51 Tasting Notes

Received a sample of this in my order! I’m a chocolate fiend, so I’m pretty much guaranteed to like anything chocolate flavoured so long as it actually tastes like chocolate rather than overly sweet wax like some chocolate flavourings do.
The leaf contains those same mini chocolate chips from DT’s Read my Lips (good sign!). Smells chocolatey, also a good sign! As it steeps it starts to smell like their S’mores tea without the marshmallowy goodness. Still, a pretty good sign!
It turns out, it also tastes like S’mores without the marhsmallowy goodness. Now, this is a very delicious chocolate tea. Smells good, tastes good. But I’m spoiled by S’mores, and sweet tooth that I am, if it tastes the same as S’mores but is missing the marshmallows, it’s just not quite as good as that one to me.
Tl;dr version: Good tea, realistic chocolatey taste, not quite as good as S’mores so I’ll stick with that one instead.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 30 sec

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88

My second oolong! My first one was Vanilla Oolong, which I did not like one bit due to the buttery/milky taste. I was kind of afraid this would be the same since it was a DT vanilla blend, but it smelled SO good in the store that I couldn’t resist a 12g bag to sample.
The aroma of this tea is to die for. It is the best tea scent I’ve ever smelled, hands down. Rich, sweet vanilla with a slight hint of sophisticated orchid. This made my husband say “See, this is why Davids Tea should start making scented candles or something!” as the tea was steeping.
After steeping it’s a pale yellow shade. The hot sips are surpisingly watery. I don’t taste any tea here, although I’m new to oolong, so maybe it’s not a “slap in your face” tea. I tasted vanilla (like vanilla bean ice cream, as others mentioned, without that cloying milkiness of Vanilla Oolong). It was just okay. After this one cools a little, it’s much better. The orchid flavour comes out a little more, although I’d say it’s 85:15 vanilla/orchid ratio. Oddly enough, I struggled to taste the orchid while the mister took a sip and exclaimed “wow, you can really taste flowers!”. So it’s very possible that there’s some sort of weird taste bud variance at play here.
Next time I’d steep this for longer and do a solid 5 minutes instead of 4 to see if that resulted in stronger flavour.
Overall, this is a really smooth, easy drinking tea with a very beautiful scent. It’s not a tea that’ll slap you in the face with flavour, but the flavour that is there sure is good.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 4 min, 0 sec

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78

Long time, no log! I’ve been drinking lots of tea, but keep forgetting to review them. I’ll try to catch up a bit.
Recently I visited DavidsTea and got a bunch of small bags to try, and a couple days ago my Della Terra order showed up too!
Last night I decided to brew up this one before bed since it was caffeine free.
The dry leaf smells exactly like a lemon flavoured yogurt or something, that lemony creamy scent. Yum!
The rose bits in this cause it to turn a pretty pink colour.
The aroma was very nice on this, although after steeping a bit of that creaminess of the leaf had disappeared and I was getting more lemongrass.
The taste: The aroma of this tea is very strong and lovely. The thing is you expect it to taste as good as it smells, and sadly it doesn’t. It tastes good and lemony and creamy, but not nearly as strong as it smells. I did notice the flavour came out slightly more as it cooled.
Overall, it’s good and I’m glad I get to try an ounce of it, but next time I’ll try something else rather than repurchasing.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec

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50

Huh. Well I dug this out since it was Easter the other day and decided this was my most Eastery tea. I recall not much liking it last time I had it, but that was a long time ago.
I brewed it up and it smelled pretty nice at first. Fruity, not bad at all. This brew didn’t have a jellybean, but whatever, I was adding sugar anyways.
So, the thing with this tea is that it taste quite pleasant. You’re getting some citrus and sweetness, and it’s nice. But as it starts to cool, it starts to smell like stomach bile and/or vomit. Seriously. I have to go back in my notes to see if I smelled this the last time I drank it, but I seem to recall that it did smell off. If you just drink it without inhaling, it still tastes nice and pleasant. But if you inhale as you sip, God help you.
I just…yuck. Drink this one hot guys, real hot. And don’t inhale as you sip. Yikes. Would not repurchase and will be hard pressed to finish the bag I have.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 45 sec

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34

I’m dropping my rating of this. The first time I tried it I was sick and gave it the benefit of the doubt.
Having it again last night, I can say that this is one of the most disappointing teas I’ve tried. It’s chock full of marshmallows (which is great!), however there is hardly any tea. It’s just marshmallows and little balls of allspice. The product is a murky, sort of vaguely sweet and nutmeggy water. I used double the amount it said to and still got an undrinkable mishmash of spices and melted marshmallows. Yet it doesn’t taste like marshmallows, it just tastes….watery and sweet and a bit spicy. It’s just not very good, it needs more tea and less spice/marshmallow! To use up the rest, I think I’ll just add some plain breakfast tea in when I make this.
If you want a well done marshmallow tea, try S’mores from Della Terra teas.

Preparation
Boiling 6 min, 0 sec
Fjellrev

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you say, down to the DTT recommendation. I’m going to need to lower my rating too.

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85
drank Earl Black by 52teas
51 tasting notes

I just got to drinking this out of the 12 Days box yesterday.

So, I like white tea but haven’t really drank much of it because I love flavoured teas and you see the best flavours in black teas usually. So I was pretty pleased to try this one, especially since it smelled so juicy and berryish.
Brewed it up (with the fantastic Breville PerfecTemp kettle Mr P. Sheep got me for Christmas, the water temp was perfect and not scorchy!), and it still smelled fantastic.
This one did not disappoint, it tasted like it smelled, and that was juicy. sweet, and blackcurranty. The tea wasn’t at all bitter or grassy, and this was just a very pleasant tea overall. I would probably buy a bag of this.

