Featured & New Tasting Notes
Neighbors had their 4th on the 3rd last night, which meant a late bedtime waiting for the pyrotechnics finale (I don’t mind the ones that go BOOM, but the ones that shriek make me nuts). Heavy-handed caffeine, cold, is the order of the day while I prep for VBS next week. (Fifteen cootie catchers folded; next project is origami hopping frogs. Wanna help?)
Tejava stays my favorite pre-bottled unsweet tea. Dark and strong without obnoxious citric acid. I never get the kick in the pants I need from iced tea, no matter how beefy, but this one at least provides a nice forceful nudge.
You know I would be there if I were closer!
Making hopping paper fronts sounds fun!
They never hop far or straight, so when you race them, you’ve got kids crawling on their hands and knees all willy-nilly trying to get them aimed toward the finish line. Organized chaos.
Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – July 2025 Tea #1 -July 3 – Air Conditioning Appreciation Day – drink a cold tea
oh goodie — I popped a hot tea in the fridge this morning to have later when it’s cold, without even remembering that was the prompt for today. :) And that tea happens to be this one. Such a pleasant tea to have cold. It’s like the flavor is simply sweet, without any sweeteners. On a strong base. I have a couple steep sessions left with this and then I will miss it.
Sipdown. I didn’t take good notes while drinking this, but it isn’t my favorite 52teas blend. Rum is the dominant flavor here, and I do enjoy the taste of rum, but somehow it didn’t seem quite right. Maybe a stronger base, or the addition of some vanilla, chocolate, and/or cinnamon flavor, would have given the blend a bit more balance. Not terrible by any means, there are just other 52teas blends I enjoy more.
After touring Arundel Castle, we found this tea shop while walking around the town. They say they make their own teas, so I bought almost all their herbal blends. This one is unfortunately not a winner. The fruitiness is just kind of chemically. Combined with the rooibos, it’s just fake and unpleasant. Cold with almond milk is the most palatable way to drink it.
Sounds like a loser! You want fruitiness? Buy a bottle of “Ribena” at a corner market. I love that stuff! Essentially blackcurrent juice drink.
Ha I brought back two pounds of dried black currants because I can’t get them where I live, but I’ve never been a juice or soda fan, so I didn’t try Ribena! Maybe I should next time!
Got a mixed package for Christmas of the 3 Catspring’s varieties of loose leaf yaupon. This extra teabag was in the box.
I’d be fooled if somebody told me this is a lighter roast houjicha. Hit all the right notes this morning with a summer fog that was sprinkling fine mist on every surface. Mellow and smooth and sweet. Decent caffeine kick to boot.
Will come back to this for tasting note details when I break open the looseleaf :)
This reminds me of the turtle flavor from a few years ago. I taste chocolate and vanilla. It’s high quality and tasty cold with milk and sugar. I definitely prefer how 52teas does chocolate over any other company. It’s very natural. I liked it, though I’ve preferred other similar 52teas blends.
This is supposed to be rhubarb flavor, and I guess I can see that! Combined with the woodiness of the rooibos, it’s not my favorite, but it’s okay cold! I became obsessed with rhubarb & custard candies, so now I buy every rhubarb thing I see, just chasing that flavor ha.
I had this twice cold, and it sadly never worked for me. The first time, it was much too mild. The second time, it was almost bitter, but the main flavor was the green tea with not too much other flavor shining through. I love white chocolate, and I sadly didn’t taste any here. There was a hint of fruitiness, but everything needed to be stronger.
My children told my mother to gift me some teas for my birthday. She gave me a pretty new tea pot and creamer with a gift box of 9 types of tea from this company. My guess is she picked them up together at on of the TJMaxx shops.
Grabbed my mug this morning and put the kettle on to boil. The tea bags appear to have finely ground powder in them. I steeped for about 5 minutes while putting together my breakfast, perhaps I could have let it sit a bit longer to increase the flavors. However, this is definitely the type of tea my mom would drink. Its a straightforward black tea with a hint of orange and clove. Nothing fancy and not too strong but absolutely ok.
Flavors: Clove, Orange
Preparation
The purple color is so lovely! The flavor is pretty light, requiring extra powder. The main flavor I taste is lavender, which is really nice. There’s a bit of something else like fruitiness, but I wouldn’t say blueberry specifically, and there’s definitely no macaron. I enjoy having a few herbal powders around for when I don’t have a lot of time, but I don’t think this is ultimately one I would repurchase.
