New Tasting Notes

Tea creators and proprietors do put their hearts in what they do, so it breaks mine a little when I can’t find anything nice to say about their blends. Unfortunately, this one just tasted like dirty sock to me. The pumpkin just made the roo taste “off,” and the cinnamon just didn’t blend.

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – October 2023 Tea #5 – A tea that relaxes you

… and why not also write a note for the relaxing tea, now that I’ve been buzzing about from the keemun today.  This one is very relaxing!  An old standby in all the variations of shops that happen to carry it.  I remember having this one in my early tea days from a shop that has long since closed.  So I’m glad Mastress Alita sent some along a few years ago.   It never fails to be delicious!

Ashmanra’s Sipdown Challenge | October 2023 | A tea that makes you feel posh

OK, maybe I’m blurring the line between “British” and “posh,” because I’m not sure a Victoria sponge is a particularly posh cake — more of a British classic. Still, close enough!

As always, I’m sad to see this one go. It’s such a satisfying cuppa, so rich and creamy. I brewed it extra strong today and very much enjoyed it.

2023 sipdown count: 52

I decided to have this one last night. I am still struggling with the fatigue but I am forcing myself to stick it out all day at work this week because my counterpart is on planned PTO. At first I was going to make a black tea to stay awake, but then I thought “Why? If I want to go to bed at 6:30 pm, I can!” So I reached for an herbal tea.

I need to drink down more tea so I can excuse buying more. Something about cold rainy days makes me want to shop for tea. This isn’t a favorite, but I’ll be darned if I will throw it away. The flavor it so mild it is almost non existent for someone without a sense of smell. I wonder what would happen if I added a bit of a chai blend to it? Hmm… maybe I will try that soon.

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – October 2023 Tea #4 – A tea that gets you going

I was buzzing about today and I thought it must have been this tea.  Then I remembered this prompt and that I had finished off this sample today.  Keemun usually gets me buzzing about!  This was okay, but Teavivre’s other keemuns are obviously much better.  But I have also had much worse keemun!
2023 sipdowns: 89

Sips by tea number 3 for October!

This is a pleasant enough white tea. It has a light strawberry sparkling wine sort of flavor to it, with a touch of deeper berry or maybe pomegranate. The flavor is nice enough, fairly juicy-tasting, but I can’t help feeling this flavor profile would be better with a touch of tartness, maybe from a sprinkle of hibiscus. Or even as a fruit tisane?

Anyway, enjoyed it well enough, but not something I would order.

Free sample that came with my advent calendars. 1 mesh teabag in hottish water. I forgot about it for a while but the tea was still fairly weak so I steeped for longer. My water was not very hit since I do not have a kettle available.

This reminds me of a gingerbread cookie. I get lots of ginger, cinnamon, and a bit of nutmeg and clove. I don’t get much cookie flavour, unfortunately, but there is a hint of sweetness, nuttiness, and vanilla. I don’t taste the caramel strongly. I would have liked a lot more cookie and caramel notes.

Sipdown! (19 | 380)

This one is fine. It’s a green chai with hojicha, and supposedly vanilla. I do taste a little bit of the hojicha toastiness, but mostly it’s just the same “spice flavoring” as every other blend, but this time on a green base. I don’t notice any vanilla to speak of.

Meh!

Another October Sips by selection.

This one is just okay. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Old Barrel’s yummy coffee teas, but I’m not loving the coffee flavoring here. The Assam is quite brisk as well. I get a little bit of maté earthiness, but would love a bit more.

I think part of the problem is, it tastes a bit like hazelnut coffee creamer, of which I am not a fan ha ha. It’s decent, but there are other coffee teas I like much more.

After reading the reviews on this one, I wasn’t sure I would enjoy it. I actually had been gifted a tea set from a tea friend that was made specifically for Tea Forte tea bags. There is a space for the little leaf to poke out of the top of the tea cup lid. The minute the hot water hit the tea bag I could smell the spices. I steeped for about 5 minutes and love the dark amber color of the tea.
My first few sips were very creamy. I attributed that to the buttered bread I had for breakfast while waiting for the tea but the creamy flavor lasted through the cup. The pepper is there and the other spices seemed to jump around from sip to sip- cloves, cinnamon, cardamom. Often with chai blends, I do add a splash of milk but I didn’t feel the need. It’s not the spiciest chai I’ve had but if this is representative of their blend, I would purchase it again.

The Relaxation Blend is my everything! It’s so soothing, light, and most of all delicious! I really enjoy the lightness of this tea. Since it’s a blend, I love how all the flavors come together when drinking it. All of the flavors go so well together. The lavender, the peach, and the jasmine, simply perfect. I make mine in my Teavana perfect tea maker electric kettle with some rock sugar. Such a treat.

My favorite Teavana tea of all time. Very pleasant lavender flavor without the caffeine buzz. Amazing tea to drink at night…or any time of the day honestly. I really love that it’s a white tea. There’s just something so magical about white tea. I enjoy the light body of the tea but still comes through with a pleasant flavor. I especially love the lavender dreams tea as part of their relaxation blend along with dragon phoenix jasmine pearls green tea and peach tranquility herbal infusion. That’s happiness in a cup! Lavender dreams alone is simply amazing! I recommend it to all lavender tea lovers.

Sipdown! (18 | 379)

This was nice enough. Honestly I was surprised to not taste much vanilla? Two of the three teas here are vanilla-flavored, so not sure how that happened. Mostly it tastes like their Honeybush Pumpkin Chai, but with a slightly more realistic spice flavor due to the extra spices in the mix. The ginger in particular stands out.

Tasty enough, but not a favorite. Not sure what’s “latte” about it, unless that just means they expect you to prepare it as a latte.

