New Tasting Notes
Stash Advent Calendar 2025 – Day 16
Holiday Island Escape
A pineapple and mango-flavored green tea. It’s pretty much what I would expect, having tried many teas of this type (tropical green seems to be a very common combination). The pineapple is the stronger of the two flavors, but the mango is there to lend sweetness and a ripe quality. The green tea is very ho-hum, as you might expect – very haylike and dry grassy. Still, a serviceable cup.
Rating: 70
Flavors: Dry Grass, Earthy, Fruity, Grassy, Hay, Juicy, Mango, Pineapple, Sweet, Tangy, Tropical
Preparation
This had a good strong flavor but wasn’t too bitter even with my usual brewing method of “get it brewing and drink it when I have a spare moment and remember that I made tea.”. I did add more hot water to the bottom half of the mug as it was getting a little bitter as I drank it down. The extra water tempered the bitterness and brought out lovely hints of plums and strawberries.
Sipdown
This wasn’t in my cupboard, perhaps because I bought it mostly for Ashman to enjoy since he is a Darjeeling fan. So even though it is a sipdown, my numbers are unchanged. That’s a bit disappointing, like making a list, completing a task, and findout out that task wasn’t written down.
This tea is mild enough to escape your attention if you have it with food. I wanted to give it a fair shake since it was a second flush Margaret’s Hope that first turned me on to Darjeeling. My first experience with Darjeeling was bad because I made it like any old black tea and it was one that needed tenderness.
Once I focused on the tea, I found this very enjoyable. It doesn’t pop with food, but it is great if you will pay attention. It has a quiet beauty that you appreciate more if you take time to be mindful as you drink it.
It has light to medium body, layers of medium to high notes, and none of the searing tartness of my first ever Darjeeling. I would call it quite drinkable, lovely, worthy of a repurchase if Ashman feels that he enjoyed it as much as his usual fare.
This is the type of tea that really benefits from a gong fu session. My first session I infused it western style and it seemed to be lacking. Even with a longer steep, something in the was it tasted just made it seem like the tea was sad.
Now with gong fu the story flips. A longer steep time reveals the burnt skin of a sweet potato. Like someone threw it in the fire along with some others but this one hid itself. Actually that burnt taste is pretty prevalent even with proper steeping time. Other notes of lacquer, cherry wood, and wood pile notes.
Sipdown
I chose this tea for a very special tea time by myself today. A friend’s husband took up pottery making after his recent retirement and today – only the fourth time I have ever seen him, he gave me a matcha bowl and matching teacup that he had made just for me, in one of my favorite colors and with careful attention to making the bowl deep enough for whisking and wide enough to get a good froth. (He lived in Japan for three years and is familiar with tea ceremonies even though he is more of a coffee drinker.)
I was STUNNED at such an amazing handmade gift! I wanted the inaugural tea to be special so I chose this matcha that is ground to order at the tea shop that sells it. I sent photos of the paste in the bowl and how beautiful the deep green matcha paste looked against the swirls of glaze, then another of the froth after whisking, one of the tea poured into the matching cup, and one of the smattering of bubbles left in the bottom of the cup after drinking the tea, which was a special gift from Youngest.
The tea itself is smooth and so easy to drink that it was gone before I knew it. Smooth and rich, lightly earthy.
This Japan-inspired twist on an Earl Grey is brand new!
We actually debuted this EG at the Toronto Tea Festival this past weekend, but it’s now live in store and online as well. It was absolutely incredible to get such a positive reception to it at the festival and to see so much live feedback and first impressions. I live for that kind of thing!
I’ve talked about it before, but getting to work on reinvented classics of the tea world, like Earl Grey or chai blends, at some of my all time favourite development projects. Putting your own stamp on something so iconic is really rewarding, and I also really like the creative challenge of having a baseline profile that needs to be honored while also made to be unique…
In this case, we wanted to play with the flavours and ingredients of Japan in a way that captured the bright, lively nature of Tokyo. Think the nightlight of shinjuki with neon lights dancing on the skyline. Fresh, full of life, and just a bit ethereal. To do that we took the standard style of black tea that would normally be used in an Earl Grey and combined that with Japanese Sencha to give this full-bodied base a bit of a fresher, ever-so-slightly green edge to mellow it out.
Then, we took the classic bergamot and doubled down on the zesty aromatics of the citrus by adding yuzu and lime. Really, though, the yuzu is the star here. It’s very citrusy and bright in a way that twinkles across the palate. I was talking a lot to people about this tea over the tea festival, and I think the thing that really resonated with people on a flavour level was how the yuzu added complexity to the cup while also really emphasizing the bergamot as well. It’s the type of EG I would maybe recommend to someone who likes a stronger amount of bergamot oil in their EG or who is more inclined to chose a classic EG blend over something like a Cream of Earl Grey. Also, very people familiar specifically with DT’s Earl Grey blends, I think this one would resonate particularly well with fans of Countess of Seville or older, retired blends like Blood Orange Earl Grey.
Also, I am not typically the kind of person who cold brews or ices their Earl Grey, but this one is actually quite refreshing that way. You could even make it as an iced latte (it doesn’t actually curdle) for a sort of “Tokyo Fog” vibe, similar to a London Fog. Though, my favourite way to elevate it is actually wish a generous splash of lemonade.
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!
