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So, we went over to my Dad’s house last night for birthday cake/supper and to hang out with our step nephews for Liam’s birthday which was pretty fun. It was also a good reminder of why I don’t ever want children; my nephews are fucking intolerable once you’ve been exposed to them for more than an hour or so. God help me if I was stuck with them forever. After cake, the ‘adults’ had tea/coffee while my nephews and Liam played in the living room. To their mother’s chagrin, he was teaching them how to wrestle.

My step mom actually picked the tea I was drinking though; they’ve accumulated so many different kinds of tea from me over the last few years and it’s kind of nice letting them choose something for me because it’s like revisiting my cupboard from two years ago; lots of long since forgotten favourites!

This one wasn’t too bad; but it did show its age a fair bit. At this point, it was a Christmas gift from two years ago – so pretty old. Still, it had that nice ginseng sweetness and woody quality with some soft grassy notes too. I think the age worked in my favour a bit though because my step mom DEFINITELY overleafed and had this been at peak freshness I think it would have felt pretty overwhelming. This was nice, though.

I even convinced the five year old to eat a tea leaf; which was pretty entertaining.

Gong Fu Sipdown (245)!

I said I was going to try this one Gong Fu, and I do try to deliver on those kinds of promises/commitments, so I sat down today before we went out for my brother’s birthday and had a nice, but short, Gong Fu session with this tea.

I used 8g for a 150ml pot, and started with a ten second rinse and a rest before continuing the session. Here are the jot notes I took for the session:
10 Sec/Infusion One
- Pale yellow liquor
- Brightness to the top of the sip; clementime oranges/peach/apricot
- Finish is sweeter; a mix of honey and straw

15 Sec/Infusion Two
- More golden yellow liquor
- Flavour is a little fuller and has less top note brightness
- A mix of stonefruit, honey, straw/hay, autumn leaves, some LIGHT cream notes

20 Sec/Infusion Three
- Shifting a bit more to a cooked fruit sort of note
- With more mineral/leaf/straw/hay sort of focus and less honey
- Finish is JUST SLIGHTLY astringent

25 Sec/Infusion Four
- More of the cooked fruit thing, heavier on the apricot
- Still very strong mineral/leaf/straw/hay stuff but in a fulled, more ‘round’ kind of way
- Finish is a little nutty? Almonds, in particular

30 Sec/Infusion Five
- Same, but even nuttier with more finishing sweetness!

35 Sec/Infusion Six
- Very sweet and full bodied now
- Straight up marzipan notes dominating most of the sip
- With lesser nutty notes, cream, hay, and sugared apricots forming the rest

40 Sec/Infusion Seven
- Same as before; LOVING these later infusions a lot

I also did an eight and ninth infusion, just increasing the time by five seconds for each one, but I didn’t take any notes for those because, firstly, I was pretty tea drunk and, secondly, they weren’t anything super drastic from what I’d already recorded. I think I could have pushed the session longer but I had sort of settled into a point where there wasn’t anything new coming out of each infusion and I was both running out of water in my carafe and time before needing to take off for my brother’s birthday supper.

Anyway, this session started off in a way that I wouldn’t say was bad but maybe a bit lack luster? However, sticking out the first few infusions was certainly worthwhile because the later ones that I experienced were actually VERY good. It was a little weird, because that degree of sweetness and such clear nutty notes is something I haven’t experienced too heavily with aged whites/moonlight teas before but it was so pleasant.

While I’d totally skip over this tea prepared in a Western style, I think grabbing a small sample it worth it just to see the impressive flavour development of it when Gong Fuing.

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.

My morning cuppa.

So, today is my brother’s 19th birthday so late in the evening we’re going out for dinner and drinks to celebrate him being legal drinking age. In the mean time, I’m enjoying having the morning/afternoon off by having some tea and listening to some good music and the rain.

I added some spiced orange honey to this cup as well to add an extra dimension of flavour to the cup and that was just a really smart decision. The spice notes of the honey actually didn’t really come through at all, but the orange became this smooth, sweet consistent flavour throughout the entire sip; since this tea is SO naturally chocolate-y tasting that added orange flavour almost gave this a Terry’s Chocolate Orange kind of vibe. Except, it’s a LOT more natural tasting so maybe more like orange slices dipped into high quality, melted down chocolate. Yummy!

Powdery spearmint…

Really tasty though, despite that weird textural thing that this tea tends to do. I like drinking it late at night because of how relaxing it is; pair it with some good music and you have yourself a really pleasant way to wind down for the evening.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzMaDCAaVyw&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ&index=6

Well, the time has come to power through this tea I think.

It still tastes pretty good, in all honestly, but the flavour is definitely fading and the almond slivers are starting to taste just slightly weird/wonky. Plus I’m actually REALLY close to running out of this one and I think I’m at a point where I’d like some fresher flavoured white tea options in my stash – in fact, I even have a few on the way right now.

So sip, sip, sip.

This last cup was sweet and lemony with hints of more of a lemon rind sort of thing going on in the undertones. Some very faint white peach notes from the silver needle, and a tiny bit of hay. The almond is sweet, with some marzipan qualities but not as much as this tea used to posses. Something about it today is also reminding me of buttercream.

