Sleigh Ride

Advent calendar day 11. This is one of the few teas I’ve had that gets the hibiscus blend right. There’s enough for you to taste the flavour, but not too much that it goes really tart. The other flavours are appley and cinimony, like Forever Nuts as others have described. I’ve enjoyed having another cup or so of this in the advent calendar this year.

I don’t mind teas with hibiscus. Sometimes it adds that little note that makes a tea into perfection. Here? It’s the bully that demands the entire playground. Dry, this tea smells absolutely amazing, like Christmas and birthdays and homemade apple pie all rolled up into one magic bag of tea. But once it is brewed you get . . . hibiscus. There are undercurrents of the other flavours but it is like they’re very tiny children trying to peek out from behind an elephant and a hippopotamus. Dear David, please please please lay off the hibiscus in your blends for a bit. I’ve been very uninspired lately, and it scares me that all of these uninspiring flavours are becoming permanent wall tins.

The smell of the dry leaves is simply melodic for the nose.
Once infused, the smell is still recomforting and cinnamon goes through it.

The taste is profoundly good, but at the surface there’s the…

DAMN YOU HIBISCUS!

Yep, because once you infuse it a little you seem it’s red-pink color
splash away your tea pot…
The hibiscus is WAY too much strong on here because it blend all the taste
in one mild cinnamon/apple mixture.

This tea is not disgusting, he’s actually good.
But all the amazing flavors it could deliver just never goes through it.
It’s like a delivery man which never deliver your order.
You just hanging up there enjoying the febrility of the moment and then…
There’s not any end. So sad.

Overall
Too much hibiscus on there, but it’s an enjoyable apple/cinnamon blend.

YUM! I totally agree with some other reviewers, this is Forever Nuts + Kanpe. Maybe a bit tarter than Kanpe even! (at least when you put as much tea as they recommend – 2tbs per cup, 5mins steep)
I looooove everything tart (I enjoy eating fresh lemon!), so to me, this is awesome!

This is really just a tart apple cinnamon cider tea for me! :D Really good for this time of year. Aaaand it has caffeine, unlike my mulled apple cider tea.

It’s funny how this tea LOOKS like it should be the Merry Cranberry because it’s so vibrantly red/pink and the MC is greenish/yellow, I think? Anyway, had this last night for the closing of Glitch.

This tea definitely smelled like Forever Nuts and Kanpe combined. When steeped, it turns a bright berry colour (unlike Forever Nuts where it is a nice cute pink!). Drinking this I was expecting the tea to be a bit tart—but no! I am really surprised. I definitely taste the apples, pineapple, and papaya, but those are fairly weak compared to a carrot-y taste that I can taste throughout.

Overall, it’s not a terrible tea nor it is the best tea that I have tried. I need to try this iced!

Holy chunks of cinnamon batman! This is like… apple cider, but tea. And delicious. Certainly a magical touch for the holiday season. There’s cinnamon, and apple and popcorn (reminds me of popcorn strings on Christmas trees!) and it’s this wonderful red/purple color. Mmmm… I might have to pick some of this up before the season’s over! Love it!

This is my day #10 of the David’s Tea “24 Days of Tea” advent calendar.

Day 11 of the advent calendar:) This herbal tea is very fruity. I love the smell of it. The taste is not my fave but its different.

I’m just not there. I want to be there, but this tea is not for me. I dislike the hibiscus in this blend, and the mixing of cinnamon is simply inappropriate. I don’t even know if I like the fruitiness. I’ll have to give this one a try on another day – I have one more cup left in my sample. I’ll let you know if anything changes, but right now, Sleigh Ride, is not me, it’s you.

**Edit: When first trying Sleigh Ride, I was revelling in how similar this tea smells to Forever Nuts. I wasn’t willing to give Sleigh Ride another chance but I needed to get rid of it (tea overload), so I decided to mix the rest with Forever Nuts and throw it on ice for a beautifully fruity iced tea (about 1.5 tsp of SR/2 tsp of FN, for 20 oz. cup). OH GOOD GOD. I tried it hot before I iced it – COMPLETELY AWFUL. It was so bad, I couldn’t even let it sit on my tongue long enough to figure out what flavours made it so awful. I tried it iced, marginally less awful. I put agave in it, still somewhat undrinkable. I had to put lemonade in this tea just to be able to drink it. Anyway, if anyone comes up with the idea of mixing this tea with Forever Nuts, unless you’re REALLY daring, don’t do it!
Sleigh Ride, it’s OVER. THROUGH! KAPUT.

Sleighhhhh Rideeeeee… I was excited to taste this one when I heard there was cinnamon in it. It makes me think of the forever nuts tea except 99999999 times better.. I really like the fruity taste and nutty taste together ! YUmmmmy

Pretty robust for an herbal tea. It smells of cinnamon and fruity berries/hibiscus with a hint of popcorn. The color is a bright fuschia, which made me laugh when I saw it. The taste is mostly hibiscus, but it is balanced by the other flavors (other fruits and spice). You can’t pick out the papaya or fruits lower down on the list, but it’s nice to see pieces of them in the loose leaf tea. A basic fruity holiday tea, but not one I will be sad to see gone when the season passes.

This was recommended to me because of my love of Forever Nuts. On first glance, they have much in common: trail mix appearance, apple/cinnamon smell and a bright pink (reddish in this case) hue.
But that’s where the similarities end as they couldn’t taste more different. This one is tart, almost lip puckeringly so, and definitely unexpected. Much like Stormy Night, it’s not always my go-to choice and it can definitely be an acquired taste but the cranberry/apple tartness is refreshing!