It’s been so long since I last had this blend that I’d totally forgotten just how strong the notes of sweet candy-like strawberry are. I think I did know that was a key flavour, but in my head this was much more tropical than what I’m getting right now. To be fair, I can clearly taste tangy notes of sweet, ripe passionfruit. It’s just secondary to those bright, ruby red strawberry flavours that dance in the top notes of the sip.
Once my expectations were realigned to what was in my cup (well, tumbler), this was a delightfully refreshing brew though!
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.
Sipdown (3160)!
Finished off the last of this one earlier in the week while at work. Definitely bright, sweet and jammy with that more orange-feeling (the colour, not the fruit) note of stonefruit jam. Apricot perhaps only because I know that to be the inspiration, but definitely stonefruit even if not the most clear one. The finish is very, very sweet and lingering but there’s also a hint of ginger and spice that walks it back a step or two.
I liked this blend well enough, but it’s not the most memorable to me though I’ve had waves where I felt more passionately about it. It’s nice to get in the sipdown, though.
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.
From the ingredient, visual of the dry leaf, to even the name… it’s pretty obvious this is a blatant recreation of DT’s now discontinued Turmeric Glow blend from a few years back. I always have really mixed feelings about obvious dupes like this. I know imitation is supposed to be flattering, but as someone who works in product development I have to say that I don’t generally feel all that flattered when I see stuff like this & I try to avoid it in my own work. Even if you’re inspired by another tea company, put your own stamp on it. Twist it. Reimagine the concept in your own style. This? This is systematic…
But, that said, it tastes good. Fresh with the clean sweetness of carrot and ripe, golden tropical pineapples balanced by the heat and earthiness of turmeric and ginger. I feel grounded when I sip on this, and given that DT’s Turmeric Glow isn’t around anymore, maybe I even feel just a bit grateful to now have another way to drink it!?
It’s a wave of mixed feeling.
Just as usucha!
At first I wasn’t really enjoying the yunomi of this matcha that I’d made for myself. The top notes were very vegetal (tomato vine) and oceanic in a way that speaks a lot less to my tastes, though I can recognize that the quality was actually very good. It grew on me over time though, with more of the sweet finishing notes lingering after each sip. A mix of white chocolate and macadamia that made those top umami notes a bit more pleasantly balanced to my palate.
Cold Brew!
I’m always so deeply skeptical when I see and taste blends from Lemon Lily like this that don’t list flavouring in the ingredients. Like, it’s not that this was a strongly flavoured blend. It was actually quite fresh and mellow with notes of smooth, ripe strawberries and light and airy freshly whipped cream and vanilla. Quite tasty, and good at conveying decadence without sweetness.
It’s just that I’ve tasted and worked on a great number of flavouring-free blends and I’ve yet to see one that is able to convey a strawberry flavour like this purely using freeze-dried strawberry pieces. Unless you’re using quite a lot of them, freeze-dried fruit is typically pretty tasteless and just for visuals. If you are getting a taste, it’s often that os stale fruit. This is impressive, and just… interesting.
To call this an Earl Grey feels like a bit of a stretch because the strongest flavour other than the full-bodied, brisk black tea is the sweet, mouth-coating note of spearmint. Very fresh and cooling, and pleasantly balanced with the tea base. I don’t taste a whole lot of bergamot at all here, even though I do get a slightly citrusy note of lemon. It bet that mint and lemon combo would be quite good iced or cold brewed. It was a very, very nice cup of tea but just more of a mint blend to me overall.
Gongfu!
This is the cultivar of Japanese black tea that I’m most familiar with, and I think this one is a really excellent representation of the tasting notes I most attribute to it. Full-bodied and brisk, with a lot of malty flavour balanced by peach skins and crisp, clean notes of zesty lemon peel and pith. It has an undertone that I find really autumnal and warming, evoking imagery of red and orange fallen leaves at the change of seasons. Super approachable, and a great entry point for anyone curious about Japanese black teas!!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DUZH3i9ks82/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz4_7adTrHU
Gongfu!
Though I’ve had this cultivar of wakocha (aka Japanese black tea) a few times, it’s not one I’m well-versed in. This is definitely the sweetest and smoothest I’ve sampled, though, with notes of scratch-made caramel, yeasted doughnuts, honey-glazed Hawaiian sweet rolls, and baked sweet potatoes with a syrupy, fragrant floral finish that lingers long after each steep. I would have loved to sit with this tea all morning, but even though that wasn’t possible, I’m glad to have squeezed the session into the start of my day.
Kawagiri had so many interesting Japanese teas at the TO Tea Fest this past weekend, but I’m really excited to keep sipping my way through the black tea sampler I’ve picked up. It has some familiar cultivars, but also a couple I’m stoked to get to steep up for the first time!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DUWnwFKErNL/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP9HAciKCvA
Thermos brewed!
I love sweeter notes in my black teas, and this one is so appropriately named. Very full-bodied with a round, mouth-coating liquor practically dripping with rich, golden notes of honey that are complimented by heavy floral undertones, notes of milk chocolate, and the brightness of different red fruit jams. Especially raspberry. It’s so incredibly smooth, and was just a very lovely introduction to Mio Teas!
Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/DUbnTNwkj_p/
I tried to be really, really picky about how much teaware made it home with me from Toronto Tea Festival this past weekend, but orange is my favourite colour and it’s also sooooo hard to find such vibrant orange teaware so I had to sneak this one in…
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vwPSiK3fsY
