16863 Tasting Notes

drank Momo Sencha by Momo Tea
16863 tasting notes

Cold Brew!

Currently sipping on this one tonight while I crack out these tasting notes. I obviously had to stop my Momo’s booth at the festival because I’m always so, so impressed with her flavoured green tea blends. In fact, her sencha is the only sencha I actively go out of my way to try because the quality is just soooooo good that I can’t turn my nose up at it even as an incredibly picky person when it comes to green tea.

I realized though that I owned every flavoured except for this one, which is her signature. So obviously I rectified that. I knew it was peach flavoured because momo means peach in Japanese, but I didn’t realize until I was setting up my cold brew this morning that it also has rhubarb in it. Kind of a game changer for me personally as a bit of a self professed rhubarb slut.

Sipping on it now it’s exactly what I want it to be. Very, very smooth and silky with buttery, unctuous notes of sencha couple with fragrant, floral and sweet Japanese-style white peach and just a little bit of fleeting tartness from the rhubarb. I’m finding it really well balanced and refreshing. There are certainly other teas from Momo that I’d reach for over this one like the melon sencha or budo sencha (ie. the grape one), but they’re just all soooo, so good!

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Had this at work today and it was not bad! I didn’t really remember it as something that I’d enjoyed before, so my expectations were lower and maybe that factored in slightly. Quite hojicha forward but I enjoyed that toasty roasted cereal/grains goodness a lot, and even didn’t mind the subtle brassy/mineral twang that accompanied it. The coffee notes are present but very cream-laced and somewhat alcoholic in a fake-y kind of way. I get where the tiramisu direction comes in though, but it could be a little richer and/or more authentic.

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Sipdown (2791)!

Finished this one off at work today and really, really enjoyed how smooth and jammy the mug was. Full bodied from the black tea, and with a surprising punch of cinnamon. I think there was A LOT at the bottom of my bag, though. But the star of the show continued to be that wonderfully thick, cranberry jelly type of note. Probably best not to keep hoarding this one, but I will miss it. Maybe we’ll meet again in a future year’s countdown box or something like that!

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79

Sipdown (2792)!

I was excited to see Nepal Tea Collective at the Toronto Tea Festival this year – they were really kind to speak to, and so generous with their sampling as well. I ended up getting their 14 tea sampler box as well as a box of one of their reserve teas.

It’s going to take me a while to get through the box, but I wanted to start with this one because the inclusion of Szechuan peppers was really fascinating to me. I’ve had two or three teas now with them included and it’s always a really distinct taste and mouthfeel that I adore. Westholme Tea’s “Boom” lapsang blend that includes them is maybe my favourite example of this.

Opening up the tea packet, the dry leaf smelled incredible. So fresh and aromatic with really distinct, lively notes of cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and citrus. It made me nose tickle/burn, but in the good kind of way! Steeped up, those three spices definitely still come out the strongest initially without a whole lot of the turmeric. It’s also more of a hot ginger than an earthy one, which in this context I enjoyed alongside the very aromatic, soothing and slightly cooling notes of the cinnamon and cardamom.

Immediately I felt the numbing sensation of the szechuan peppers with my first sip, though it started light before getting quite tingly and intense near the end of the cup. If you’ve never felt it before, it really does feel like the food/liquid version of static electricity. There’s a citrusy note to it as well, which was doubled down on by the sort of grassier citronella-type taste of the lemongrass. I did kind of feel like the aftertaste was a little soapy though.

You definitely lose the notes of the white tea pretty completely, though I think it probably is adding mouthfeel. Without the white tea I think the liquor would be very thin feeling. Still, I wish I got a little more tea and maybe just a bit less spice? It’s such a unique blend though and that mouth sensation for the szechuan is something I feel like everyone should try in a tea at least once.

AJRimmer

My partner loves Szechuan peppers, though I’ve never been as much of a fan. I’ll need to find a tea with them to share with him!

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drank Winter Tea by Ffern
16863 tasting notes

Sipdown (2793)!

Finishing off the other sachet of this tea I was gifted because after bringing in so many new teas this weekend I kind of needed the easy sipdown win. Honestly, this felt great on my incredibly raw throat if nothing else. The flavour was tart but with a soothing cinnamon spice undertone and some very lively citrus notes too. It’s a nice tea, but nothing I’ll particularly miss.

