New Tasting Notes

final brew!
this infusion is pretty inoffensive; would I hate it if someone handed it to me? no; would I run to add this to my cart? no as well; but if I find this at a good discount, or if I’m running low on herbal blends, this would make its way to my home once more
not only that, it’s a good tea for when you have guests over and don’t really know what they typically like — in Portugal, we always serve lemonbalm; this is close enough to be a crowd pleaser, but different enough for people to notice
(kind of like wearing really flashy socks and long skirts, it looks the same, but if the wind blows a certain way, there’s something different there)

TTB sample! I don’t think this tea matches its name very well. It’s not spiced enough for me to consider it a chai. It’s a little fruity, but not super orangey specifically. I find this one to be overall pretty average and muted in flavor.

Sipdown! (1 | 130)

Woo, finished off one of my oldest teas! And a nice one, too. By now the spices are quite mellow, but still enjoy the combination of the toasty hojicha with the earthy ginger and aromatic cardamom. I don’t really notice the cacao, but not sure I ever did tbh. Clove is there in the background.

Not sure I would reorder, just because I could easily make a hoji-chai myself, and this didn’t knock my socks off. I do love their Morning Light, however…

Another beautiful Ceylon from House of Tea in Toronto. The leaves are dark, twisty, gorgeous with no broken pieces. Sweet and bright, with lots of flavor, this has become one of my favorite Ceylons. I’ve been enjoying it as a breakfast tea with a little bit of evaporated milk, and with the addition of just a half teaspoon of sugar or so, it approximates the flavor of a Japanese milk tea surprisingly well. Bonus!

#OctoberTeas2024 Day 2 – “Something Green”

Forgot to post about this yesterday, oops lol. I went for double green, with green tea AND green chile! The regular Green Chile Biscochito is a classic from OBTC, but this version is from my fall subscription box and has their Horchata Rooibos blended in. I love how they blend their own teas together, it’s so interesting and I’m sure it helps a lot with having variety in the subscription year after year.

Anyway, this one is delicious for fall. I don’t taste much of the green chile, which is a shame, but the combination of the anise with the cinnamon and vanilla of the rooibos really pushes the cookie aspect and results in such a cozy, gently spiced brew with a soft licorice note. And since it’s only half red rooibos, it doesn’t taste too rooibos-y for me. Win-win! :)

Cold Brew!

Drank this one last night and it just had such a pleasantly bright and fresh pucker to it. Lemongrass forward but with elements of hibiscus, berries, and oranges to it as well. Like a less thick/sweet and more citrus forward fruit punch, in some ways. I always wish for a little more lemon with this tea to just nail the lemonade namesake but it’s such a good tasting tea even without!

Sipdown (2652)!

Finally finished off this very old advent tin, so I guess now to select another one to drink down at a snail’s pace. This was an okay cup though. Really, really mineral but also strong bread notes? Like if you mixed notes of rye or carraway bread with licking rocks and also perhaps a little bit of a light, floral tasting linden honey?

I don’t mind it and I think it’s one of the better straight teas I’ve had from Vahdam but also I’ve had much, much better oolongs from other companies and I’m not a super big fan of Vahdam as a company (for several reasons) so I’m happy to have one less tea from them in my stash and just move on.

Sweet, sour, tangy… All of the flavour that make this feel like liquid sunshine. I’d probably best describe it as lemon forward in either a sherbet or lemonade type of way but heavily mixed with a tangy pineapple hard candy kind of taste. Like if pineapple was a Jolly Rancher flavour, I suppose? Definitely enjoying this blend a lot of drinking through it quicker than I’d expected to.

A soft sweetness with a slightly green edge. Very nutty in a wonderfully baked, gentle way with clear notes of maple-tinged walnuts and brown butter. Definitely sold me on the walnut sugar cookie vibes! Not a tea I crave often, but when you want walnut this blend certainly delivers.

