Jessie

I really love this one, and crave it often. It fits in nicely with all sorts of times of day. I just wish I had more of it! I’ll have to see if there is any left in the stores.

This tea is quite interesting. The leaves look like black tea, and the liquor is dark, but it turns out lighter-tasting than I expect. Last night I re-steeped it for the first time. It definitely lost a fair amount of flavour, but was more than drinkable on the second steep. It still tasted great but what I love about this tea is that it makes me feel like I have fruit juice in my mouth! That was gone on the second infusion.

This tea of the month thing is great because I always need to be trying new teas, but it’s also heartbreaking.

Oh, Fantasy Island. I owe the very low level of productivity I have left to you. If you hadn’t come into my life, this paper would be even less written than it is now.

Tonight I decided to dress this up with some of the coconut sweetener and half and half. Sweetening teas is very alien to me, and it feels so naughty. This is accepting it nicely but it’s really not necessary. The tea is so great as it is so intensely flavourful on its own.

This tea gets better each time I try it. It’s so delicate. It’s grassy, but in the lightest most pleasant way possible. I do get a slightly sweet hay flavour and scent from it, which takes me back to summers hanging out at the stables.

Also makes me want to experiment with more Chinese greens. I think this is the only one I have.

I only brewed this for two minutes this time. Any bitterness that was present before is now gone and it’s smoother. However, the vanilla is a lot less prominent. The bergamot is a little stronger, but overall it is (logically) weaker.

How could I almost forget that I got to try this?

I stayed a night in Stratford, Ontario over the weekend and across the street from our hotel was a Balzac’s, the only place I have seen Mariage Freres in Toronto. I stopped in for a cup and this was an easy choice after reading so much about it here.

I was given the little sachet in my large cup and wanted to get rid of the teabag before leaving the cafe so that this didn’t get bitter. Thus, the steeping conditions weren’t ideal and this ended up weaker than it would have otherwise. Despite that, the black tea was nice and rich. The fruity flavours and floral ones were balanced really nicely, and I was getting some kind of bakey feeling from the combination of the black tea and the fruit as well as the milk I added. Delicious! I got a delicate feel from it while the flavours were rich and complex.

I love all the tea recipes floating around lately. I was intrigued by the Cocomama Lime chicken idea in the March newsletter, and decided to give it a try, albeit with turkey. I steeped some Cocomama Lime extra-strong and marinated the turkey with the tea, lots of garlic, salt, and a tiny bit of lime juice for a few hours then baked it.

The flavour was really interesting! It tasted very Thai-inspired with the coconut and lime. I sprinkled a little extra coconut over the meat when serving, and it looked great as well. I think this would work well on fish especially, maybe lightly breaded. I’ll also have to try it in a more Thai-themed meal. It’s very cool adding flair to meats with tea. So many options!

I need to be warmed up and soothed today, and my headache needs to be chased off so that I can write. I knew what I was going to indulge in: Pumpkin Chai. I’ve been craving it lately but trying to ration it carefully. Today is the day.

It’s incredible how vividly opening the tin takes me back to the fall. I discovered DavidsTea in October, and opened up my first order when I was at my family’s cottage for Thanksgiving. This tea makes one think of fall anyway, but it’s very closely associated with my first memories of DavidsTea. Look how far we’ve come.

Anyway, I love anything pumpkin and anything with bakey spices, so this tea is perfect for me. I’m typically left wishing this one was a bit stronger, so today I brewed it extra-strong and allowed myself to use a little extra leaf. Also helping is one of my new favourite things, this bag of coconut sweetener I found at a health food store, extracted from the nectar of coconut flowers or some such thing. It surprised me with how low-glycemic it is so I had to try it. It is delicious and gives me that brown sugar taste I crave. I hadn’t put it in tea before as I really never sweeten, but it’s working well and it’s pumping up the flavours in this really nicely. Also, a bit of half-and-half. So decadent!

I’m down to just the tin of this now and no back-up baggie. I really hope it reappears this fall! It seems like such a fan favourite, for good reason.

This was a tea featured in the tea and honey tasting I attended at Tea Leaves. It paired quite nicely with the amber cantaloupe honey in particular. The fruity notes of the honey worked really nicely with it.

I liked this oolong well enough to pick up a small tin, and I had three nice infusions of it last night. It’s light and delicately floral, but also has a touch of fruitiness on some sips. I got a bit of a nectar-sweetness especially on the second steep. The floral notes are really incredible, especially after listening to a description of how the tea’s processing leads to the flavour. It’s really mellow and avoids any perfumey quality.

I love the format of Upton’s samplers, and grabbed the black tea one as I would like to get more familiar with my straight blacks.

This Darjeeling was really pleasant before breakfast today. It was nice and smooth but with a little bit of a bite. It’s flavourful but relatively light.

This smells great, but the flavour was just alright for me. It was either just too sweet or I wasn’t in the mood for it or the combination of creaminess and pear isn’t for me. The vanilla is nice as is the pear but I find them a bit weird together. I’m glad to have the sampler but won’t be buying any of this. However, I’ll need to try it again to be sure.

