15695 Tasting Notes
This sample was a gift from my friend Chase (aka Davidsteashareaday on IG), who works at the Chicago Teahouse. I don’t know the history of what happened here SUPER well, but I believe Chicago Teahouse used to be the Chicago location of TeaGschwendner before it was taken over by new management and renamed?
Seems like, while there are some differences in teas, they’re primarily still using the same supplier and/or carrying the same blends. Like this one.
I know I’ve had it before (under the TeaGschwendner label), but it’s been years and I can’t remember what I thought of it then. As I drank this cup, I couldn’t help but fixate on the fact it’s such a European style of tea blending. Very naturally floral leaning (even with the jasmine in the blend), and that hallmark green and black tea blended base. It’s even got the red fruit flavouring. I think it’s supposed to be strawberry, but as I was drinking this mug my brain read it as raspberry.
Pretty solid!
This is such an infamous blend from Steven Smith Teamaker, and I’ve wanted to try it for like five years now. So, when I placed this recent order, it was a MUST TRY for me. Even though that meant blindly getting 4oz of it.
I will say it was a little different than expected. I knew it wasn’t going to be sweet the way a lot of ice cream inspired blends are because that’s not really SST’s style when it comes to blending. However, I will say I thought it would have a more discernible vanilla flavour or, at the very least, more of a custard-like creaminess. Instead I would say that the primary flavour was butter. Not as fake-y tasting as so many flavoured/scented milk oolongs are, but with the added salt in the blend it really did read more like a very freshly churned salted butter over anything ice cream like.
I still enjoyed the mug a lot – especially the floral undertones of the oolong. I think I’ll enjoy it more the next time I have it, since my expectations will be much more inline with how the blend actually tastes. Ice cream feels like a misrepresentation, though. Especially with all the imagery SST uses to market this blend. It’s more accurate, IMO, to call it just a really nice interpretation of a buttery milk oolong. A little more classic.
Just finished a mug of this and it was… just fine.
I mean, fully transparency that this type of Chai is never really my kind of tea in the first place so I was always skeptical I’d love this tea and knew it was going to be one of the least interesting (to me personally) from Magic Hour’s Pumpkin Spice collection. So, in that regard, it met my expectations.
Quality of the spices is a-okay, and they’re pretty well balanced. A little allspice heavy, perhaps. I guess that’s part of what makes it more of a pumpkin spice chai instead of just a regular rooibos chai. Really not much more for me to say on it. It does exactly what it needs to in order to convey that cozy, Autumnal sort of mood.
So, I was super excited for this tea because the idea of a blueberry cheesecake on an oolong sounded so appealing to me! If it was a greener ball rolled style oolong I could picture the natural floral notes leaning into the blueberry, and if it was something more oxidized I could have seen that almost emulating some of the nuttier, toasty notes of a thick cheesecake crust…
So, all that to say I was shocked and a bit disappointed to open up the bag and see that this was mostly a green tea base with some sparse rolled green oolong throughout.
Honestly, it was fine though. The blueberry note is really nice. Kind of smooth and jammy but with just a bit of a floral undertone. Not too strong, either. It’s also creamy with a soft sort of “tang” to it, which does emulate the cheesecake component pretty well. I think it’s a pretty solid recreation of its namesake even if I didn’t love the grassier undertones from the green tea. There’s a lot of butterfly pea flower in the blend too, but it doesn’t steep out blue – more like a swampy green colour. It feels unnecessary and gimmicky.
But I don’t think I’ll have issues finishing this one off.
I’m still trying to decide on one last advent for this year, and The Tea Girl is one of the ones in consideration for me so I decided to make a cup of one of the teas I have from there to see if it helped me decide. I think I originally got this one from Sil via VariaTEA, so thank you both! It was a perfectly fine tea. Rich chocolate in a pure play/straight forward kind of way. I appreciated that it wasn’t so much chocolate that I couldn’t taste the tea base, but at the same time the pu’erh had a touch of that “fishy” wet pile funk that didn’t feel fully aired out.
Didn’t really help me decide though.
Had a mug of this Western style last night and it was so good. Smooth and nutty with strong notes of roasted peanuts and corn. A little barley. Just naturally sweet enough, but ultra cozy and toasty. Even after all of these years, it’s still one of my favourite yellow teas I’ve ever tried. Wish AU would bring this one back.
Gongfu!
I love how full bodied and lush the mouthfeel of this tea is. It has such a nice coating slickness that works really well with the indulgent notes of bittersweet dark chocolate, malted barley, leather, and brandied plums. I especially love that the whole session seems accented by these fresh, aromatic top notes of sweet red apple and undertones of dewy roses. Really dynamic mix of tasting notes!!
Between some bad insomnia and an unexpected cold, it’s been a few days since I’ve had a really nice tea session. So, this was a welcome moment of calm and reflection. Very grounding. For a couple days I really didn’t feel much like myself, so good to get back to that.
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyjDLGaue-K/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikGaCYy8naw
Decided to bite the bullet and place an order with Steven Smith Teamaker after eyeing up so many of these teas for so long! I’m starting with Morning Light, which is just so fresh and forest-y. I love the subtle fruit undertones of the currant with such a smooth pine forward notes of rosemary and brisk black base. Looking forward to trying the other teas soon!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CymD_4tunZ6/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqswt9jEFSY
Gongfu!
I’d honestly forgotten about this tea, but WOW! What a rediscovery! Though the liquor has a less thick and muddy texture than I remember, the taste is one of those deeply commanding ones that stops you in your tracks. Ultra earthy and camphor heavy with top notes of pine sap that punch you with this aromatic forest-like flavour. The body is complex with a mix of clove, gingerbread, cassis, treacle toffee, and rain-soaked wood and top soil. Bitter yet sweet, though in a dense and dark sort of way. 10/10 tea session!Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyoQ0a6ON6z/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aujGasAn3KQ
This is the other new winter/holiday tea that released this past week! As an online exclusive…
Many of us long time users here on Steepster probably don’t even bat an eye at a Latke inspired tea thanks to Butiki’s infamous and fabulous Latkes & Applesauce green tea blend. However, when I first tested the waters within our office about developing a latke tea with actual potato in it I definitely got a lot of strange looks.
This is very much an interpretation of a latkes and applesauce profile in DAVIDsTEA’s style but I have to fully confess that, when tasting initial versions of this tea, I definitely had my very fond memories of Butiki’s blend in mind. I knew how good a latke blend could be and that pushed me really hard to get the exact right balance of warming, cozy cinnamon and nutmeg and sweet, baked apple notes. The potato adds a subtle starchy quality, and the rooibos we used as the base leans into that element of the profile and ties everything together. Plus, I loved the idea of having a caffeine free blend so that this tea could be enjoyed later in the evenings for any families lighting candles together.
It’s gonna be so interesting seeing what most people think of this tea because, truthfully, it is a very weird thing to have potato in a blend and so many people do associate latkes with being more savory or oily. I think this is such a soft, cozy tea though. Like the more mature, toned down version of Cinnamon Rooibos Chai, almost. Not red hot cinnamon flavouring in the slightest.
Only time will tell.
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.