Just a touch over brewed on my part which brought forward a little of the more spinach-y and oceanic notes of the sencha, but ultiamtely was still very enjoyable with that sweet and creamy Japanese/white apple flavour. Like a fuji apple, I guess? Subtle floral undertone too. Even with the overbrewing I found myself wishing I had made a larger mug of it.

Sipdown (2653)!

Finished this one off earlier in the week. It’s nothing to write home about as far as rooibos based vanilla blends go, but it’s also pretty solid too. Definitely a rich, cream-forward vanilla flavour with hints of caramel in the undertones. Technically not super “authentic” vanilla but more that custard or creme anglais note that a lot of people associate with vanilla thanks to things like ice cream.

I kind of despise the name of this, but I get that it comes from the fact it’s a blend of red and green rooibos as the base. I think incorporating the green rooibos was nice as it adds a bit of a lighter, fresher element for the richness to pop against. You still get the body and depth of the red rooibos though so it’s not thin feeling.

Cold Brew!

Hate to say it, but I think every time I drink this tea I fall just a little bit out of love with it. The green tea was pretty strong in this brew and it just had that sort of lawn clipping-esque grassy note that is very hard for me personally. I also just felt like the lemonade and blue raspberry notes were a little lacking. Thin and just surface level sweet in that kind of fake-y way that stevia often comes across as. I just wanted more intensity in sweetness and acidity/tang.

A few days ago someone in the office offered to make a Tim Horton’s run for everyone and though I’m not a coffee person I do have a little bit of a soft spot for Timmie’s white hot chocolate so I requested one of those…

When she got back with everyone’s orders I decided to whisk up a bit of matcha concentrate and add it into the white chocolate. Holy fuck did that make for a very, very rich and sweet drink. It was delicious though. Pistachio and white chocolate is a very lovely, indulgent combination. Very European feeling too, if that makes any sense at all? Like I could see myself sipping a more upscale version of that combination in Italy. So good!

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 had a bit of a stressful day today so it was nice to be able to come home to this pre-strained cold brew and just kind of wind down with a refreshing tea and the routine of writing tasting notes. Nice and predictable.

This blend starts off very bright and tart with a lot of upfront hibiscus. The liquor is super thick and syrup which is just brilliant for the jammy and floral notes of elderberries and elderflowers. It really tastes like homemade elderberry syrup or jam. The kind that was 100% done stovetop by a grandparent or kooky aunt or something. I always enjoy this tea – it just fits virtually any mood.

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.

Gongfu!

This ripe pu’erh is really full-bodied, with a thick and syrupy feeling mouthfeel. The top notes are surprisingly sweet with a really nice balance of soft, somewhat woody bamboo and just a really clean earthiness. I get undertones of steamed milk, white rice, and molasses as well, which add quite a lot of coziness to this tea session. The bamboo comes back in the finish, with a very subtle herby quality. I feel like this is the type of pu’erh that would make a fantastic base for a milk tea or boba, as slightly blasphemous as that sort of feels. Maybe if you simmered the spent leaves from the end of a session on the stovetop for a long time (like laochatuo) to make a concentrate…

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DAeY75yyYgp/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chKy6KLeokA

Gongfu!

Honestly, not totally sure how I feel about this one. In general, I have absolutely nothing against “border pu’erh” and I’ve had some truly exceptional sheng and shou that were also grown in Laos but processed in Yunnan, like this tea. As I’ve said in the past with tea grown on the border, the soil and plants don’t really know the difference between what’s on one side of a man-made border or not…

It’s truly just the taste of this shou that’s leaving me a little pensive feeling. The liquor is so thick, coating, and smooth – truly deserving of the black velvet namesake. I get a lot of wet, earthy and woodsy flavours from the infusions but also a strange sort of fruitiness. Lots of somewhat under ripe, green banana notes which is a flavour I don’t come across often in a general sense but that does pop up quite a lot for me in Yiwu ripe pu’erh productions. I don’t think that’s a coincidence since BLT mentions that the varietal of tea tree used for this tea can also be found in Yiwu. It’s sort of really just the finish that I’m unsure of. It’s kind of waxy tasting and floral in a really perfume-y and lingering way. It not necessarily that I find it unpleasant, just different in a bit of an unsettling way. Probably something I will need to try a few more times to make my mind up about.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DAjA4_XOHfX/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teRXT-IT-Dk

Gongfu Sipdown (2654)!