I’ll be sad when this is finally gone, but it’s time.

I had a really rough day at work today not in the sense that the shift itself was bad, but more so just that I was completely exhausted from a poor night’s sleep so everything was just harder to get through and I felt very depleted early into the day.

Guayusa was my friend and savior, though! I drank this mugs of this today with a touch of honey in each and I swear it was the only reason I actually made it through the shift today. The energy boost those cups gave me was consistent enough that I never felt a crash, and the sweet, lush earthy tones were really pleasant to taste as well.

Thank you, Guayusa. Thank you.

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.

From my mom’s vacation haul/BC trip.

I was really impressed with the first tea I tried from this company, so I was feeling pretty optimistic about this one too. It’s one I specifically requested because I’m always stoked to try something else from Nepal, and the description on the website certainly sounded appealing. While I do want to Gong Fu this I started with a Western brew because that’s actually what the recommended way to brew this one was on the package.

- This was fucking DELICIOUS; insanely so!
- Dry leaf smells like straight up chocolate and dark rye; yummy!
- You know it’s good when you set your mug down to get something from the other room
- …and come back only to find your mother stealing sips from the mug
- Really nuanced, but overall thick mouthfeel and full bodied flavour
- Super smooth/silky with a light roast
- Top notes of: honey, caramel, malt, rye bread, baker’s chocolate
- Body notes of: cinnamon, French bread, malt, honey, light cocoa
- Finish: sweeter with fruity undertones such as dark cherries or even plums
- This finishing note is likely the “wine” described by the vendor
- Honestly the best Nepalese tea I’ve had to date

I’ve really liked a lot of the teas that my mom brought back for me, but thus far this one might just be my favourite. It’s seriously really fucking good.

Welcome back delicious!

This used to be one of my most favourite tea ever; I went through SO MUCH OF IT back when I had started my tea journey but it got to the point where I was wearing myself out. So, I took a break. That break just wound up being MUCH longer than anticipated. Like, two years longer…

- Every bit as delicious as I remember it being!
- Smooth, silky and rich mouthfeel
- Has the sweetness of champagne, with floral aspects
- Very strong currant notes, both red and black
- Slightly more weighted towards the black currant though; jammy and sweet!
- I feel like the sweetness of the champagne almost makes the currant seem candied
- Slightly citrus like finish
- Just beautiful, indulgent and relaxing though!

I feel like now that I have a more trained palate I can appreciate some of the nuances of this tea a little better than I used to be able to, however that doesn’t change my appreciation/love of it. It’s still just a VERY good tea. Dare I say it, still perfect.

Iced at work today.

In concept this one sounded really nice to me, other than the green tea base. I’d have been a lot more thrilled to see the flavour pairing on a black base, but that’s just me.

I actually think I totally understand the idea behind the name of this one though; it’s very light, refreshing, bright and sunny – sort of just like someone with a good sense of humour is? Like, just one of those people who’s presence is just super uplifting and pleasant! So in that sense – I think AU’s more artistic/creative marketing actually reads really well/clearly. I instantly made that connection.

Flavour wise, mostly this is a strong lemon flavour! It’s both bright, sunny and sweet but also oddly creamy? Like, not overtly so but it finishes with the same sort of delicate pastry like creaminess that I get from DAVIDsTEA’s Lemon Pound Cake. It’s also got that distinct lemongrass flavour, too. Pretty tied into that lemon note is a strong apple flavour too; not overly tart but not overly sweet either. Just sort of generic apple? Though in hindsight that creaminess COULD possibly be a ‘buttery apple’ sort of taste and I’m just poorly attributing the buttery flavour to the wrong ingredient?

Anyway, those are the strongest flavour notes – but apart from those, there’s also a bit of a sharp, grassy undertone. I don’t know that the sharpness is inherently from the green tea itself, but maybe just exaggerated by the lemon/lemongrass in general. The top notes are a bit more fig-like, and I think the fig also just adds to the overall pastry flavour too. The finish is more rosey, with some other general floral vibes to it.

I honestly think this tea could grow on me/might be more of an acquired taste sort of thing but as is I’d say it’s maybe just slightly above average for me? Like, good for a green tea and just kind of alright for a tea in general.

Sipdown (242)!

Finished this one off hot at work.

People come in all the time and comment about how the store smells REALLY good, and it’s weird because as staff I can smell exactly what they’re smelling… the first five minutes of my shift. After that it’s sort of like I go nose blind? There’s just so many different smells/aromas that unless I’m opening up a tin of tea to measure something out or make tea for someone I don’t pick up on the aromas anymore.

Except, when this tea was brewing it filled the WHOLE store. One of my coworkers even went and bought us all blueberry muffins because this tea made her crave them that badly. It’s a good blueberry tea! Like, very smooth and well rounded with a jammy sweetness that doesn’t read as cloying at all – more natural, and fresh. I was pretty infatuated with this one, and I’ll be the first to admit I’m super sad this is a sipdown.

Goodbye yummy blueberry tea.