6106 Tasting Notes
(DavidsTea 2022: already recorded)
2022 Sipdown 136/365!
My son requested an iced pitcher of this, so I obliged. He then didn’t end up drinking much of it. I think he’s losing his interest in unsweetened iced tea, probably because he’s tried too many sweet drinks. Oh well.
After a string of teas I didn’t much care for, I expected this to go the same way – my track record with Deb’s black/rooibos blends (why are there so many?!) is not very good. I think I dislike many of them. However, I actually rather enjoyed this cup, although I’m a bit worried that it could be because the rooibos had settled to the bottom of the bag so I missed scooping it out. The tea had a nice, robust base (which I may have slightly oversteeped), and I think I got both peach and almond, although I was more focused on the fact that I enjoyed it than anything else. I’ve also enjoyed the resteep today!
Well, this did taste kind of like banana muffins with dark chocolate – the banana flavour is definitely more muted and not runty at all, more like a baked banana. I don’t remember it clearly anymore, but I believe I felt fairly ambivalent about it, as there wasn’t enough depth from the base tea, just the flavourings.
It really kills me that I seem to hate Deb’s earl grey flavouring. This tea literally tasted like dirt. Blueberry/wildberry dirt. Hers are the only EGs where I have had this impression pretty much every single time; I’ve loved (or at least liked) nearly every other EG I’ve had, including every single 52teas blend. I feel like the rest of the tea is pretty good, and without that EG flavouring I’d love it, so it’s very frustrating to me. Like with Cream Soda Float, it seems to mostly/only be me with this problem :(
I finished the cup, and mourned my tastebuds for their inability to enjoy this flavouring.
So, uh, yesterday (apparently June 29) I was convinced that I had a solid 5 days left of June. At least 3. Clearly, I was very wrong. Not sure how this month managed to pass so quickly. (Oh yeah, two kids…)
Tried this tea today; the name sounds good but I remembered reading something in a note by Ros(?) that it contained star anise… and apparently I got a whole one in my cup. Unfortunately, I do not care for this spice, and as a result, did not much care for this tea. However, I might like it more either a) without an entire star anise in one cup, or b) as a latte. It wasn’t entirely objectionable, just too much of that particular licoricey flavour for me. Otherwise, it was a warmly spiced, somewhat creamy chai sort of flavour. Not sure I’d call it caramel, but maybe that flavour would emerge with less dominance from another.