It’s honestly taken me quite a while to sip this one down despite only having about twenty-five grams or so to drink through. I adore teas that are either rose scented and flavored or, like this tea, are just naturally very rosey tasting, but I’m truthfully not a very big fan of a lot of dancong oolongs and this was an especially fickle and temperamental one to brew up. This session was okay, with quite a lot of heady floral aromatics and a more mineral and slightly roasty and nutty finish. But even still, there was the odd steep where just a second or two of extra time gave the infusion an unpleasantly harsh edge. I’m happy to have experienced and been challenged by this tea, but I won’t particularly miss it.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DAg2joEyWPQ/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy5ZsHpxmvs

Gongfu!

Such a fantastically nuanced and flavourful scented tea with notes of oak, rye, bourbon vanilla, grilled peaches, and just a bit of sweetgrass. Basically, everything you would want and expect from a whiskey scented tea. And just so, so wicked smooth. I’ve never had a bad tea from Volition, but this one is definitely cream of the crop. Maybe only beaten by the gin barrel infused white tea, but the vibes are so different between the two that it makes it hard to compare…

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DAlbfzwu_4m/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc4Z6PUZDvw

Grandpa Style!

This tea works really, really well brewed in this way. It’s quite full-bodied but slick and syrupy with a really overall sweet profile. W2T describes it as cotton candy-like in style, and while I agree there’s definitely a sort of caramelized or burnt sugar quality I find the sweetness a bit too dense and dark to make me think of spun sugar. More in the vein of brown sugar with undertones of malt, dates, fig cookies, prunes, bittersweet baker’s chocolate, and just a smidge of pomegranate molasses. Yeah, just a very approachable sweet and brown sort of vibe!!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/DAoxDoJOk-o/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlIuOZBKNoc

#mugtober

Today’s challenge theme was green/matcha – lots of options to riff on there. Green the colour, green tea, fruits that are green, and so forth. I went with matcha though because I had this as my first tea of the day and I thought I could use the little energy bump.

I’m not really a fan of this Blume powder when had straight, but to be fair that’s not the way it’s intended to be drank. It’s a pretty solid latte, though! Very, very buttery and fatty from the powdered coconut in the mix. It definitely has that rich, creamy sweetness of coconut but there’s also something that really just makes me think of coconut oil too. Not necessarily in a bad way. It’s almost like the matcha equivalent of a bullet coffee.

The matcha itself is smooth and umami with a fresh, grassyness to it. I despite the taste of moringa, but it’s well masked in this tea. Just sort of subtly amps up the veg of the matcha and some of those umami flavours. Milk, especially, helps mask it.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nBVrTC7fTY

Made myself a very strongly steeped mug of this one while working in the lab today and it was nice. Definitely very malty and just a little bit bitter/astringent but the hint of sweetness from the date crystals helped take some of that edge off. Probably would have been better with a bit of milk, but alas no milk in the lab kitchen this week.

Rediscovering these delicious TRES cultivars grown in Taiwan. This time I brewed 2.5g of Brandy Oolong / Ruby 18 / Red Jade in 8oz 90°C spring water. Ditto everything I wrote on it 4 yr ago. Still rates as 100 and is my #1 favorite tea. Worth every penny. ’Nuff said.

Found a tiny bit of this one in my work bag. I honestly don’t remember trying it but it looks like the old subscription packaging (I really miss it). I really liked this blend, the fennel is really nice. It’s best with a splash of milk in my humble opinion but I also liked it plain. Wish I had more than just one cups worth… will be looking for more.