I haven’t explored any instant herbals. Do you have any recommendations?
I’ve tried a few from DavidsTEA that are decent, but not notable enough to recommend. I had some awful ones from T2 ha. I’ll let you know if I find one I love!
There are a couple from Blume that I really love – particularly their Salted Caramel and the Acai Pomegranate from their SuperBelly line.
Ooo I’ll have to check those out – thanks for the recommendation!
I’ll keep in mind what to avoid and what to try! Thanks for the recommendations!
TTB. Laos. I want to go. I want to go to all the tea-producing regions. Side note: Don’t go looking up the tea until after you take a few sips, or their tasting notes will influence what you taste. Nothing quite like yelling PEANUT BUTTER in the middle of a group tasting. I once told a lady (when I was 10) that poi tasted like wallpaper paste. She looked at me incredulously and asked: You’ve eaten wallpaper paste?! Funny how our palates and minds put things together.
Dry Aroma: None. That’s okay. Last of the bag.
Dry appearance is very nice. Dusty. Milk chocolate brown with golden buds.
Flavor: Dark fruits. Woody. Mahogany.
Wet Leaf: I wish there were a better way to describe this note. I sense it in many black teas. Some might say malt, maybe raisin bread.
This is another one that I feel might not quite represent the full tea so I won’t rate it.
TTB. Being an American that is allergic to dairy I am constantly seeing dumb things with dairy in them. When I first came across this bag tucked away amid the many others I immediately dismissed it. “What have they done this time?” Was my first thought. Maybe added butter flavor like they did in that Buffalo sauce. But curiosity got the best of me and I took it back out.
It does have a somewhat buttery aroma once it’s brewed vanilla butter with mint.The flavor is strong with mint but the vanilla finds its way around your palate. It’s quite unique actually… Mint overpowers so much generally that it’s all you taste and while this starts out with mint in your face the vanilla slides up quietly and leaves you with a gentle mouth feel in the after taste that is really quite nice.
That all being said I do grow and sell my own mint. And this mint is a bit stale in comparison
Buttermints are an “old fashioned” hard candy popular throughout the UK, though my understanding is they’re particularly popular in England – though I know them more from the Scottish import store I grew up living near. Think like a buttery toffee flavour mixed with a soft peppermint note.
I’m trying to think of a North American equivalent and, frankly, blanking on one. The only thing coming to mind atm is Rhubarb Custards, which are also a British hard candy.
Anyway, the point being that Twinings is trying to emulate a specific but actually quite common/nostalgic regional flavour. It just so happens to be one that is far less well known (and therefore maybe assumed to be weird) here in North America.
Yup, sounds weird to me. No assumption needed. :-D
Ah!!! Thank you for the insight. I’m a big fan of Japanese foods and such so buttermint doesn’t seem to weird. I’m just glad it doesn’t actually have butter XD
I used to make something called Buttermints at Christmas and I assumed that was what this tea referred to, but I was wrong! They were candies made with butter, confectioner’s sugar, and peppermint oil and they were really just soft mints. They are pressed into molds or can be rolled into “snakes” and then cut into “pillow” shape. I did pillow shape, roses, and leaves. They were delicious! The butter is there just to bind the sugar together and you don’t particularly taste butter.
I use the same molds to make rose-shaped sugar “cubes” for tea parties. You mix regular sugar (not confectioners) with the tiniest bit of water and press it into the molds and then let it dry.
This is more lightly flavored than some DavidsTea matcha blends I’ve had. One time, I made some meringue and put it on top and torched it. That made the cup fun, but the matcha was definitely overshadowed. I never had a cup of this I really loved unfortunately. Possibly the flavor profile is too indistinct to show up clearly. It’s certainly not bad, I just taste matcha and the tiniest desserty something extra.
I saw a Reddit post a few days ago from someone complaining that Twinings had added little mint candies to this tea and, if you’re looking closely at the leaf in the tea bags, I can see where the confusion would maybe be coming from because there are super tiny white balls mixed with the peppermint. This is not candy, though. It’s actually encapsulated flavoring. Basically, a solid version of flavouring that “melts” into your tea as its steeped. Much less common than the liquid flavouring that’s usually added in tea production which then coats all the ingredients.
