Featured & New Tasting Notes

Last month I had fun going through the prompts multiple times, but I did overdo it when I attempted a fourth passthrough. (And made it!) That was my fault! I love the Sipdown Challenge, though!

Since I have finished early, I will proceed at a leisurely pace to use it as inspiration, and this African tea was a brilliant option for today.

Heat index yesterday was 107F, or 41.6C. (Thank you, Alexa, for converting that for me.) Today is supposed to be several degrees hotter and we are under an extreme heat advisory.

This tea is brilliant, and I think if at all possible it is going to be a cupboard staple for me. I have steeped it three times now. The first two steeps had auch rich caramel flavor. As I went out to the garden to make periodic short, planned strikes at the work that needs doing there, I could still taste that thick brown sugar. The color of the steeped tea is a very rich amber/brown.

Good golly, I love this tea. Thank you, Superanna.

Today’s installment (or last night’s installment, chilled until morning): Irish Cream. My first couple of sips just tasted like a creamy vanilla or bourbon vanilla tea, but after multiple swigs, the background mint/menthol built up and started cooling my mouth. I really hate to say it, but it reminds me a little of the candy cigarettes that we could buy at Horton’s 5 & 10 or the Rexall. They were right next to the wax bottles of pop and the Pixy Stix.

Iced tea with cinnamon brown sugar cold foam Sipdown (220)

This was so good!

The banana is just spot on so paired with the cinnamon and brown sugar cold foam it was like someone brûléed a banana or the fried banana dessert people get at like Brazilian restaurants. Bananas foster. Honestly just all the delicious banana desserts!

I taste jammy red fruit and coconut. It’s mild, but pleasant together. It tastes lovely cold with sweetener to bring out the flavors. The flavoring in here doesn’t quite taste like ice cream, but maybe sort of like spray cream? It all goes really well together, and it stands out from other fruity teas. It’s definitely lighter and less tart, but it doesn’t feel too thin or anything. The resteep is pleasant too.

For the June prompt: A tea that reminds you of your best friend

I just ordered this recently and opened it today just for this prompt. I have invited my best friend to tea Thursday morning and dangled this tea like a carrot.

I started wondering how I first ran into it….did she find it first? Did I introduce her to it? I checked out my tasting notes and discovered that I first received a sample from Doulton years ago. So I am guessing that I introduced my friend to it. It is now a cupboard staple for her, and definitely one that I don’t go too long without.

This is a great tea – the chocolate and strawberry flavors are so good and so natural tasting. It doesn’t have the chocolate “funk” that Ashman hates. The puer is woodsy and musky but not too strong and if you didn’t know in advance it was puer you might miss it. It is almost like a woody black tea.

I was initially daunted by the shipping costs from Hawaii, but every single time I have ordered I have received a substantial shipping refund within a few hours of ordering. Lupicia has become one of my favorite companies.

This batch of flavored novelty teas have been a lovely surprise, and they are delicious cold-steeped in the fridge. Today’s selection was Scotch; straight up cold this morning (the day started on preheat and it’s climbed to broil this afternoon). Y’all know I love my unflavored, naturally malty black tea, and that may be why I like this one too, although I know some of that maltiness comes with the artificial flavoring.

This afternoon, I halved the rest with cold cider and it reminds me a little of an apple brown betty on ice.

A sipdown!
I liked this, and will certainly bring it back.
It was the perfect tea for the last couple of days, as we’ve launched ourselves into our over-100-degree weather.
Ick.

I finally joined the covid club, while I didn’t lose taste and smell, my current tea perception is surely affected by it.

In any case, it is fun to check up on this tea’s progression. It seems to have a more rustic character now. The aroma reminds me of forest floor and beeswax, while the taste is a mix of green wood, citrus fruits, honey, root vegetables (beetroot, celery), with some further hints of chickpeas, vanilla, camphor, cumin and apricot in final few infusions.

The tea is somewhat astringent and numbing, but it can be easily pushed to extend the session to about 14 infusions.