I’m ashamed to admit that I never re-steeped my tea before (never knew you could!) but I have found that the second go around of this flavour is noticeably weaker in the tart department, but still retains a mild apple/cranberry flavour.

EDIT: whoops! Shows how oblivious I am, there isn’t any cranberry in this, so disregard any references to that. Apparently I wouldn’t know hibiscus if it slapped me in the face.

This smells wonderful like a freshly baked apple pie. Fruity, cinnamon, nutty. Yum! I can’t pick out the papaya notes though. The taste is not what I expected. Very tart and it was all hibiscus. Pass on this one.

One thing that I love about herbal teas is the colours that they come in. My absolute favourite? The ones that brew a bright beet pinkish red. The colour is so rich, and I know I’m in for a slightly dry, probably fruity, and overall delicious cup of caffeine-free delightfulness.

Today’s cup is one of those, and certainly did not let me down at all. Yum! Plus, with the name, it’s suddenly all wintery, and perfect for Christmastime! Double yum!

Steeped: 4 tsp in 2-cup pot. Brewed with freshly boiled water.

First Cup: Steeped 5.5 minutes. Clear.
Very red. Very fruity. There’s a dry, strong fruity flavour that hits all at once, and then disappears almost as quickly, followed by a mild, nutty taste. There’s a lovely sweetness to it. There’s also a, pleasant, dry, fruity (or at least berry-y) aftertaste.

Second cup: Resteep. 15 minutes. Clear.
More red than a second steep of these red-coloured teas usually are. The initial burst of flavour is missing, but it automatically goes to that nice aftertaste. There is, however, a nice, sweet initial taste, and it still has quite a try mouthfeel.

Third cup: Same resteep. Approximately 40-45 minutes. Clear.
The fruity taste is a bit stronger, and the tea seems somehow a bit thicker. There’s still a bit of fruitiness (someone else mentioned apple and I think that’s what it is) but I’m mainly noticing the sweetness over any actual flavour. Still fairly enjoyable, but not as wonderful as the first steep by far.

Overall impression: The first steep is amazing. It makes me almost wish that I hadn’t given half of it to my mother. The second steep wasn’t half bad either, though not anywhere as near as the first — especially good considering it’s a tisane, which often don’t resteep well at all.

My rating: 80. A-. Would be higher if the flavour lasted longer than a burst or if it resteeped as wonderfully (though it still is a better tea for resteeping than most tisanes!). Still, I can’t deny the lovely flavour at least a low A.

Deck the halls with balls of…what the heck is this stuff? Are you sure I am not supposed to eat this with milk for breakfast in the morning? This is pretty much how I felt after smelling and looking at this tea, honestly it looks like granola, but smells better.

Dry this tea has a complex smell its hard to really pinpoint each one but I know my nose picks up the apple and popped rice pretty strongly; however as I said earlier the best way I can explain the smell is like granola or something you would eat for breakfast. Steeped the tea has an aroma that reminds me of christmas

The final brew is a reddish gold color and has a nice cinnamon aroma to it with fruity undertones. When I actually drank the tea I knew in the first sip I was not going to enjoy this tea and unfortunately I was right. I was slightly afraid it would be the case, but unfortunately for me it has a slight tart taste and the fruits simply didn’t appeal to me.

This is certainly a tea you will need to try to find out if it is for you, its too hard to determine just by the smell of it. Good concept by Davids unfortunately just not for me.

I really enjoyed this tea. Delicious hot and I imagine it would be good iced as well. I drank it straight and it was still plenty sweet. I love the subtle cinnamon notes and hint of tartness. It reminds me of what crabapple jelly would taste like if it were a tea.

Smelled delicious in the pouch.
I got this from lindairvine as a taste test.

I’m already worried about the hibiscus…(Pink Flaming has made me steer clear of almost all hibiscus in teas,please do read my review)

once brewed it was deep purple and i still smelled no hibiscus just cinnamon and apple bordering on quite subtle with notes of a nutty smell as well.

Is this forever nuts???? It tastes EXACTLY the same…

Wasn’t a fan of that which makes me not a fan of this.

Hmmm dry this tea smelled just like forever nuts. The taste is a bit hard to describe (and I’ve never tried Kanpe tea), but it was fruity and I guess picked up that oatmeal cookie factor of forever nuts a little bit…with a hint of tartness. But there was a super fancy piece of cinnamon stick in my tin which was neat.

It was an enjoyable day 10 cup of tea to have last night, but it’s nothing that I would rush to the store to try. It doesn’t really stand out as a unique tea, but maybe I would need another cup to make sure.

This one was oversteeped, which is a pity because it became the all-hibiscus review, and now the sickly-sweet taste is stuck in the back of my throat and I can barely remember the way the rest of it tasted. I’m going to give it a 50 for the moment, because I need to try it again, with a shorter steep time, before I pass judgment.

On the tenth day of tea-mas DAVIDsTEA gave to me….

I ended up using my entire Advent calendar sample in my small pot, and have brewed it twice so far.

The original tea is bright red, like Pink Flamingo, but has a much fruitier flavour. I was surprised at how dry the tea seemed — and how rich the flavour was (perhaps my putting the entire sample in was a bit much for the pot). Still, it was quite good — one thing I love about herbal tea is that it seems quite hard to go disasterously wrong with it.

The second brew was much lighter in colour and taste, but certianly still enjoyable.

Definitely thinking of purchasing some more of this, since my sample’s now all gone.