Preparation
3 min, 45 sec

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70

I thought I had reviewed this before! I guess not. I think the time I was going to review it, I decided not to because I was so underwhelmed by it.
Okay, so the thing with this one is that the aroma is SO GOOD. Just fall-ish, spicy, orangey goodness. So delicious smelling!
Plus, it’s SO beautiful! The swirling gold is mesmerizing and just beautiful. It definitely got bonus points on the scale for that.
That said, the tea itself is some of the weakest I’ve tried. To get even a reasonable amount of tea or ANY sort of flavour from this you have to use double the amount of leaf. If you use double the amount of leaf like I’ve been doing lately, it will taste pleasantly like black tea with a hint of that orangey spice flavour. If weaker or less “kick you in the face” teas are your thing, then give this a shot!
I think the tea itself is tasty enough (again, if you use enough leaf) but the aroma compared to the flavour is disappointing.
Overall, not sorry I got it because I’ll enjoy the rest of it, but I probably wouldn’t repurchase unless I’m feeling particularly whimsical and want the glittery tea again.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 30 sec
Kittenna

Welcome back!! :)

PatchworkSheep

Thanks! It’s definitely been awhile, and I missed it here. Life decided to throw a few punches in a row and they needed to be dealt with. It’s good to be back!

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79

Wow, got this in my 12 Days of Tea (which I’m just getting to now…December was busy).
Brewed it up on a snowy day off. Normally I’d go with something warm and wintery for such a day, but this little gem came out of the bag instead. It smelled very bubblygummy dry, but once infused that sickly sweet scent went away and left a nice fruity, sweet tea.
I added a little sugar, but probably didn’t need to as this is very sweet. This is very breakfasty and reminded me of some sort of tropical beach drink, which was a nice change from the weather outside.
The sweetness increased as this cooled, and the last few sips were just way too sweet (but probably would have been fine without my added sugar). Would I buy this? No, but that’s because I HATE banana. Hate it. This has quite a strong banana flavour, but has enough pineapple to balance it. It was enjoyable, but I wouldn’t drink it again necessarily simply because of my distaste for bananas. It’s still a very well blended tasty tea.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 30 sec

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93

Yay, I can finally post my tasting note on this tea! I had it about a week and a half ago. Roughest. Day. Ever.
Got up early for a doctors appointment. Found out my MRI showed a small brain tumor. Apparently it’s not cancer and won’t kill me, but they aren’t really sure what to do with me and I have to see a bunch of specialists. Then that afternoon I had a stats final, and I’m pretty bad at stats and despite studying I anticipated only getting like 65%. After the news I got that morning, my mind was elsewhere and I went in and bombed it.
Walked home really bummed afterwards, and found my 12 Days box in the mailbox. I thought “Finally, something good!” I decided to tear into that sucker and drink the first tea.
Cotton Candy Black! YES! That was one I’d been dying to try! Steeped up a cup of that. The aroma was wonderfully sweet and cotton candyish. The black base was strong and present (I steeped for 5 minutes, next time I’d do 4). Over the black base was the sweet cotton candy flavouring. This one is very much like I imagined it would be, and it’s fantastic!
A little sweetener is great in this because it brings the cotton candy flavoring to life.
I think this would be really good iced as well.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec
Kittenna

I’m glad you enjoyed this, and that the tumour isn’t cancer, but that’s still a terrible thing to find out! I hope they figure out what to do and that everything turns out well (well, except that stats class…. but given the circumstances I think they should allow you to re-take the final exam).

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69

Ah, the advent calendar countdown begins!
I’ve had this one once before (thanks for the sample, Kittenna!) I found it okay, but coconut and I don’t see eye to eye.
This one is the first tea of the advent calendar now! Quick note about the advent calendar: they give you the PERFECT amount of leaf for two generously leafed Perfect Mug-fuls. You could probably get 3 mugs out of it if you were more conservative with the leaf. I thought that was nice because you get enough tea to share with someone or try it 2-3 times yourself but not so much tea that it’s kicking around in your cupboard forever.
Okay, so the tea: It’s okay. Nice and sweet, which I like. Quite coconutty, which I don’t like. The black tea base is prominent, which is nice, and the colour is a pretty caramelly shade.
Mr. Sheep had a glass of this as well and enjoyed it. Both of us agreed that it’s a decent tea, but not one we would ever purchase or crave. I can see how this would be a tea that most people would enjoy, however I can’t see how it’s one of their most popular teas because it’s just not fantastic like some of their other ones are.
Both of us agreed that this would probably be nice with milk in it, however we were out of milk.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec
Kittenna

Mr. Sheep, haha. :)

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Profile

Bio

Recently graduated sociology student trying to decide what to do with her life.
I don’t drink tea every day, but I do love tea and trying out different flavours. My favorite is black tea, followed by white and mate teas. I enjoy rooibos and oolongs, but haven’t tried enough of them yet to determine how much I like them compared to other types. I don’t like straight green tea, but if it has a good flavour added to it I can enjoy it quite a lot.
Mostly I drink DavidsTea since its Canadian and they tend to have stronger teas and more interesting flavors than other places I’ve tried. I don’t care for what I’ve tried from Teavana for the most part; their teas seem weak and overpriced in general as far as I can tell. The exception is My Morning Mate, which is incredible.
My city has not a single specialty tea shop, so DavidsTea online ordering is my friend. I highly recommend their Perfect Mug. It really is perfect. Nice thin lip, large hand, larger than average mug without being too big, and I have it in clear so I can see the beautiful colours of my teas as they steep. The strainer that comes with it is my favorite because it doesn’t let any tea through, and its metal and dishwasher safe. Love it.

Location

BC, Canada

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