Another tea from Amy. Thank you!
Honestly I was afraid of this combo, green tea, matcha, both quite delicate flavours. Maté, quite on the other side of the spectrum and grapefruit is somewhere in the middle. When I took the bag off, there was a pithy aroma of grapfruit peel and honestly I thought it was quite genuine and real aroma, however weaker than I have been expecting.

Brewed and used colder water (I assume around 80°C, maybe even less) than their recommended 100°C (212°F)! gave me bright green-yellow tea. It is quite similar to the hue on the outer wrapping of tea bags.

It has smelled wonderfully after grapefruit and in taste it was nice level of flavour of citruses. The maté was almost unnoticeable and sadly, the green tea was quite flat — which was expecting as it is a tea bag.

Now, I am craving grapefruit tea… any opinions?

Y’know, I don’t really make Serenity Now very often…

My grandmother’s funeral was earlier this week, and of all the teas we sell at DAVIDsTEA this is the one that she liked the most. She was a big, big fan of lavender. So, it was on my mind this week and eventually I made myself a cup of it and as cheesy as this sounds given the name of the blend… I felt a sort of sense of serenity.

It’s a really balanced tea with notes of strawberry and currant, spearmint, and of course the lavender. A lot of flavours that come together in such a harmonious way. I think it’s always now going to have this familial connection and feeling to it, and I hope that gives me just another extension to ways I can honour and cherish my grandma’s memory.

Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

I don’t think I made it clear (or at least, I don’t think I did) in my last tasting note that I’m combining the scavenger hunts for May & June in June – because I really didn’t have a lot of time to do many tasting notes in May. So, it may seem like I’m writing a lot more tasting notes this time (or – or I INTEND to do so) but it’s really a combination of two months in one.

Anyway, this tea is from this month’s list of scavenger hunt prompts: A tea smoothie. And while this isn’t technically a smoothie – it is the first of my “smoothie series” (with another to come this month!) so I’m going to say it qualifies. This is a blend that combines sweet Chinese Sencha with tangerines, strawberries & bananas, plus a hint of a “tangy creaminess” recipe of essences that I came up with to taste a bit like the yogurt (or Kefir) that I use for smoothies when I make them. (I usually use Kefir.)

I probably say this way more than I should, but this is one of my favorites that I’ve made this spring. It’s so tasty. You get the smoothness from the green tea base – together with my Kefir recipe of essences that provide a really lovely sweet yet tangy background for the flavors of strawberry, banana & tangerine. It’s sweet, fruity, bright and so refreshing.

This has a pleasant amount of lavender in it so that the flavor comes through pretty clearly. I also definitely taste some honey. The rooibos base doesn’t have any negative or weird flavors. I’m drinking this with almond milk, and it all tastes pretty desserty and nice. Pinky Up doesn’t seem to make teas that are as complex or sophisticated as other brands, but I’m satisfied enough by this one.

Delicious and deep aroma of nuts and popcorn.
Very easy-going, pleasant taste with strong nuttiness, no sweetness, no astringency, no bitterness. Great tea, but hey, it’s yellow, it is supposed to be great.

I absolutely love this tea. As I mentioned in the tea description, my mom asked me to make a tea that tastes like the tea she would have as a child. Her grandmother would make her black tea flavored with some spices (my mom called it gramma’s “witches” brew) and then sweetened with peach preserves (rather than sugar).

So, I decided to make a tea inspired by that memory for a mother’s day gift for my mom. I chose a Fujian black tea that had a natural peachy flavor to it so I thought it would be a perfect base for this blend. It is such a lovely black tea – smooth and sweet. A really nice afternoon tea. Pleasantly warm spices & a sweet peach note. I love it!

This is a tea from AJRimmer. I’m always excited to try an AU blend, they’re always interesting at the very least.

For some reason this one tastes like chocolate and banana to me. I don’t know if it’s because I let it get cold or what but how strange! I’ll certainly have to try this again and see if I get a more expected result

Quick note-
I GOT THE PACKAGE FROM LEAFHOPPER!!!!!!!

It made my night after a tough day. I decided to sample this first, then Bok’s Lishan.

I will write more later, but this tea tasted very strongly like pineapple to me. It was more fruity in the earlier steeps than later ones gong fu shifting more floral. It does get sweeter, but sugarcane/almost gardenia sweet. The dry leaf is super complex in the smell, bordering on nutty and toasty, and the nuts was more prominent in the rinse and third steep.

