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Guzzled down while it was hot this time – no chance for it to get cold. I watching a really emotional episode of Bones while drinking this one, and I was very caught up in the episode and wasn’t paying attention to the taste of the tea I was very quickly sipping at for comfort.

I’m sure it probably was as delicious as usual.

This one didn’t want to come up in the search bar – so I had to did through my cupboard. I mean, if I had a reasonable number of tea that wouldn’t really be a big deal…

I’m trying to do some resteeps this evening since I’ve had several teas today/yesterday that I know are good resteeped. I typically don’t resteep at all (only if I’m too lazy to clean things out) since I don’t generally want several cups of the same tea – I want variety. But there are some teas I’ll make a special effort for – and hell yes this is one of them.

The second cup was every bit as good as the first, despite some over steeping. A touch more floral, but still very genuine and juicy.

Mmm, this one is growing on me slowly but surely. Tonight I thought it’d provide a nice sweet treat to counter balance the fruity teas I’ve had (and will continue to have) tonight. i debated adding a splash of milk, but ultimately sided on drinking this straight.

Although, I will not that tonight’s cup is closer to 50/50 rooibos and maple, and I still likely wont restock since I have tons of Birthday Cake to blow through (slowly but surely making my way through it, though). Once I’m out of both, I’ll reevaluate and see which I want more of in my life. As is, they’re relatively similar and this is also similar to Tea Desire’s Sweet Toffee – I certainly don’t need all three.

Had this To Go today, while I was at the mall.

Because I know you’re all just dying to find out (realistically, probably could care less) – yes the attractive one was there, though he wasn’t working. He just happened to also be there at the same time. Lucky me.

Also, I happened to stumble into there at the same time that all the employees were doing a tasting. ‘What were they tasting?’ you ask with great enthusiasm? Chocolate. Yes – I inadvertently got a little sneak peak of the chocolate bars that DT will apparently be testing in stores soon. Or, I’m assuming it’s DT testing them since the manager said “These are the new chocolate bars. They’ll be for sale soon, and not even staff will get a discount because they want accurate sales results before deciding if they’re going to be permanently sold”. I saw about four different kinds there, but the one I heard them talking about/currently trying was a bar of Matcha White Chocolate. It looked really good, actually – despite being straight matcha.

Based on that one, I’m going to assume that DT isn’t just selling random chocolate and that these will all be tea related/flavoured chocolates. Maybe black tea & dark chocolate? Or Mate/Guayusa chocolate? Regardless, they sure sounded interesting.

Anyway, I got this one iced to sort of get a feel whether I want to use the rest of my sample as a cold brew or continued to have it hot. I’m wondering if maybe the water was too hot while it was steeping because there actually was some bitterness in this cup that certainly wasn’t present last night. That said, this was still pretty good for a green: lots of kiwi flavour, and in this cup more lemongrass/lemon zest flavour. It was a little more tart.

Despite the bitterness, I liked this almost as much as last nights cup – but I think I prefer it hot just a touch, so I’m going to try and finish off my sample that way instead of cold brewing. I wasn’t disappointed with my choice of tea, though. Yay for that.

Grr… Chrome crashed so I lost my really nice tasting note on this one, and now I don’t have time to completely right it out before I leave for the bus/my interview so I’m just going to be able to summarize.

But basically this was an expectedly pleasant follow up after starting my morning with a not so pleasant cold brew. I knew it would be great (it is a personal favourite, after all) so I made some up to enjoy while watching the most recent episode of How I Met Your Mother. I was a beautiful, gentle start to the day (much more than chemical oranges) and one of those rare moments of “tea nirvana” where things just sort of slow down and get really pleasantly peaceful/perfect.

And now off to an interview! Fingers crossed – and this time I’ll try not to go into DAVIDsTEA to look at the hot employee buy more tea.

Sipdown (203/206)!

I thought this could be interesting as a cold brew, and that it might balance out the flavours a little bit, so I used the rest of my sample from Keychange for cold brewing. However, in hindsight I regret doing so.

At a hot drink, this may have been alarmingly strong in regard to the flavour of the orange but at least it didn’t taste chemical. As a cold brew, this is still alarmingly orange flavoured but also has a strong and harsh artificial component which is really unpleasant. I should have stuck with finishing it off as a hot drink – I definitely enjoyed it better that way.

So a disappointing sipdown.

Mmm, I had this as my last tea of the night yesterday!

It was really, really perfect. I mean, I can’t rave enough about this one – I’m pretty sure it’s my perfect lychee tea. The lychee is just so true to real lychee flavour and the florals aren’t unrealistically strong compared to what floral notes a lychee normally has.

It’s always a treat when I have this one, and I was very happy I took the time to really enjoy this cup last night.

Ack! Oversteeped! And I was actually looking forward to having a mug of this, too…

So now, mostly it tastes bitter/astringent with strong rum notes and peeking notes of plum. It was ok but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t dump out a fair bit of it. Just wasn’t worth drinking with all the bitterness.

Totally my fault though – I was distracted by all the Pumpkin Fruit Tea I spilled over the couch/my lap, so I didn’t get to the tea quickly enough to save it. User error all the way.

Also, what is it with me really craving plum teas, atm?

I don’t think I actually got any hibiscus in this mug (which I spilled half of on the couch because I foolishly attempted to jump onto the couch from behind the couch while holding a full mug of tea) – which actually changes the taste a fair bit. I don’t know why that really surprises me, though; hibiscus is a pretty loud flavour.

Anyway, the flavour I get sans hibiscus is still a pretty close to 50/50 pumpkin and apple cider, but less tart and a little more sweet. Like, I kind of get caramel or brown sugar notes? It’s good – anyway.

I’ve decided, though, that while I like this I don’t like it enough to repurchase it. Plus side, or maybe downside, is that this was pretty heavy so the leaf is being used up at a relatively consistent rate.

So, this is the green tea I was actually originally planning on having, instead of Japon. It was also from VariaTEA and I was happy to receive it because I always struggle with buying greens for myself because I typically hate them – and then can’t justify the risk, even when you can buy such small amounts at David’s.

I really, really like Kiwi but in store this always smells like green tea and lemon grass – and nothing else, so it only strengthens that hesitation to buy green tea, and I always end up passing. Even prepping this cup, I could only smell the green tea/lemon grass.

However, taste wise I’m actually quite pleasantly surprised. I mean, yes I do taste lemon grass and somewhat grassy green tea, but both these flavours are alarmingly light in contrast to the super sweet and juicy taste of the kiwi. I also get light, bright flavour notes of other citrus (lemon/orange) and maybe apple, if I reach a little bit. It’s not tart at all, like I felt it probably would be.

I had expected to likely dislike this (but was trying to finish off another DT sample, and get in my minimal 2 new teas of the day), so I was going to cold brew to rest of it tomorrow I have something else cold brewing right now to finish it off, but now I’m not sure if I should enjoy the rest hot because I know I like it that way, or try something new. Anyone else try this cold brewed? How was it? Based on this cup alone, I could actually see this as another green tea I’d actually keep around/purchase again.

I wont add it to my shopping list yet until I’ve finished it off (however I end up doing that), but I’m impressed!