New Tasting Notes
I have been having reflux issues big time lately so no night snacking for a while for me. I knew the reflux was going to make me hoarse, and sure enough Alexa asked me to confirm who I was this morning when I added something to the shopping list.
I don’t really like red rooibos but I decided to try this since I have had a couple of flavored ones that were okay. (I love flavored green rooibos.) surely Dammann would do a good job.
I think they did, too. I would not go out and buy this, but if I didn’t have anything else caffeine free to drink, I wouldn’t be crushed. The cherry cough syrup, woody red rooibos flavor is there, but the type of citrus flavors they put with it slide in there and make them more palatable. It is fresh and bright and would probably be pretty good iced.
I am glad I tried it, even if I wouldn’t seek it out!
My apologies to Canadian Steepsterites – I honestly had not known about the hundreds of wildfires you’re dealing with until the smoke started wafting its way down the east coast. So, first and foremost, sending wishes for your health and safety and that of your loved ones!
Even with the windows closed and a filter on, the smoke is getting notably stronger, so hot tea doesn’t feel particularly desirable at the moment. Thankfully, I had this cold brew going in the fridge. I’m not sure whether I’ve ever cold-brewed it before, but it works well. Three teabags in a large pitcher turned out to be the right ratio for a roasty, almost toasted buckwheat-esque tea with a delicate pineapple flavor.
The almond and orange and rooibos somehow mix perfectly in this tea – it’s quite delicious! I’m drinking it cold, and it’s really so refreshing and perfectly blended. The second time I had this, it was a lot more orangey than the first, which was still nice, but I did miss that awesome almond flavor. The cold resteep of this is almost as strong as the first. I’ve finished my 2 oz now, each steep different from the last, but all nice.
I can not believe this was listed in my cupboard. I was so proud of getting a sipdown this morning and now I had to add a tea that I have literally owned for years.
For some reason I bought a one pound bag of this many years ago. I tend to avoid mint teas so why I did that is anyone’s guess. Maybe I thought I would make a habit of drinking it at night, or I just wanted to make mouse deterrent bags.
Anyway, here we are years later and still a big bag. I decided to try it as a syrup to add to Perrier for fizzy lunch drinks. I think we will knock it out this way this summer. It was really good even though it is old. I did add just a touch of vanilla to make it a little more interesting but it was fine as it was, too.
Now to work on the one pound bag of lavender that I bought around the same time. That one is half empty, though, because I enjoy making lavender syrup for lavender sodas!
Next time around, I will buy the small tin.
TeaTiff Traveling Tea Box | No. 36
This had such a full, rich aroma as a dry blend, but tasting it now all of that sort of vanishes into this thin and tangy brew. There is a very light chocolate flavor, nothing like how chocolaty it smelled in the pouch though. It’s really a bit of a letdown. I’m honestly not sure I’ll finish this cup.
Flavors: Chocolate, Tangy, Thin
Preparation
I ran across Austin’s Tea while looking around for a shiboridashi on Memorial Day. Doesn’t look like they’ve made it into Steepster yet, so this is exciting. They have a small but thoughtfully-curated selection on their website, and I am excited to see what they’re about.
I’m not going to do this gyokuro justice at the moment, but I did note pronounced florality, particularly juxtaposed against the one I drank immediately before it — a note I was not expecting but found positively delightful.
Preparation
I could have sworn I saw someone review this as their “favorite gyokuro ever," somewhat recently, prompting me to order a sample… but that review is clearly not here, and I can’t find whatever it is I think I remember. Maybe it was not on Steepster. Maybe it was another tea and I ended up in a rabbit hole and came out with some gyokuro. It’s all possible.
I just recently saw a picture in my phone that unequivocally disagreed with a memory I had stored. It was a license plate — bold, clear letters on a stark white backdrop (or maybe it was black, ha). Not ambiguous. I would have bet money it held a different word. Brains are so weird. Trust no one’s neurons, not even your own.
Anyway. This is nice. Super vegetal, some lemony notes, umami. I don’t expect it will be my Favrit Gyo Evar once I start tripping through the endless sea of same, but a good introduction and a lovely sesh to come home to this morning.
Preparation
Martin’s birthday countdown AKA Your Daily Tea Cup Advent Calendar
Day 6
Using quinoa in a tea blend is interesting and not my first experience with it. I remember that some B&B blend had it before.
Anyway, I feel that green rooibos would suit this tea better than green tea base. It’s standard hay-like green tea and quite a lot hidden between quinoa, whichtastes a bit like genmai and I didn’t had enough of cocoa beans in; so it was pretty much genmaicha, IMO. With quinoa instead of rice.
Preparation
TeaTiff Traveling Tea Box | No. 35
I wasn’t expecting too much from this tea, but I was pleasantly surprised. It has a nice dark chocolate flavor and is adequately strong for a morning tea.
Thanks to Skysamurai for sharing!
Flavors: Dark Chocolate
Preparation
Cold Brew!
