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Cold Brew Sipdown (1409)!

Thanks again to Hot Cups for sending this sample my way – it made for a really good, refreshing and summery cold brew! More of a dark fruit/berry and hibiscus forward flavour with minimal pineapple, but the wave of sweet and creamy coconut that comes through in the finish of each sip really pushes the Colada profile forward and it was a nice juxtaposition to all those tart and tangy berry/hibby flavours.

Ultimately this isn’t something I’d feel compelled to stock up over other colada inspired teas, but I was really happy with the sample and it made for some tasty brews!

I remember liking this a lot, so when I saw it again at the grocery store this summer I made sure to grab a bottle – bit I did not enjoy it this time around! The fermentation level was pretty aggressive, and the sharpness/hardness of the bubbles was jarring and unpleasant to me. More than that, the taste was such an acidic and vinegar-y grape note that I felt like I was drinking straight up vinegar. I do like when my kombucha has that yeasty/vinegar-y kind of kick but this was just STRAIGHT vinegar tasting to me. I couldn’t believe how different from memory it was, and I did not finish the bottle…

This week I’m trying to drink some teas that I have lots of/don’t actively think about…

I had this in the evening in a fillable teabag, and I just left the bag in the whole time. It’s a light/delicate tea in the first place, so this really let the flavours of the ginger and lemongrass build up to a more substantial level. Still not the most body/flavour, but it was soothing with a warming kind of ginger tickle and just a hint of orange.

Cold Brew!

The dry leaf of this tea is gorgeous – dark forest and emerald green leaves with a glossy sheen to them. I’m constantly saddened that I’m not a huge fan of most green teas because, objectively speaking, they are some of the most pretty looking teas.

It’s been a long time since I last had this tea (two years in fact) so I wasn’t sure if it would still taste good – but I think time has been good for my taste preferences because the oceanic umami notes of the sencha were soft and delicate and this was really more of a refreshing cup of chilled water with hints of those green tea notes. The vanilla has faded considerably, but it’s still present and would likely be more so as a hot cuppa. This is just a nice delicate tea – I’m sure some would be sad about the flavour loss, but it suits me just fine.

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.

…Christmas in June!?

Honestly I’ve been in a weird kind of “tea mood” all week and that’s culminated with a lot of cravings for green tea over the past two days. So, this was a late evening cuppa that was really enjoyable – creamy and mildly spiced with a hint of fruity sweetness and a custard-y finish. It’s still not “eggnog” to me, but it definitely shows signs that it was inspired by eggnog. Can’t have this one often because I get sick of it, but this was a nice cup that was pretty spaced from the last time I had it.

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.

Yearly cold brew collection is out! It has been for about a week now – I’m just a busy person this week and haven’t had a chance to write the tasting note before now. One new tea and a few familiar faces, this year…

I am such a total sucker for a good blueberry tea and, honestly, a blueberry cold brew tea just feels like it was an inevitability! This is a nice and juicy sweet blueberry but with some tartness to it from the hibiscus addition. Pretty straightforward and no frills. Compared to DT’s many other blueberry teas, I find it very similar to the style of blueberry in Blueberry Fields Forever – so fans of that tea will likely enjoy this one a lot too.

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.

Enjoyed a mug of this on Sunday with some cheesecake rasps, which are basically these cracker sized dried out pieces of cheesecake – they are way too bingeable/snackable, but they are super good for dunking in tea. I really liked how they worked with this tea in particular too – it’s such a roasty blend with these dark chocolate notes that are so decadent, but then there’s this pop of sweet orange that brings life to the cup, and I felt like the tang and creaminess of the cheesecake complimented that sweet orange note and the bolder roasted mate so well respectively speaking! I should drink this tea more often!

Sipped on this one Friday evening while working on outlines for season two of Geek Steep! We started recording today for S2, and I’m just so excited to be getting back into it! I was also excited to try this tea – I’m trying to think about if I’ve seen another mochi inspired tea blend before and I don’t think so!? Mochi is one of those things that I really want to like because they always have such fun and innovative flavours and they usually look quite cute – but fuck me do I struggle with the texture. I saw somewhere that someone described the sensation of biting mochi as reminding them of the feeling of biting a nut sack, and I have literally never been able to disassociate from that comparison…

Thankfully mochi inspired tea seems much more up my alley – this is really nice! I’ve been very impressed with Deb’s newest collection so far. It feels like she just had a lot of fun with these profiles, and it translates into the cup! This is a good medley of lychee, with its juicy floral notes, and more of a candy or “Japanese” style mango. Pretty low acidity/tang and more focused on the sweetness of ripe mangoes. Despite both fruit notes being pretty juicy, it’s not an overly rich or cloying blend – and the sweetness is balanced out by both some creamy coconut rasps as well as the more vegetal and grassy notes of the green tea. I actually found that, with this blend, I didn’t mind being able to taste the green tea at all – it was pretty complimentary to everything else going on.

When I smelled the dry leaf for this tea, I knew I was going to like it! It reminds me a little but of the long retired DT blend “Coconut Mint Cream” but a little smoother and more seamlessly intigrated in terms of flavour.

The main ones are this rich and silky coconut and a sweet and fresh speamint that coats the palate. It feels a little bit boozy, like some kind of fun liqueur based shot – but definitely not that cloying and sweet. The lemon is very in that “Lemon Chiffon” sweet lemon pastry style – anyone familiar with the Della Terra blend will know what I mean. The honeyed rooibos notes that provide some flavour foundation lean into that comparison, too. It’s unique, and I like the balance of flavours and how it’s sweet yet not sugary. Pretty impressed, right out of the gate!

All that said, I am very confused how a mix of spearmint, creamy coconut, and lemon make a “punch”. I suppose you could probably make an argument for how coconut is a punch type of flavour, but this was very much a “coconut cream” and not that style of tropical coconut I would think you’d see in punch…

Cold Brew!

I think I let this one steep a little too long because there was this murky muddled edge to the flavour that didn’t seem like it would have been so pronounced with a shorted steep time – but I don’t really time my cold brews and I instead lean heavily into that “it’s ready when it’s convenient for you” mindset since that usually works out for me.

This is definitely much more dragonfruit than it is mango – it actually didn’t taste like mango at all, to be honest. More that very light, watery, and refreshing pear-ish taste of dragonfruit – which does translate pretty well to a cold brew. I also really appreciate that it’s not sweet at all. Just mellow and thirst quenching.