I’m increasing the rating for this a little, because it’s really growing on me the more I drink it. It never called to me so it took me a while to try it, and then it took me a while to warm up to it but I think this is potentially my favourite red rooibos at present.

Lately I’ve felt like I’ve had my fill of that very particular red rooibos taste, but I think the flavours in this one work marvelously well with it. The rich berry flavour and the slight floral quality are nicely balanced and tame the rooibos a little. It’s very relaxing, and I tend to drink it a lot when taking luxurious Lush baths. Lush and DT are a winning combination.

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I just had this as a latthé from the store. I had a stressful meeting and decided to stop in “on my way” home (not really on the way, especially not for a $4 drink, but it made me happy). I chose this one on the suggestion of the lovely employee who has now, shamefully, seen me twice in the past five days.

I love this tea normally so I thought it couldn’t be a bad choice, and it wasn’t. As soon as she mentioned it was like a London Fog, I was in. I have recently become pretty hooked on Second Cup’s London Fog lattes, made so delicious by what looks like several pumps of vanilla syrup.

Anyway, yes. This was tasty, though mild. I left the bag in while I drank and it remained pretty innocuous throughout. The bergamot cut through the milk pretty nicely though I don’t know that I could taste the tea much. Of course, the vanilla worked well in this format. I don’t know that tea lattes are worth the carb-counting and insulin-dosing required of me for the milk when the milk seems to render most teas quite a lot less flavourful, but it’s a nice indulgence and this made for a good alternative without the generous serving of (delicious!) artificial sweetener-laden syrup.

I am further into this tin than I would like to acknowledge. But today I was running late for class for no particular reason. When I stepped outside, it was raining. In March. Yet again. On the still freshly-dyed red hair I’m trying desperately to protect. Well, it was just a light drizzle I thought, and no time to go back upstairs for an umbrella.

I did make it in time to get a seat but I also learned that “just a light drizzle” really accumulates during a twenty-minute walk. And that sitting through two hours of lecture is unpleasant when you’re soaked through and have to repeat the drizzly walk to get home.

So, when I returned this tea helped me avoid looking out the window for the rest of the day and pretend that the weather was just dandy. It’s well-named, as Fantasy Island really helps with escapism. I love how rich this one is; each time I drink it I decide that it tastes like a different delicious baked good. Today it was macaroons. The coconut is definitely the star here, but the raspberry really adds so much. It gives this tea a wonderful little tang that I think is what sets it apart so much from all the (many) other coconut teas I’ve tried.

I’ve read that a rinse of black tea or rooibos is good for red hair. I’ll try it with some cheap tea, but if I used this I would be so tempted to leave it on my head and smell incredible all day.

I am running dangerously low on this one, but absolutely had to break into it tonight. This day/week has not been going my way and I knew this was the one I needed. It’s good on many occasions, but it’s perfect to wrap up in a blanket and wallow with for a bit.

It’s got me feeling much improved with its intriguing spicy, earthy chocolateyness. I never know how to describe this one because it has so much going on. Yet it all works together so well. It’s not sweet and dessert-like as one might think from the title. Instead, it’s mellow but complex, tasting more of dark chocolate than other chocolate teas I’ve had. I don’t tend to like cinnamon teas, but the cinnamon in this just helps highlight the chocolate and doesn’t give me that weird mouth feel I sometimes get from cinnamon.

This tea makes me want to sit down and contemplate life. I hope it comes back ASAP!

Oh, Upton’s samples are so delightful!

This is nice. I find it slightly less bergamot-focussed than the other EG creme I’ve had. It’s heavier on the vanilla. Very creamy and tasty! I never like the sounds of vanilla + citrus, but I am learning I like it.

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Yum!

This is light and fresh but has the essence of a classic Earl Grey. The bergamot and orange here are crisp and refreshing, and the green makes a lovely base. The citrus is sharp on the nose but perfectly mellow and smooth when sipping. I haven’t had a lot of luck with alternative Earl Grey-types (except for the Cream) but this is nicely balanced and exceedingly pleasant. It’s a lovely variation and I can see it being an afternoon standby. It also kind of feels like an honorary member of the spring collection.

Mm, this is nice. Nutty and mildly sweet. I need to give it a longer steep next time, but I like how rich it is. I drank this with dinner, which I don’t usually do, and it went nicely. It also helped me avoid feeling like I NEEDED something sweet after I finished as I usually do. I should have a cup of tea immediately following dinner more often.

Things that advertise they help blood sugar control typically aren’t applicable to type 1 diabetes. But, if it’s a tea clearly I have to try it! And if it might at all help block carb cravings that would be pretty amazing.

I wanted something bright and happy. It’s cold and rainy and I am dead tired. I stuck my nose in my sample of this and it fit the bill perfectly! I really appreciate these samples. It’s great to be able to try a couple cups to justify buying more tea.

This is a great, fruity white. I haven’t had a lot of luck with those, but this is nicely balanced and subtle while flavourful. The tropical flavours are perfect for today. And the scent is incredible!