5321 Tasting Notes
- Strong presence of vegetal and grassy green tea
- Reminds me of cucumber skins and lawn clippings, with a touch of earthyness
- Earthyness is the from the yerba mate
- The cucumber like note comes from the cool mint combined w. the vegetal green tea
- Makes for that crisp, cool cucumber like flavour that’s really refreshing
- The grassyness is from both the green tea AND the green mate
- Peppermint undertones in the top and body, and more of a main flavour in the finish
- Like I said, adds a “crispness” to the overall flavour as well as sweetness
- The goji is subtle but does add a bright red fruit element in the body flavour
- Starts as an undertone and builds into more of a vibrant, lively ‘bursting’ type flavour
- Overall, found this really relaxing
- And a good balance of a lot of really differing elements
- It was a good early morning cup with a nice, clean profile and clear tasting notes
Midday cuppa.
This was pretty warm and inviting. I think I liked it better this time; without the addition of milk – it was more carrot cake like. I mean, it still doesn’t have the creamy frosting/cream cheese icing component that I think it needs to REALLY nail the flavour but it’s a lot more carrot heavy in flavour, in particular in the body of the sip. Pretty natural carrot notes, too! The body is also quite malty. The rest is a mix of soft, warming cinnamon and nutty walnut notes in the finish. It’s a bit astringent, but pretty solid!
Cold Brew.
So, you know what happens when you forget about this tea when it’s cold brewing and let it cold brew for a solid eight fucking days? You get a liquor that tastes EXACTLY like grass, and strawberry scented soap. It’s kind of the worst.
Obviously didn’t finish the cold brew. It was nasty.
My cold brew game is slipping; I need to get to my brews more promptly! That was 100% my fault for putting off straining this one/forgetting about it. Poor, poor ruined tea…
Sipdown (338)!
Finishing off the last sachet of this one.
Last time I found it far too weak/watery so this time I was just kind of looking to see if that would be a constant problem or if it would taste any richer. I DID think it was a bit creamier/sweeter than last time, but it was still more watery/bland that it would have tasted as loose leaf. So I think, at the very least for this specific tea, it’s just not as good as the loose version. That said, if you WANTED a milder version of the loose tea then this WOULD be a good option.
About halfway through the mug, I did something a little different with this because I wanted more flavour – I added a small scoop of strawberry icecream on top. I’m kind of in love with doing this right now because it cools the tea down instantly to a drinkable point, adds more flavour, and slurping the tea through the melted down icecream froth is delicious. It definitely amped up the creamy factor of this tea, and the mix of raspberry and strawberry notes was pretty fantastic.
Now that’s the kind of flavour I wanted.
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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
We sampled this yesterday as little mini iced lattes, and of course I had to try one for uh, quality control…?
Mostly I was just craving something sweet and creamy though; and this one definitely does the trick in that regard. I like that it’s got such strong coconut notes and even though I’m not the world’s biggest fan of chocolate in tea even I can get on board with the combination of creamy coconut, milk chocolate and sweet pecan notes in the finish.
This will never been a cupboard staple for me, and even a full cup of it would be too sweet/rich BUT a little shot glass of it as a sweet treat? Perfect!
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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
Had this one hot yesterday, with a splash of milk.
Taste wise it was pretty solid; mostly a smooth, silky Creamsicle sort of flavour with grassier, floral undertones from the matcha base. There was something about it that reminded me a little of soy milk, and that was a touch weird because I hadn’t used soy milk in the cup – I was using regular 2% milk.
My boyfriend wont drink matcha because he doesn’t like the “powdery” mouthfeel. I’ve literally never had problems with that when drinking matcha… up until this cup.
I think it must be the power of suggestion/the fact I had his opinion on matcha in the back of my mind when I was drinking this, but I definitely thought the mouthfeel was really powdery. Not unpleasant; but definitely noticeable. Damn you, boyfriend, and your heightened sense of touch/texture! Seriously; he picks up on food texture SO MUCH. I mean, it’s because he was a bad sense of smell/taste so he relies a lot more on touch/texture with food, but now it’s got me noticing things that I’d really rather not be noticing…
Oh well.
Iced tea.
Still totally in love with this one; a good mix of sweet apple notes and delightfully tart, sour cherry with a little bit of a pop from the cinnamon with makes the apple notes a little more autumnal and pie-like. I think it’s a really nice summer/autumn transitional sort of flavour, too! This particular cup was a little underleafed which just meant that the apple was a little stronger than the cherry this time around, but it still tasted great.
I need to remember to pick up another pouch of this one before the Farmer’s Market closes down for the year because then I have to wait a whole six months to replenish my supply and that’s just not ok with me…
Drank this one hot, yesterday.
I had actually kind of resigned myself to fact that this was probably just going to taste like rich, earthy Shou and not be rose-like at all, but I found myself pleasantly surprised. Of course, it was very smooth and earthy with sweet notes of dates too. However, the rose was actually noticable this time! Very sweet and fragrant, and definitely not part of the body profile, but it snuck in smoothly with the finish, and then danced on the surface of my tongue in the aftertaste.
It was delightful, and added a really interested aspect to the overall flavour! Now that I know that it can be detected in this tea, that makes me a lot more excited/hopefully for the rest of the tuochas. I just wonder why I noticed it this time, but not in the past with prior mugs of it…
Well, I said I was gonna set this one aside until the fall and that’s what I did!
Come the first day of Autumn, I pulled this tea out and whipped myself up a nice hot mug of it. I did add a splash of cashew milk for creaminess, and some pumpkin agave to amp up those pumpkin notes as well! It was really good, although QUITE sweet. Even with the pumpkin agave, the pumpkin isn’t as strong as I’d personally want it to be – I think the apple is a far more piercing, full bodied and forward flavour. I still enjoyed it though, and I was right that it feels a little more natural to be drinking this one in autumn over the summer.
I’m also a little surprised just how many other people must have been fans of this one! People have been coming in and asking for Pumpkin Chai since I started working at DT (it happens like at least once a week) but ever since September first we have two or three people come in a week looking for this blend in particular too. I just never realized it was that well loved…
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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
Iced.
Dry, this one smells SO MUCH like root beer to me, but when I steeped it up as an iced tea the other day I found that the illusion was actually sort of broken? I mean it still reminded me of root beer and it was still delicious, but mostly I just tasted the individual flavour notes and I had to actually focus on not viewing them that way to taste what they were forming as a ‘whole’.
I know there isn’t cinnamon in this, but it still STRONGLY reminds me of cinnamon regardless. I’m convinced at this point that it’s a combination of the clove and the black base tea itself that comes together and creates that flavour in my head. I just can’t shake it; for me the whole body of the sip was strong, but smooth, cinnamon notes.The top is more sweet and anise heavy, and I thought the finish was the most Root Beer like aspect to me because it had the most vanilla and sarsaparilla notes to it.
I wish it blended together a little bit more to create a more concise flavour, but I do still really enjoy it regardless – it just takes a little more work for it to feel like a “root beer” tea this was, and not just a smooth, creamy mix of spice elements. It was a little more root beer like as a hot tea, funnily enough.
Song Pairing: https://youtu.be/jHu160KUB3M
