tastes like orange campino candies. I’m not a lover of those otherwise I’d probably rate this a little higher. The first steeping is stronger than the second, but the second is still decent.

My hubby loves the smell of this tea; he says it reminds him of orange flavored Campino candies. I’m not a huge fan of orange flavored anything and I’m even less of a fan of orange peel, so I’m not sure why I decided to get this tea. I do love the taste of fresh oranges, so maybe that’s what I was hoping for? I can’t ignore the peel taste as a hot tea, but as it cools it tastes more like an orange flavor that I don’t mind. That is, once I get past that initial sip. Regardless of whether it’s hot or cold, that first sip tastes and smells like dried orange peel.

I imagine I’d like this one best as an iced tea, but it’s too cold these days to venture to try that. I’ll have to hang on to some of this until the warmer weather returns and give it a try. Until that time, this tea will sit in my o.k. pile.

After curiously looking up myfitnesspal (mentioned on Shmiracles’ post) and logging all of my meals, I quickly jumped to the conclusion that I don’t get enough protein in a day. what, how is that possible?!

While doing some late night emergency shopping with my roommate (her toothbrush died) I impulsively picked up some expensive soy protein powder. Maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to buy on the fly; there were many brands and types of protein powder and surely there are better ways to incorporate protein into one’s diet.. Oh, well. I thought I could make some cool smoothies..

Or throw it into some tea. This tea. Why did I chose this tea? It tastes beyond funky. I think the powder might go better with the cup of sparrows tongue I have beside me or, perhaps, a fruit tea. I don’t know. A great experimental journey awaits me. Tomorrow.

Oh, no! I started steeping this around 15 minutes ago and totally forgot about it! I’m so angry with myself- I only have a 8 gram sample of this so I’m going to be drinking this cup even if it’s horrible.

Surprisingly, it’s not too bad. It’s not bitter in the traditional sense and astringency remains minimal. The flavour becomes more akin to banana flavoured dark chocolate than banana pie. Steeped this long, the malty smooth black tea is actually noticeable and I think it pairs well with the dairy notes. I ran out of milk but otherwise I think it would make a nice hot chocolate tea. All in all, not a complete mess up.

I love pie.

I love bananas.

I was meant to love this tea.

It tastes like Murchie’s Coconut Cream Banana. (which, coincidently, tastes like banana pie). There are around two types of “sweetness” present: the creamy banana flavour followed by a smooth dessert-sweet cocoa finish. The black base is subtle and melds with the chocolate vibe, which comes out more on second steep. No bitterness, minimal astringency, lots of happy.

I was hoping to like Cookie Dough as much as I did this one but, alas… I think I’ve enjoyed near all the banana flavoured blends David’s Tea has put out, despite the “banana” having very different “textures” in all of them. Ok, maybe the Banana Nut Bread wasn’t a huge win but I did enjoy eating it as a trail mix.

Bananas: a sure way to make me very, very happy.

Sipdown, 149 (yay!). Didn’t remember that this one only had one serving left in it, but I discovered that once I opened the pouch up to check.

I’m not sure what happened when I got this in the store, but I’ve never in my life seen so much tea dust in the bottom of a pouch of oolong. Maybe the sales person was scraping the bottom of the bucket and I didn’t realize. In any case, I had to give this a very thorough rinsing with cold water to get most of the tiniest bits out that would go through my infuser, and then I only steeped it for 2 minutes given the obviously rapid infusion from the tea bits.

Yeah, this is far more on the green, grassy side of things than on the sweet vanilla floral side of things, and it must be the dust. Freaking tea dust! Ah well. It’s still good enough that I am enjoying this last cup.

Backlog again. This was my second cup of the afternoon. It was quite nice, creamy and a tiny bit caramelly, and then nicely floral. I am noticing this time around that the base oolong is a bit boring for a green oolong… I mean, it’s fine, but it’s also less buttery and even less floral than I might have expected. Still, this was quite tasty and a nice blend of these flavors… I do love vanilla orchid blend.

Rarely am I that drawn to one of DavidsTea’s new flavors, but this one was intriguing to me and early reviews were positive. Vanilla flavoring on an orchid oolong, could be promising. It was actually the main tea that I wanted to get a sample of when I went to DavidsTea on Bleecker a couple of weekends ago.

I didn’t even thing about it until just now, but I do have another vanilla orchid tea that I like, but it is a black tea base. Vanilla is an orchid itself, after all, and very fresh vanilla beans can have a lovely, light floral quality.

The steeped tea smells nice, very floral and orchid-y, but also super sweet and creamy vanilla accompanying it. This is quite a lovely tea! I am really enjoying it a lot. A great balance of creamy vanilla and floral orchid oolong. I’m really quite impressed, and I could definitely see myself stocking more of this.

Well. Keep this in your cupboard for too long and it turns quite disappointing. Too thin and watery (even when following parameters. Even when you add milk) and there’s a really cloying note in the back of your throat similar to when you’ve had too much sugar.

This one was an accidental decupboarding but nonetheless it’s gone. The steeped tea is getting tossed – yuck. Bad luck for tea today I guess!

Latte style while catching up on some TV.

The more I have this the less impressed I am. It gets a skin on top (maybe this is also from the milk, but still – ew), and it just doesn’t give me actual cake so much as a generic sweet flavor. I initially thought I would want it forever, but I’m thinking once I finish this I’ll probably be done.

It’s still good – just, not as mindblowing as I thought initially.

Note #400!

So, red velvet cake is basically just dyed chocolate cake, right? I mean that’s what I’ve always assumed – never got anything really super special about it. With this tea, I get a cake note but more of a caramel taste than actual chocolate. Although if I’m not thinking too hard about it that caramel will sometimes transform into a chocolate flavor -especially with milk. I definitely don’t get icing, though. Just the cake part. But honestly, I’m someone who likes my cake and icing separate so I’m okay with that.

I have a soft spot for cake tea of all kinds, it seems, so I’ll likely keep this one around for awhile!