6105 Tasting Notes

81
drank Matcha Ice Cream by DAVIDsTEA
6105 tasting notes

This was one of the online exclusives I couldn’t resist picking up… the ratings aren’t amazing, and I’m 99% sure I’ve had it before, but I didn’t find any trace of it while organizing teas, and I had no rating/note about it, and it sounds so yummy! So either I haven’t actually had it before, or I have, and it was either a casualty of the work mice, or I liked it enough that I finished my sample during the time I wasn’t reviewing on Steepster. Who knows.

Anyhow, it smelled delicious in the bag. Like creamy, vanilla bean ice cream. And as luck would have it, it also tastes like that! I can’t really taste any matcha or green tea base, but there’s lots of creamy vanilla, and I like it. At least in this cup, the stevia is not sweet enough to be off putting or to linger overly long, which is good.

I’ll have to see if subsequent cups are this good, but this is not a bad tea to have 50g of, at least from my first impression.

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87

So… I got sucked in by DT’s summer sale, plus wanting some of the online exclusives. They really get you like that! One of the teas I picked up was a canister of this one, because although I must have tried it before, I had no note about it – and also, it was pretty cheap.

Brewed it up tonight, and no regrets. It’s delicious. Smooth and about as rich as white teas get. I’d have to compare it directly against Moonlight White and White Rhino, etc. in order to pick out differences, but it’s along the same lines as both of those, which I adore.

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69
drank Prairie Berry by DAVIDsTEA
6105 tasting notes

Sipdown! 205/365!

I really wanted to like this tea, because – Saskatoon berries! Oolong! Maple syrup! But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. It’s too old now for me to really pinpoint what needs fixing, but probably all aspects. I’d love a juicy Saskatoon berry tea, though (the key here being tea, not tisane).

gmathis

Tell me about Saskatoon berries! (Never heard of them down here!)

Kittenna

I understand that they have some alternate names, so you might be familiar with them by a different name, like serviceberry. I’m from Saskatoon, though, so I always call them Saskatoon berries! They are tasty – generally not amazing for fresh eating, as they can be quite seedy, but they make an absolutely delicious pie, and I’ve had some yummy jams as well. It’s kind of an earthy-sweet rich berry flavour, not particularly tart (nor particularly sweet).

Roswell Strange

Also from Saskatoon; I’ve never heard them called by anything other than Saskatoon Berries (fun fact; the city is named after the berry and not the other way around!) – I usually describe them to people as a blueberry and cranberry mix. It’s not a perfect descriptor, but it’s close-ish. My favourite Saskatoon Berry food was always Saskatoon Berry Milkshakes.

mrmopar

We have wineberries around here. Look like raspberries but grow in a husk almost like a tomatillo does.

Kittenna

@mrmopar – Sounds neat! I haven’t heard of them before.

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55
drank Moscow Mule by DAVIDsTEA
6105 tasting notes

As I expected, there’s a bit too much mint in here for me (there’s not much, but I really don’t care for it), and it tastes too much like a good-for-you herbal tea. Ginger is in the forefront, with cooling mint poking up every now and then, and cucumber presents itself in the aftertaste, in my opinion. It’s also fairly sweet, and became a bit syrupy for me, which was odd.

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71
drank Masala Chai (Ayurvedic) by Unknown
6105 tasting notes

Sipdown! 204/365!

Really no spice left in this tea, though it made a decent cup of drinkable black tea, with no astringency.

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72

This tea was pulled out as a “coconut tea”, because it has coconut oil in it with the banana chips… probably unnecessary, but I drank it anyhow. Unfortunately, I’m not the biggest fan of it, despite the fact that it’s actually pretty accurate to its name. The initial sip (and aroma) are a pleasant level of smoky, and there are some light spices and banana sweetness, but for whatever reason, it’s not working for me. Honestly – it’s probably the base tea, and that took far too long to occur to me, but that’s almost certainly it. It’s not bad, just not as appealing to me. For those who have no honeybush/rooibos aversions, it’s probably pretty good.

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77

Sipdown! 203/365!

As it happens, I actually still have some of this left, under its other name (I’m drinking “ME to WE India” right now). Which is ok, because it’s actually a fairly pleasant blend. Sweet pineapple with a touch of coconut, and just a hint of spice, are what I get from this blend, making it a little like an extra-fruity pina colada.

