15695 Tasting Notes
Sipdown (1465)!
Made this as a hot cup but then I got distracted by the show I was watching and I forgot about the tea – so I drank it when it was cold. I think it was actually maybe better that way; the chilled notes of cocoa gave me almost “chocolate milk” vibes (sans milk) and the honey flavour of the rooibos and pleasant sweet nutty notes seemed even stronger too. Really delicious and rich!
I think better Hufflepuff teas definitely exist, but I can’t deny that this is a pleasant tea.
I feel like I want to like this tea more than I actually did.
The idea of a blackberry Earl Grey is so appealing to me, but the blackberry flavour used here reads more jammy or pasty style blackberry and the bergamot is very, very aromatic and floral and those two different directions aren’t able to find middle ground for me as I drink the cup and it’s creating a flavour disconnect. I’m not even sure if a bridge flavour like a vanilla would help here because it’s just sort of like two different style in one cup. Though, it did get a bit better as the mug cooled.
I think this is my favourite from this sample order!
Also, this is the only tea from this batch of five from The Silk Tea Co where the name feels a bit out of place for me – I’m not entirely sure what the connection is supposed to be because it’s not really alcohol flavoured in any way…
What it is, however, is a very delicious vanilla tea! I could smell immediately on the dry leaf that it’s real vanilla bean – just super aromatic and strong with an underlying fruitiness to the flavour. A lot of North American facing vanilla products are actually more of a “vanilla cream” or a “vanilla custard” – I think of it like the ice cream effect, where people view vanilla ice cream as this neutral representation of vanilla flavoured things when it’s really not. So, I always appreciate a true and authentic vanilla tea when I find one and this is one of the best that I’ve come across in a long, long time.
It steeps very rich and full bodied with a lot of the black tea coming through in the flavour as well. Rwanda Rukeri, which is the black tea that was used here, is a naturally robust and tannic black tea with a lot of really deep notes that compliment this almost haunting vanilla and burnt sugar flavour profile. The little smidge of creaminess coming through is very clearly from the Jin Xuan, and I love that it’s there but differentiated from the vanilla. This is super complex and lovely, and I’m immediately obsessed with this quality vanilla tea!
It is not lost on me that a tea called “In The Nude” is peach flavoured…
I really enjoyed this blend a lot! Like other teas from this company, there is a lot going on in terms of flavour components, but they click together really nicely. This is sweet and fresh with a lot of very ripe and juicy stonefruit notes like peach and apricot that really pop on the palate. I could see it being too cloying for some, as there’s not really any acidity to offset that sweetness – but for me it was pretty perfect. I loved the floral undertones from the osmanthus, rose, and lychee – the latter of which adds to that fresh sweetness. Osmanthus also contributes a sort of honey flavour is perfect with this style of peach – the whole thing feels so tender and sweet that it could just melt in your mouth.
Lastly, gotta give a shoutout to the black tea for holding its own among all this flavour happening by adding a substantial amount of body.
Cold Brew!
This was the only one of the teas from this haul that I didn’t try hot for my first cup, so I’ll have to do that too. It just seemed really well suited for a cold brew.
When I started drinking this, I wasn’t enjoying it – but I’m glad I kept pushing through my brew because by the time I finished it I was really loving the flavour. Initially it was very herbaceous and vegetal forward with notes of moringa and nettle being the most prominent alongside hints of lemongrass and tart hibiscus. However, the flavours build on the palate while sipping and the ones that ended up emerging and becoming the strongest were the light bergamot, and a sweet medley of apple, strawberry and citrus that was softened and supported by the coating sweetness of the fennel.
I think this is an interesting and unconventionally fruity herbal blend. I’ll be curious to see how those flavours translate when made hot, since it wasn’t an immediate love as a cold brew.
I was really unsure if I would like the flavour and, truthfully, I only got it because it was part of a sampler that had the four other teas I was most curious in trying. In general I don’t gravitate towards green teas and decaf teas also wildly uninterest me. Plus, rose green tea isn’t really reinventing the wheel in anyway…
With that said, it’s a pretty surprisingly nice and flavourful tea! Floral forward for sure, so definitely not something I’d recommend to people who aren’t confident in their love of rose teas. However, it’s also very sweet, lush and fresh – definitely in part from that sweet (and also naturally floral) lychee addition to the blend. Perhaps the most interesting element to me is the addition of cardamom. I’ve absolutely experienced cardamom and rose together and that’s a flavour that I enjoy a lot – but I would have never thought to combine cardamom and lychee and that duo is exciting to me! Very complimentary in that the cardamom really makes the sweetness of the lychee stand out.
Overall, this is definitely my least favourite of the collection I ordered but it was still pleasant and something I don’t anticipate struggling to finish off in any way.
I’ve been seeing a lot of love for this tea company across my friends on Instagram and I definitely found myself curious and wanting to get in on the fun too – so I placed a sampler order and quickly tasted my way through that collection!
This is, I think, the flavour from MJ/The Silk Tea Co that I think is getting the most attention and I totally see why – it’s a very unique overall profile that’s super well executed. The smells immediately drew me in, and reminded me of another fig tea that I enjoy a lot called Honey Fig Tree (from Tea Squared). However, this was immediately richer in aroma with a creaminess to it that I don’t find in that blend.
Fig is a tough flavour to convey and in all honesty I’m not totally sure that this blend gets it right on – but it’s close enough, and coupled with the impressive array of additional flavour elements it’s easy and enjoyable to get swept up in the idea of drinking more of a “feeling” than a dead on flavour recreation. The overall tea is sweet with dewy fresh fruity flavours coupled with golden honey, vanilla creme, and a more baked/patisserie type of date note with hints of warming spice. It’s maybe a bit like a sweet golden fig custard?
Anyway, however you dice it, this was flavourful fun and refreshingly different from anything I’ve tasted in recent memory!
I bought what is probably the craziest piece of teaware I’ve ever owned recently – a matcha bowl from artist Sean Michael Gallagher’s “DYSFUNCTIONALWARE” lineup. In all honestly, it’s more art than actual teaware and it’s not actually heavily intended for use at all.
With that said, I couldn’t resist making a matcha in it to christen the new teaware, so that’s what I did yesterday afternoon. It was a nice, frothy matcha with just a hint of raspberry. This is definitely one of the softer flavoured of DT’s matchas for sure.
The bowl was nice to drink of – it’s thick and chunky with a good weight to it. I thought the thick lip might be awkward, but it really wasn’t! I likely will very infrequently use this piece though – as I said, it’s really more for show than daily use.
Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CTX6pmbrutK/
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.
Just a sweet and creamy maple matcha milkshake that I made on one of the days I was working in office this week – I enjoy the maple matcha year round, but it does feel particularly appropriate in the Autumn/Winter with cooler weather.
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.