Picked this one up from the Fairmont Empress during our visit there. I hadn’t realized that the hotel had sort of “rebranded” their tea selection to this new ‘Lot 35’ marketing but I kind of like it better – it’s still sort of classy but much more modern.
When I saw the ingredients for this I knew exactly what tea it was – I’ve purchased this tea from several other companies in the past, since it’s a catalog blend from a more infamous wholesaler. I love the punchy, sweet mix of fruit notes: cherry, strawberry, orange and tomato with just a bit of cooling cucumber finish. In general I tried to only but teas that were new to me this trip, but I caved on got a tin of this too since I knew how low my tin of this was getting from the last company I purchased it from.
This was my first cold brew after getting back from vacation, and it was just a delight!
I did not know this buying and rebranding was a thing. But of course it is!
There’s some pretty infamous catalog teas but generally speaking it’s one of those weird “industry secrets” that is guarded by some but also openly shared by others. Nothing wrong with catalog/rebranding IMO – not everyone has the knowledge or capital for tea blending – it requires you, generally, to manage a lot of raw materials which can be a nightmare. And catalog blends are generally designed in a way that’s the most “mass appealing” – basically, stylistically safe and with really commercial flavour profiles/ingredients. It’s a double edged sword – you’re probably gonna appeal to the most palates by sticking with simple and familiar, but there’s rarely anything innovative or specialized offered so some people find catalog boring/plain.
Also, once you start to be able to pick up the catalog blends it kind of shatters some of the magic of believing the companies you’re buying from are blending everything in house (local, indie, and even larger and more corporate). Does let you shop a little more competitively, though! And can make it easier to restock favourite catalog teas – like me and this blend ;)
Also for places like Fairmont, which is a hotel, it’s just not really practical for them to be doing their own R&D or blending and given a lot of establishments like this don’t actually sell the tea (Fairmont is a bit of an exception) outside of their tea or dining service it wouldn’t make sense in a lot of cases for them to pay a wholesaler to create a custom tea for them at the quantity they’d probably be buying yearly. Just too expensive. So, marketing magic it is ahaha.
Yeah, that is quite interesting — thanks for some education on the topic. Makes me wonder how many times I’ve had identical teas sitting in two different containers, hehe.
As I literally said just tonight, I love getting to taste all the different ways tea companies twist and play with the established expectations surrounding classic tea blends, like Earl Grey. So when AJ shared this was one of their newer blends it IMMEDIATELY went on my to purchase list!
After I had unpacked on Friday morning, this ended up being the first tea from my large trip haul that I steeped up – the curiosity was too strong, and an EG on a Friday morning was just speaking to me conceptually. Yuzu is really interesting to me as an addition to EG for a few reasons – it’s been a pretty trendy flavour the last few years as part of a wave of Asian inspired flavours becoming more popular within North America. This is in tandem to many other trends, like a drive towards citrusy or tropical notes as people both clamour for global escapism post pandemic and seek out tastes that convey “happiness” through their brightness or acidity. Though I think Yuzu, in particular, is sort of cresting in the trend curve right now…
So for all of those reasons, it’s neat to see a more ‘Asian flavour’ with this modern trend backing it up coupled with something so classic and grounded in British tea drinking culture. Then, from a culinary side, it just makes a world of sense to me that these two citruses (Yuzu and Bergamot) would work so well together as both are highly aromatic with a lot of essential oil pay off and such depth to their floral yet zesty kind of profiles. True to my expectations, it does work reaaaallllyyyy well side by side. The citrus is lively on the palate but grounded due to those denser (and, in the case of the yuzu, almost peppery) and somewhat pithy notes. Still, there’s brightness to the top of each sip that keeps the cup from feeling sullen.
I’ve also tried AJ’s Royal Grey, which I like a lot too, but this one takes the cake for me. I just thought it was so impressively well balanced while really honoring both of these main flavours. Murchie’s is one of those companies that could probably put out a dozen EG teas in a year without their core customer base growing tired of them, so I’m really intrigued to see whatever spin on an EG AJ comes up with next!
There’s something very “grounding” about Earl Grey variations. You could make a very wild mix of interesting flavours and have it seem just a little too ‘out there’ to work, but if you tack ‘Grey’ on the end, it brings it more down to earth; it’s suddenly ‘comfortable and familiar, but with a modern twist’.
Bergamot in general I feel rounds out other fruit flavours well. I call it a very ‘bassy’ citrus.
Cold Brew!
Because tradition commands it I saved one last tea bag to make on my flight home. This time I made cold brew though because I wasn’t feeling something hot after being stuffed in the airport for an extended amount of time due to flight delays.
I must have been really thirsty because I slurped down this strawberry jello/kool aid tasting infusion in less than three large gulps before going back to watching Handmaid’s Tale on the dinky little back of seat screen.
This was the last tea I drank in our Victoria Air B&B – we just took the last night very easy because we had to pack and clean up in the morning, catch the ferry back to Vancouver and then fly out that afternoon.
We ordered in Indian food, which was delicious though weird with this particular tea, and watched reruns of Bones and it was just a pleasantly low key way to say goodbye to our time in Victoria.
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.