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drank Sakura Latte by Lemon Lily
16863 tasting notes

I drank this one yesterday, but actually not as a latte despite the name. Instead I added a ton of the powder to a bottle of ice water and shook it all up until I had a beautiful, soft pink bottle of iced tea. The flavour is incredibly delicate so it still barely tasted like anything despite how much I included but I did get a little bit of that lightly floral and sweet cherry blossom note on the backend of the sip. More than anything, this was just refreshing though.

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Thankfully I took yesterday off work as a comp day for the time I’d spent working over the weekend because when I got up in the morning my voice was so shot. I truly sounded like a dying toad.

I used that extra time off for rest/recovery, but also to add my grossly shameful Tea Festival shopping haul into Steepster. Plus I drank a lot of tea – including this one which was something I’d sampled at the festival and liked enough to bring a bag home with me. It was a nice tea to sip on during the lazy morning of logging teas into the datebase.

I wanted to check out Selicious Teas last year at the festival (it was their first year attending) but their booth was so packed I never got a chance to wiggle in. This year I was looking before the show floor actually opened to the public so I had a quiet environment to sample in. This one stood out to me because the cinnamon was so smooth, without either being cloying/sweet or drying and woody. I also found that the tea had a really pleasant custard-like flavour. Not vanilla/cream which would give this a sort of cinnamon bun profile, but specifically the type of golden custard you might have in a flan. It felt kind of unique in that way!

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After I’d done my shopping, I spent the entire rest of Sunday at the festival working the DT booth. I was really there to be our on site tea expert and answer any questions the attendees has not just about what we were sampling but any of our teas in general. Though, I spent most of the day doing live cuppings of different teas and talking about them with anyone who wanted to try them. We switched it up at different points of the day, but the teas I was primarily sampling were our Jade Tieguanyin, Simply Maple Breakfast (the SimplyNailogical collab tea) and… this one!

It’s fair to say that the cat’s out of the bag now, and that sometime this March we’ll be formally releasing our second manoomin based tea with the lovely folks at Tea Horse! We debuted it at the festival as a sneak peak, though! I also drank quuuuiiittte a lot of it myself over the coarse of the afternoon. Have to stay hydrated, after all! I want to do my proper write up with the full story of how we came up with this flavour profile, what it tastes like, the giveback partner for sales of the tea (because it’s different from last year’s partner for Manoomin Maple), and just all the lovely details I normally share – but I’m going to wait until the tea formally launches online/in stores first.

For now, suffice to say that I think people were really receptive to this blend and that a lot of people who were familiar with Manoomin Maple from previous years we’ve highlighted it at the festival also seemed to really, really enjoy the flavour of this one and find that commonality with the roasted wild rice.

Also, this is my last tasting note from at the festival or really from the weekend in Toronto in general! As things wrapped up, we did our tear down and then rushed to the airport just in time to have a shitty airport meal of cheese and chips before flying home. I think I literally went all of Sunday only eating a donut, a mochi ball, three cheese strings, and half a bag of sour cream & onion chips – so truly I have to credit caffeine and adrenaline for getting me through it all.

I slept so soundly when I got back to my apartment.

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.

AJRimmer

I love Manoomin Maple – this is very exciting news!!

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drank Strawberry Margarita by T2
16863 tasting notes

Cold Brew!

I love travelling with cold brews, and I did find myself really glad to have brought and prepped this one. I started steeping it Saturday night when I got to our hotel and then I strained it when I woke up Sunday morning.

We left the hotel to go pick up the TOTD Brewers for sampling at the festival very, very early in the morning and once we’d collected them we went straight to the Toronto Reference Library to set up for the day. I didn’t get a chance to shop at all on Saturday since we got there late in the day, so I did my circuit of shopping first thing Sunday. I actually started before the event officially opened to the public since some vendors were already ready to take payments – it was really nice not feeling so crowded for the bulk of it. I bought waaayyyy too many things, but I’m sure if I’ll get into that as I review them.

We hadn’t actually had a proper breakfast in the morning, so while shopping I grabbed a matcha mochi donut from Hokusan and I scarfed that down while finishing the last of this cold brew right as I was finishing shopping – kind of make shift breakfast of sorts before going straight into sampling. I really love how juicy and smooth this cold brew is. It really does just taste like straight forward, sweet strawberry juice. No complaints on my part!

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After our tea blogger dinner on Saturday evening I went straight back to my hotel, finally checked in for the day and just enjoyed the last few quiet hours of the evening to decompress and mentally prepare for tomorrow’s full day of working at the DT booth for the tea festival and then the inevitable tear down at the end of the night before flying home.