In random news, my concern for the potential demise of Steepster resulted in me having my husband write a macro (or something) to pull all my tasting notes/scores into an Excel sheet so that I won’t lose them in the event that the site goes down permanently, which I certainly hope it doesn’t. The export isn’t pretty, but at least it saves everything I need (with bonus fun sortability!) I feel like something like this was used by others at some point… (?) so I might have just missed that boat, but if there’s anyone out there who wants to get their notes in Excel format, I can get him to do that. It was just going to be a ridiculously laborious task for me to go through 420 or so pages of notes and copy them, and apparently he had fun spending a Friday night working on it for me…

AJRimmer

That’s a great idea! I was thinking about going through and writing myself a one sentence summary of each tea I’ve reviewed on Word or something. My main goal is to remind myself if I want to rebuy a tea or not, so maybe an Excel file would be better so there could be basically a yay or nay column.

gmathis

Yeah, 10 years plus of “My Life In Tea” would be a little sad to lose.

Roswell Strange

I would 100% be interested in taking up that offer and getting my notes in excel format – though I definitely understand if it’s too laborious of an undertaking XD

Kittenna

@Roswell – it’s not laborious at all, because it’s all automated :D There’s a bit of work, but most of it went into making the tool in the first place. I’ll have him do an export for you tonight. He also wanted to know if there’s anything he’s not exporting that you’d be interested in having – currently it’s tea name, tea company name, tasting note text, score, and date/time.

@AJRimmer/gmathis – happy to do the same for either of you. It’s really not much work. It really would be sad to lose everything I’ve written (I believe I wrote about my husband’s and my first date, even! My steepster presence predates our relationship.), so I decided to be proactive and save things while I can.

tea-sipper

Yeah… I copied and pasted about 280 pages of tasting notes into e-mail drafts a couple months ago…. it surprisingly didn’t take too long… haha. I have zero tech knowledge though.

Roswell Strange

@Kittenna – I can’t really think of anything else that would be missing; that seems like generally all of the major points. Maybe the “flavours” section that appears at the bottom of a tasting note (the section where you’re inputting the flavours manually during the editing process) if that’s not captured in the tasting note text portion?

Kittenna

@tea-sipper I started to do that, but it was so ugly (the way I was doing it, anyhow) and I felt like it would require a ton of reformatting to be useful. But – having the notes in any format is better than not at all!

Kittenna

@Roswell Ah – I don’t use that field so I didn’t even think of it. We took a look, and it appears to be pretty easy to add as an additional column, so he’s doing so :)

tea-sipper

Yeah, any format I can save the notes in is better than one day having them disappear. Though I really hope that doesn’t happen, Steepster! (hint hint)

Leafhopper

Yeah, this is something I’d be interested in (though I have many fewer notes than you do!). Let’s cross our fingers that Steepster doesn’t go down and we don’t need to worry.

Kittenna

FWIW, I had my husband export notes for AJRimmer, gmathis, and Roswell Strange. I had to clean up a couple missed things, but I think they’re complete as of the export date. I have them in a Google doc right now, but need to change the settings and then can share it if you guys are interested. Might have him re-run the script from time to time to keep things up to date. Leafhopper + tea-sipper, we might toss yours in there as well at some point.

I’m really hoping that we don’t need to worry about it! And that Steepster somehow is rejuvenated at some point.

tea-sipper

Not necessary for me, Kittenna. I’m completely useless at those types of things, but I have mine copied over in a way I can manage, even if it’s primitive. haha. I REALLY appreciate the offer though. Thanks

Roswell Strange

Thank you Kittenna – it’s really appreciated & thank your hubby on my behalf as well!

AJRimmer

Thank you! That will be so useful!

Mastress Alita

Heh, I have written all my notes externally since I joined the site, so I always have a copy on a Notepad file (and that file gets automatically backed up to a web server). I just copy the text off my NoteTab file and paste it into Steepster, I never write directly into Steepster. So I’ve always had a backup since Day 1. Call my a cynic for expecting the worst, but I’ve lost writing before from play-by-forum RPG sites going down and such and now I just do that sort of thing by default. shrugs But kudos to your hubby for offering a backup solution to others!