There are pros/cons to both types. Encapsulated flavouring is much less aromatic, so the dry leaf aroma of a blend could be significantly less impactful if this type is used. That can be a big deal for physical tea shops where customers might be smelling the tea out of tins before purchasing it. However, since this blend comes only in prepackaged boxes that seems like less of a concern. One of the pros to encapsulated flavouring is that it tastes much longer for any sort of flavour loss to happen due to aging. If I had to make a guess, I think that might have been why Twinings made the change? Regardless, to the best of my knowledge there has always been the same flavours in this blend and it’s just the format of them that has been updated.
Anyway, after reading through that thread I decided to pull this out and make myself a mug. It’s just so wickedly smooth and creamy/buttery with such a crisp, cooling peppermint. I love this blend a lot!
Interesting! But for a tea intended to be sold as loose-leaf, I would be apprehensive about the potential for settling-out of the capsules, producing inconsistent flavoring.
Very interesting to learn about encapsulated flavors, I had not heard of them before! I’ll have to keep an eye out to try them in a blend sometime. It doesn’t look like they are available to purchase in the private market yet, or I might be tempted to pick some up!
I guess that’s what the little white spheres are in Whittard’s Rose tea.
Okay, I found the rose tea… and have been reading everyone’s reviews. I’e never encountered these tiny spheres, myself, in any tea product.
http://steepster.com/teas/whittard-of-chelsea/87187-tea-discoveries-english-rose-teabags .
@ashmanra: “doll house potting soil” Ha!!
@gmathis: doesn’t everyone tear open their teabags to get a better look? !!!
I suspect Whittard couldn’t fit all their ingredients into a teabag without them rupturing (and was unwilling to use pyramid sachets). So they tried the encapsulated flavoring, and encountered problems with stratification when portioning. So they ground-down the solids to make everything closer in size, by which time they’d ended up with a very different product. Or maybe Roswell_Strange has further insights as an actual expert. But that’s a good lesson for folks sharing a TTB, to tumble the tin/pouch before withdrawing a sample, to ensure even mixing and representative sampling!
Yes, the Whittards blend uses encapsulated flavouring! But I highly doubt the cut size for the teabags has anything to do with not being able to “fit” all the ingredients into the bags – the way you go about formulating teabags is just typically much more different than loose leaf teas (based on presumed customer use cases). Smaller cut size = predicability/consistency in dosing out the saxheta during manufacturing, which is done by weight, and more surface area for the tea to steep which makes for a faster and stronger infusion, generally.
Also, yes, to TeaEarleGreyHot’s point – one of the disadvantages to encapsulated flavouring in loose leaf tea blends is that it does settle. To be fair, this happens to a lot of ingredients with smaller particle size and greater density, but it is one of the factors of why encapsulated flavouring is just less common in LLT.
**dosing out the sachets
Awesome insights, Ros, thanks!!
Speaking of how components in a blend may segregate in their bag, I today happened across this short youtube video that explains stratification (sometimes called “the brazil nut effect”) perfectly!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DOilqjKEhqo
This has been very educational!
This ended up a little bitter every time despite proper steeping. I like it best sweetened cold without milk. I taste a lot of soda and a bit of cherry. The cola part was tasty, but the bitterness was unfortunate. The cold resteep was nice and soda-like. Maybe I should have cold brewed all the steeps, not just resteeps.
Haven’t had this tea in a long time, but I was craving this particular sort of really sweet, creamy vanilla and white chocolate flavour combination so I went and pulled out my sample. The fresh, bright bergamot was definitely a “bonus” flavour given why I’d decided to drink it, but I did like that lively sort of feeling it added to that really rich, silky French Vanilla note that is so, so divine in this tea. Really nostalgic. I took those first few sips and it was like I was transported right back to working in the stores the week this blend first released, filling that wall tin for the first time and just dying because the aroma of the blend was so mouthwatering as I was opening that kilo bag for the first time…
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.
Hiya, Ros. Has this tea been discontinued? I was unable to find it using the search tool on DavidsTea website, or even by manually scanning thru.
It has – I think the last time we carried it was maybe 2017? It was when I was still working in the stores, so definitely between 2016-2018.
Okay. Shucks.
TTB
Dry Aroma: Lemon, Lemon grass, a hint of ginger
Wet Aroma: Not much there. Kinda spicy. Allspice, nutmeg, and orange.
Flavor: This is the definition of “I drink this when I’m not feeling good” tisane. Medicinal and all the good-for-you flavors. The Hibiscus isn’t quite as strong, so it doesn’t quite take over, but don’t think about it too much.
Smooth mouth feel.