Sipdown

A delicious tea that I mostly enjoyed cold since the mint is so sweet and refreshing in the summer. I have had it both sweetened and unsweetened and thought it was great both ways. This last bit became sweet iced tea for Ashman to take to work.

What a beautiful balance of floral and fruity notes in this delicious pouchong blend. Lupicia definitely knows what it’s doing with that peach flavour. My only complaint is that it doesn’t offer up as many subsequent steeps as some flavoured oolong blends do. It did do well both steeped up hot or as a cold brew though, and that’s another point in its favour.

Will definitely reorder more at some point.

The aroma of the dried leaves is very characteristic but with an elegant smoothness, with precision. It is possible to distinguish the pleasant pine aroma and nuances without the smoke taking over your sense of smell.
The seasoned flavor, at the same time refreshing, takes over the palate, with a mineral hint.

Growing in high mountains and rich soil, this Minnan Narcissus dry leaves gave me a light white chocolate aroma.
After brewed, a soft smoky and floral. I don’t have any organoleptic from Narcissus but seemed pleasant rather than a striking presence. A little astringent after a few golden liquor cups, with a fresh woodsy aftertaste.

This is the other new winter/holiday tea that released this past week! As an online exclusive…

Many of us long time users here on Steepster probably don’t even bat an eye at a Latke inspired tea thanks to Butiki’s infamous and fabulous Latkes & Applesauce green tea blend. However, when I first tested the waters within our office about developing a latke tea with actual potato in it I definitely got a lot of strange looks.

This is very much an interpretation of a latkes and applesauce profile in DAVIDsTEA’s style but I have to fully confess that, when tasting initial versions of this tea, I definitely had my very fond memories of Butiki’s blend in mind. I knew how good a latke blend could be and that pushed me really hard to get the exact right balance of warming, cozy cinnamon and nutmeg and sweet, baked apple notes. The potato adds a subtle starchy quality, and the rooibos we used as the base leans into that element of the profile and ties everything together. Plus, I loved the idea of having a caffeine free blend so that this tea could be enjoyed later in the evenings for any families lighting candles together.

It’s gonna be so interesting seeing what most people think of this tea because, truthfully, it is a very weird thing to have potato in a blend and so many people do associate latkes with being more savory or oily. I think this is such a soft, cozy tea though. Like the more mature, toned down version of Cinnamon Rooibos Chai, almost. Not red hot cinnamon flavouring in the slightest.

Only time will tell.

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.

Welp. Personally I think it feels too early in the year, but that hasn’t stopped the first wave of winter/holiday teas from launching. There are many returning teas like Candy Cane Crush, Sleigh Ride, and Alpine Punch – but also a few new ones, like this tea! Truthfully, I think this is pretty easily my favourite of the new teas this year – though Latke Love has a special place in my heart too.

So, some back story. For essentially as long as I’ve been in R&D I’ve wanted to include Jack Frost in the name of a tea blend/as a tea inspiration. I actually pitched the name “Jack Frosted Orange” for the white chocolate, orange, and peppermint blend that eventually ended up being named North Star. So finally getting that win through this blend feels a bit like a personal achievement – and I really do think this was the perfect tea to use that naming inspiration with!

Essentially, this tea is meant to be a peppermint mocha. Basically a well balanced trio of peppermint, milk chocolate, and coffee. A little more emphasis on the mint chocolate though, if I’m being honest. This tea has the absolute cutest (and most delicious) mini mint chocolate chips in it – I kind of lost my mind the first time I saw them. They have such an incredible visual impact. In my personal opinion, they’re the most interest chocolate addition we’ve ever used in tea. The base is a mix of pu’erh and black tea. I love the body the pu’erh gives and that slight earthiness leans in nicely to the chocolate/coffee, and the black tea is just so smooth.

When I’ve described this tea to people in our office, I usually say that it’s somewhere in between the intensity of Santa’s Secret and Candy Cane Crush – just with different flavours. Basically, a nice happy medium between a delicate tasting blend and a super rich one. It sort of has that “old school” DT vibe to me that I associate with blends like Red Velvet Cake or Coffee Cake. It’s amazing as a latte – both hot and iced.

I’m always really excited to see what people think of new blends, but this one I’m especially curious to hear about. It’s the first “big holiday tea” that I fully did the development for, so I definitely feel like I have more personal stakes in the reception of this blend…

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.

Dry leaves have a sweet aroma, slightly roasted. Wet leaves have a complex aroma going from a mix of light orchid, wet wood and fresh sage.
Liquor brings up the roasting taste with the final orchid refreshing, somehow sweet but with a very mineral aftertaste.

So this is a new addition to our “Garden To Cup” collection. Essentially, all of our straight teas/tisanes. We haven’t carried a straight green mate in about five years, so it’s really refreshing to have one back in the assortment. I think it’s always kind of sad to not have at least one straight version in each tea type category. For a while, we had a straight Guayusa that I really liked, but that one’s been discontinued for a while too…

Not a ton to say about this one as it’s a very classic tasting greener yerba mate. Fans of straight mate will, I’m sure, love this one and also it’s super approachable for people looking to get into straight mate for the first time.

Full transparency, I wrote the tasting notes that are used on the website to describe the tea (as I now do with all new tea releases) so I obviously agree with them. Basically, I think this tea has lush notes of fresh dew and sweet grass with a subtle earthy undertone. IMO very fresh and really reminiscent of that “rain forest taste” I associate with mate…

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.

Cold Brew!

I have to be in a really particular mood to reach for this tea, but even with several years of age on the leaf it still produces that unique “blue whales” candy type of flavour! Mostly blueberry in a light, sweet sort of way with just a hint of citrusy lemongrass. Less lemongrass than you’d think given how prevalent it is visually in the blend.

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.