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78

I think I called this “interesting” last time, and I stand by that… it is not a flavour profile that’s familiar. I find the cacao to be most noticeable (and yummy), but then there are some florals which I think may actually be the cashew. Or maybe the beet. They’re not overly floral though, and maybe that’s not even the right term… it’s just that sweet nut essence kinda thing. I am definitely enjoying each sip of this tea, but it’s not an easy-drinker by any means – there is too much going on for that, and it really begs for every sip to be thought about. Upping rating from 74 to 78. I’d drink this again, and probably even purchase it, but it’s kind of a special occasion tea.

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89
drank Cocadas by A Quarter to Tea
6105 tasting notes

Yum. This is a coconut black as well, but fairly different from Coconut Cream Puffs. For one, there is less coconut, and less creaminess. Two, the base is less prominent – more minerally? It works here though. Three, the aftertaste is kind of vanilla/caramelly (faint but nice). I think, maybe I’m getting some chocolate in here? Or maybe not, hard to say. It’s yummy, although I think I like Coconut Cream Puffs just a wee bit more, because I like that creaminess, and also the extra punch of coconut.

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83
drank Luscious Watermelon by DAVIDsTEA
6105 tasting notes

Sipdown! 202/365!

Had a really small amount of a really old package of this. It tasted okay, but I’m alright saying goodbye to this, given that I have a bazillion other watermelon/melon teas hanging around.

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I have always been a tea fan (primarily herbals and Japanese greens/oolongs) but in the last year or so, tea has become increasingly more appealing as not only a delicious, calming drink, but as a relatively cheap, healthy reward or treat to give myself when I deserve something. I should clarify that, however; the reward is expanding my tea cupboard, not drinking tea – I place no restrictions on myself in terms of drinking anything from my cupboard as that would defeat my many goals!

My DavidsTea addiction was born in late 2011, despite having spent nearly a year intentionally avoiding their local mall location (but apparently it was just avoiding the inevitable!). I seem to have some desire to try every tea they’ve ever had, so much of my stash is from there, although I’ve recently branched out and ordered from numerous other companies.

I like to try and drink all my teas unaltered, as one of the main reasons I’m drinking tea other than for the flavour is to be healthy and increase my water intake without adding too many calories! I’ve found that the trick in this regard is to be very careful about steeping time, as most teas are quite pleasant to drink straight as long as they haven’t been oversteeped. However, I tend to be forgetful (particularly at work) when I don’t set a timer, resulting in a few horrors (The Earl’s Garden is not so pleasant after, say, 7+ minutes of steeping).

I’m currently trying to figure out which types of teas are my favourites. Herbals are no longer at the top; oolongs have thoroughly taken over that spot, with greens a reasonably close second. My preference is for straight versions of both, but I do love a good flavoured oolong (flavoured greens are really hit or miss for me). Herbals I do love iced/cold-brewed, but I drink few routinely (Mulberry Magic from DavidsTea being a notable exception). I’m learning to like straight black teas thanks to the chocolatey, malty, delicious Laoshan Black from Verdant Tea, and malty, caramelly flavoured blacks work for me, but I’m pretty picky about anything with astringency. Lately I’ve found red rooibos to be rather medicinal, which I dislike, but green rooibos and honeybush blends are tolerable. I haven’t explored pu’erh, mate, or guayasa a great deal (although I have a few options in my cupboard).

I’ve decided to institute a rating system so my ratings will be more consistent. Following the smiley/frowny faces Steepster gives us:

100: This tea is amazing and I will go out of my way to keep it in stock.

85-99: My core collection (or a tea that would be, if I was allowing myself to restock everything!) Teas I get cravings for, and drink often.

75-84: Good but not amazing; I might keep these in stock sparingly depending on current preferences.

67-74: Not bad, I’ll happily finish what I have but probably won’t ever buy it again as there’s likely something rated more highly that I prefer.

51-66: Drinkable and maybe has some aspect that I like, but not really worth picking up again.

34-50: Not for me, but I can see why others might like it. I’ll make it through the cup and maybe experiment with the rest to get rid of it.

0-33: It’s a struggle to get through the cup, if I do at all. I will not willingly consume this one again, and will attempt to get rid of the rest of the tea if I have any left.

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