Either way, this checks all my oolong lover boxes so far. I will go into depth when I’ve got more time.

I finally was able to get some photos taken & uploaded – including the picture for this tea. I realize that my website was becoming more “photo not available” than actual photos of tea – so that’s been fixed – not completely YET but some of the teas now have photos! yay! The problem is that I’m a terrible photographer, so I need to bug my youngest daughter (who is a really good photographer) to take pics for me and she isn’t always available to do so.

Anyway, this tea! I’m going to also categorize this as one of the June prompts “a tea that reminds me of myself” – and while this tea doesn’t fully encompass me – because I named it after me, I’m gonna use it as this prompt for the June Scavenger Hunt too.

This tea started out as a vanilla/marshmallow tea that I would have called the Scottish Marshmallow because it’s crafted with one of my favorite bases – the Scottish Breakfast Blend – to which I added vanilla bean & marshmallow root. But after taste testing, it just needed something else. And the first thing that came to mind is coconut. Because – coconut is one of my favorite things to add to a tea. So, I added coconut & was so happy & excited by the result. This is so delicious!

The black tea is so rich & flavorful & invigorating. This is not a tea to drink later in the day because it’s got some gusto to it. The vanilla & marshmallow add a nice sweetness & creaminess that compliments the coconut perfectly – but it’s the coconut that’s the real star here! A LOVELY coconut note to it.

And also, coconut – I’m pretty much “coconuts” – that is to say crazy – so the prompt of a tea that reminds me of myself – fits.

June prompt – a tea smoothie.

I don’t think I have ever made a tea smoothie but I love making new beverages! Lately we have been enjoying orange blossom salted lemonade, as well as a rose version and a plain one. Orange blossom is our favorite!

For the tea smoothie I made blueberry green last night and put it in a glass jar to chill in the fridge. I added frozen blueberries, a banana, some ice, and a tiny bit of lemon juice. This was so delicious. It will not be the last tea smoothie.

Harney’s Blueberry Green was the perfect base for it, too. The blueberry flavor is so strong in it that nothing could damp it down. It is a bit like having an all natural Icee. Good on a hot and humid day like today, where two thunderstorms have already blown through.

I am really liking this. This white tea is strongly oxidized and the leaves are pretty red. There is a lot of sweetness and thickness, with bold foresty/swampy and fruity+vanillaish aromas that give this tea great depth and complexity. There is also a bit of that almost medicinal old book woody sweetness of aged white teas. Very comforting overall feel that makes this feel really nice in the body.

Its been a while so I thought I’d add a new note. In fact its been a while since I had this one.

Nice body, not harsh in any way, there’s a sweetness to it at the end of a sip. Another one I really enjoy but tend to forget that I enjoy it way too often.

I enjoyed this warm, but it was better cold. The green tea was mild, and there was a touch of cinnamon bark and berry. It has almost a baked flavor, but I didn’t get any cream cheese like others mention. It tastes very high quality and enjoyable. There’s some special flavoring in there that I can’t quite identify. This tea is far more subtle than the name would imply, but it’s still tasty.

I had an unfortunate accident with my tin of this tea while steeping it this afternoon. I unfortunately nudged it just enough off the edge of the counter to tip it over, spilling about a third of the tea all over onto the floor…

So, I’m definitely a little upset about that since this is such a delicious tea and Hella Tea has stopped shipping to Canada so I’m not exactly sure when I’m next going to have access to it. This mug was delicious though! The perfect mellow sweet watermelon notes with a hint of hibiscus. There’s something to the sweeter lingering notes that reminds me of cotton candy, and I have to say that I’m really into the idea of a watermelon cotton candy!

I really, really like lemon glazed loaf, its close to one of my tea bagged teas which is nice because I can buy at the Target really close to me. So because of that I wanted to try the other teas in the tazo dessert delight collection.

Prep: Western
Tasting note: Its pretty bland in my opinion, the licorice root is kind of there and there is some vanilla notes but the black tea is not very good or interesting in my opinion. Will do my best to sip this down but it is not a priority.