Day 6 of the Tea Thoughts summer countdown box. I enjoyed the other Amba tea earlier in the box, so it was nice to see another. This one is so pretty! It reminds me of the Star Trek Crystalline Entity for some reason, in a good way. I followed the recommendation and cold brewed at room temperature in a martini glass for… maybe three hours or so?
Unsurprisingly, it’s beautiful floating in the glass, with a pale gold-colored brew. 10/10 for aesthetics. Flavor is good too! Delicate notes of honey, peaches, and something floral – orchid maybe, or jasmine, or calla lily? Something in that general area. This would be a great option for a special event where you’re trying to do something a little fancy or elevated as an alcohol alternative.
One of my favorite teas as a Golden Mao Feng from TeaSource, which they stopped carrying. When I saw a Golden Mao Feng from Tea Runners, I had to grab it to see if it lived up to my memory… sadly, it appears Tea Runners no longer has this tea, either. I wonder if I’m just destined to always be chasing after this tea…
I love this tea, it exhibits so many elements of a Chinese black that I love. It brews up to a rich, malty aroma with a slight rosy scent. On the tongue I get strong notes of malt, copper, and leather, with a sweeter flavor of dark chocolate-covered cherries that comes out as the tea cools a bit. Sometimes I get a slight rosy aftertaste. It’s a bit tannic but not bitter… sometimes it is a little strong on my weak GI if I drink it on an empty stomach. The caffeine-hit is substantial, too.
This will be missed when I finish up the bag!
Flavors: Astringent, Cherry, Copper, Dark Chocolate, Floral, Leather, Malt, Rose
Preparation
TTB: Can I be honest? I hate it when companies use natural or artificial flavor unless they give specifics. It makes it different for those of us with allergies, and honestly, it just shows a lack of transparency.
Dry Aroma: Subtle notes of bergamot and floral notes.
Initial Steeping aroma: More jasmine is coming out now. Not intensely, but enough to give you a smile. Jasmine reminds me of Hawai’i.
Wet tea bag aroma: Nice woody notes with hints of jasmine.
Flavor: Not as appealing as the aroma was. Very little jasmine. No bergamot. Just some nice woody tones. Would probably be nice when some milk would be added but not too much as this one is not that brisk.
I agree with you 100% about those natural or artificial flavoring! Transparency should be paramount in this industry!
It’s definitely a difficult topic. Even those who are better at it still have issues. For example, I recently interviewed the lady who runs Voiltion Tea. For the most part her company is very transparent, but yesterday I ran into an issue with one of her products. It’s called mocha. The precursor to matcha. The problem is a true mocha is not shaded but theirs is…
Hmmm. My understanding is that “shading” the tea leaves for Mo Cha production was a Japanese innovation, when introducing tea to Japan. (I presume “shading” in this context means blocking direct sunlight from falling on the plants, for a period before harvest, to stimulate chlorophyll production thus creating a more vibrant green color.) So it sounds like in your opinion “true Ma Cha” utilises only the original Chinese method, yes? If I’m understanding it correctly, I’m not sure I’d consider that an issue of ingredient transparency, but rather of proprietary process. Perhaps you can illuminate further, if I’m missing something? [see what I did there ;-) ]
Flavouring is very complicated, especially as it pertain to allergens. With the exception of very rare conditions (like some auto-immune disorders), the average person with an allergy is reacting to the protein in food product. Protein is incredibly uncommon as part of what is extracted and present in flavouring. So, if you’re allergic to strawberries you can almost certainly consume strawberry flavouring – natural or otherwise. That’s a big part of why companies don’t have to specify the flavouring type on their packaging beyond whether it’s organic, natural, natural identical (specifically used in Europe as a flavouring designator), WONF, or artificial.
There are flavourings derived from natural sources that are priority allergens. For example, I’ve worked with a natural roasted peanut flavouring. From a food safety/regulation perspective this ingredient did not have to bear any allergen warnings on the product packaging because of the production process of the flavouring. I’ve also seen flavouring where this is not true and the final product does carry either a contains or may contain allergen statement because the protein that triggers an allergic reaction is present in flavouring following production.
Not necessarily advocating for or against listing the flavouring types. From my perspective (biased working in the industry, obviously) there are definitely pros/cons either way. Sometimes specific flavours are used to give the impression of other flavours (ex. peach flavouring is a common inclusion in rose flavoured products) – if you listed the flavouring types you might break that flavour illusion, though. Popcorn flavouring also incredibly common in pastry/bakery blends – but most customers would be confused/concerned seeing popcorn flavouring as a component of their danish or apple pie inspired food/bev. So it’s grey, for sure. You want to evoke a specific taste or feeling but naming what’s contributing to that can sometimes immediately prevent that from happening since that ‘suggestion effect’ can be so powerful.