The hotel we stayed in was pretty nice, and it actually had HUGE bathtubs. Maybe an overshare here, but my apartment only has showers so I took full advantage of the situation to have a loooonnnggg bubble bath and soak my tender feet. Sometimes when I’m travelling I bring a kettle with me in my luggage, but since this was such a short trip I decided not to. To my delight, the hotel actually had an electric kettle in the room – and a pretty nice one. Not the gross keurig as a hot water source situation. So, I was able to steep up one of the sachets I’d brought with me for the trip and enjoy a decadent hot cuppa during my soak.

Though I did find the mouthfeel of this tea pretty oily, I loved the taste a lot. It was the perfect balance of rich milk chocolate, golden caramel, and toasted coconut. Very, very much like the Samoa Girl Scout cookies, which was so comforting and nostalgic after such a long day. Probably one of the better teas I’ve had from Almost, and I’m not even a chocolate tea kind of person typically.

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Bio

Hello! My name is Kelly, though many people in the tea community call me Ros or Roswell.

I am a mid-twenties tea addict, blogger, and all around nerd. I grew up in the Prairies, but a few years ago I relocated to Quebec to pursue a career with DAVIDsTEA in the tea industry! I’m still working on getting my French language skills down…

My first introduction to tea, in any form outside of instant and bottled iced tea, was about seven years ago when I happened to stumble upon DAVIDsTEA while looking for a birthday present for a friend! I tried their Birthday Cake rooibos blend, and I’ve been hooked on tea ever since! In those seven years; I was introduced to the online tea community, expanded my interest in flavoured teas to include a deep love and appreciation for straight teas and traditional brewing methods, got a tea themed tattoo, started reviewing teas, amassed a sizable tea and teaware collection, became a TAC certified Tea Sommelier, & even came full circle by beginning a career in the tea industry with DAVIDsTEA!

I consider myself a Jack of all Teas, and strive to have a knowledge and appreciation of all tea types, formats, and styles of drinking. I don’t like to feel boxed in to just being a “flavoured tea” or “straight tea” drinker – my expectations may vary depending on the type of tea or how it’s been processed/prepared but if it’s good tea, it’s good tea no matter how it’s been made!

You name it, I probably drink it- and I’ll absolutely try anything at least once.

My default method of preparation is hot, Western style, and straight – but I’m not opposed to additions if I’m in the right mood. If I ever add something to a tea or use a different method of preparation I will ALWAYS call it out in the tasting note though.

I like to listen to music when drinking tea, especially when I’m brewing a large pot at a time or steeping Gongfu. Often I curate very intentional tea and music pairings, and sometimes I share them here in my tasting reviews. Music is something that I find can deeply affect the experience of having tea.

I’m also one half of the “tea and fandom” podcast GeekSteep where, weekly, we discuss newly explored fandoms over tea as well as try to figure out the perfect tea to pair with each fandom. You can find us on Spotify and Apple & Google podcasts.

Favourite flavour notes/ingredients: Pear, lychee, cranberry, cream, melon, pineapple, malt, roasty, petrichor, sweet potato, heady florals like rose, hazelnut or walnut, sesame, honey (in moderation), and very woody shou.

Least favourite flavour notes/ingredients:
Lemongrass, ginger, strongly spiced profiles (and most Chai in general), mushrooms, seaweed, chamomile, stevia, saltiness or anything that reminds me too much of meat that isn’t supposed to taste like meat…

Currently exploring/obsessed with: Sheng from Yiwu, Yancha (Qilan in particular), anything with a strong sweet potato note. Also, I need to try ALL the root beer teas! Searching for a really good caramel flavoured blend, ideally with a black tea base.

Please contact me at the instagram account listed below if you would like me to review your teas.

Currently I’m employed in the tea department of the DAVIDsTEA head office. While I’m still sharing my own personal thoughts on new & existing DAVIDsTEA blends, I am no longer numerically rating them due to the obvious conflict of interest. Any comments expressed are a reflection of my own thoughts and opinions, and do not reflect the thoughts and opinions of the company. Any DAVIDsTEA blends you currently see with a numeric score were reviewed prior to my being hired there and have not been adjusted since becoming a DAVIDsTEA employee.

Location

Montreal, QC, CA

Website

https://www.instagram.com/ros...

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