Obviously the opposite is true too – by telling you the flavouring used it might further plant the perception of that flavour in your mind. So it’s sooooo situational when (from the perspective of the formulator) it’s a pro or a con.
…and that’s not even touching the side where sharing flavouring types can be very bad from a protection of recipe/formulation standpoint. Think about it, if Oreo listed EXACTLY the flavouring types and compositions of its products then what’s to stop all of their other competitors from directly copying their recipes? Often flavouring is the key differentiation between one companies blend and another’s.
(Sorry – I obviously have very strong feelings on this lol)
Thank you for that interesting explanation, Kelly!
That was an awesome read. Thank you, Rosewell! I was not aware of that fact with the allergens, though I do question sometimes still after I have something with flavoring, and then I feel off, but who knows, maybe it’s something else entirely.
On Mo cha vs Matcha. (Nice pun btw XD)
There are other factors beyond shading that also make a big difference. In order to be considered matcha it has to be grown in Japan. It has to be shaded and has to be separated properly before grading (to make it go from aracha to Tencha). Anything else is just powdered tea.
Now with Mo cha the leaves are not shaded. And the biggest difference, even more so than the shading (though this is also a big factor) comes from the fact that historically the leaves were formed into bricks and then powdered. So one could almost say mo cha is closer to a pressed white tea. I don’t know that I would go as far to say dark tea because the broth tends to end up looking more whiteish.
@ Skysamurai, Sorry, I’m totally confused now. I was trying to read up on it all at your recommended (a few months back) site at https://ooika.co/learn/mo-cha-tea-drunk I’m not sure who gets to say that matcha may only come from Japan. That sounds rather ethnocentric for a process that was borrowed from China. But I don’t mind buying champagne that is grown and made in California, either, so go ahead and call me blasphemous. :-) I’m not going to argue in the comments, but at some point it might be helpful for you to raise the issue as a new discussion topic in the Discussions area here on Steepster. Cheers!
PS, my pun was meant to be on “illuminate” vs. shading of plants.
Hmm, I’m not sure that ethnocentric would be the right word for it, as I would be evaluating based on tea here but I think I get what you mean.
As for this topic, it is more about the farmers and less about us consumers. Though we consumers are the ones who tend to mess things up and make it difficult for the farmers. If someone walked up to you and said, “Anything can be tea if it’s a liquid!” You would know that not to be true because only a true tea can come from a Camellia Sinensis. But but your current thought process, Who gets to say that? It makes it difficult. If Japan can put a geographical indicator on matcha, it will greatly help the farmers. I don’t have anything against powdered teas from other places, but I personally think it just shows a lack of fair trade and transparency. I wouldn’t call it blasphemous because it shows that other farmers want to try to be just as good, if not better than, their GI counterparts, but that really hurts those who are in the area with the GI.
And yes. I picked up on illuminate vs shading with the pun. My placement of where I said that was confusing. Sorry about that.
Well shoot…I guess I’m busted for being a hypocrite, because I do stick to the tea/tisane distinction, even though I’m not sure where to place Camellia taliensis infusions. Heh. Anyhow, for matcha, I’m just going to try to follow a sensible convention that minimizes offense and maximizes clarity— once it makes more sense to me. Meanwhile, please continue leading the way!
hehe There are definitely grey areas! And unfortunately, there is not a lot of transparency in the tea industry. Just go look at a wine bottle or coffee bag versus a tea bag. But I guess for me, after going to tea farmers and getting to try plucking, steaming, and rolling (temomi) I want to give the right credit to the right people.
I hate it when companies don’t list “natural flavours” as someone with an severe intolerance. Companies have to label garlic and its products (garlic powder, granulated garlic) separate from spices or herbs, but they do not have to specify if garlic aroma or natural garlic flavouring is used in foods. This is a problem as someone who reacts horribly to a carbohydrate in garlic that is not removed just because the whole bulb isn’t being used.
Additionally, caramel colour can be made with onions, among many other things. I’m lucky to be able to eat onions but many can not. I don’t think it is fair for companies to not have to specify where flavourings or caramel colour derive from just because it isn’t a recognized allergen.
Artificial colour/flavour is actually a godsend for me because it means it is unlikely to/does not contain anything I’m going to react to.
