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Gong Fu Sipdown (458)!

Well, I got my new phone today – and spent pretty much all evening setting it up. I think I’ve essentially got myself all set up, minus the fact I’m missing essentially ALL of my contacts. That’ll be a slow process rebuilding that, though…

And along with the new phone, I decided it was about time I got in on this whole instagram shenanigans! I’ve loved silently stalking the beautiful tea photos people link to here on Steepster, but I think it’s about time to share my own/be a little less silent with my love of everyone’s photography. So, if people want to add/follow me on Instagram, I went with the user name ros_strange. I did attempt to follow as many people as I could think of here on Steepster that I knew had an account, but I’m sure I likely missed people.

As for the tea; this was sort of a VERY messy/informal Gong Fu session that I enjoyed while I got my phone all set up tonight; and my inaugural instagram post! I only did about five infusions, and I didn’t really time them or anything – I just went with gut feeling, which is sometimes just as good as precision. The dry leaf aroma of this tea was heavinly – it smelled so strongly of condensed milk, raspberries, and orchid! Sweet, and rich/potent! It made me very excited for the session.

Overall notes in the session were a mix of strong, sweet florals such as magnolia, orchid, and jasmine as well as undertones of fresh fruits – the mix of floral and fruit elements such as raspberry and peach notes made me think quite strongly of early spring, and hanging out in my grandma’s garden which was always filled with fresh flowers and overgrown raspberry bushes just waiting to be plucked! The raspberry element and that sort of nostalgic imagery also ties in for me the fact there was an almost heavy cream/condensed milk like sweetness to this oolong. We used to pluck those fresh raspberries and wash them off then eat them in the garden in HUGE bowls topped with big dollops of whipped cream, and that’s greatly what’s springing to mind here. Other things in the session were general grassyness, and a bit of sour chlorine like sharpness – but only the latter in the first infusion, after that it was totally fine.

I easily could steep this even longer but it’s QUITE late right now and I really should be limiting my caffeine intake…

Got a late start to my tea drinking today, but at least I kicked it off with this really pleasant cup of black tea! I think this is the last tea I needed to try from my Silk Road order aside from the straight Dragonwell I got – but I’m not opening the package of that one for a while, likely…

I’ll be honest, I don’t have a TON of familiarity with many of the berries in this blend such as the Salal berry, for example. I am really enjoying it though and I think it’s a very nice, full bodied mixed berry flavour overall. I taste blueberry/raspberry more than anything else but perhaps that’s because those are just the two berries in here that I have the most familiarity with? There’s also cranberry, apparently too – I’m not tasting that so much though.

Good sweetness; like jammy berries or even berry juices from overly ripe berries. This would make a lovely “tea syrup” – either for cocktails, or even just straight up syrup for waffles and such. I get some malt from the base, and floral notes – I like that it’s holding up very well to the many fruit notes. It’s not quite as good as the Black Currant black tea carried by Silk Road in my opinion, but I think I am enjoying it more than Berry Victoria which is another black berry tea from Silk Road.

I’ve been enjoying watching all the reviews of this tea come in; it’s been absolutely hilarious reading all of the wild comparisons and first impressions. That said, I knew that at some point I, too, would have to break into the sample of this that I received and give it a try and I’ve definitely been dreading it…

In fact, the only reason I ended up trying this so soon was because I was talking about the FMA chimera comparison that CrowKettle made in regard to this tea with a whole bunch of coworkers and one of them asked me to bring the sample I had with to our staff party for her to try because she was curious. So, our winter/Christmas staff party was earlier this week and true to my word I brought the sample with for anyone to try who wanted to. Trust me, I did not talk up this tea at all – basically I just warned everyone that I was like 90% sure it was gonna be awful. That said, nine people still decided to try it out so we made up a big pot and just split it up and did a group tasting. I told everyone that I was going to be posting a review of it, so I asked everyone trying it to give it a rating out of ten based on how much they liked it, and any general comments they wanted to make. Keep in mind, this is the feedback/opinions of a panel of ten (including myself) people employed at a tea company who basically spend their whole work days just drinking tea…

Casey: 4/10 – Said it was surprisingly light given the intensity of the aroma
Jules: 3/10 – “Is the Lodge black because it burned down?”
Mackenzy: 7/10 – Would drink this again without any reservations
Seth: 7/10 – Actually offered to finish off the sample cups that people didn’t want
Emily: 5/10 – “If you focus on the banana it’s not so bad”
Luz: 5/10 – Didn’t think it would be so awful overall if you didn’t take price into account
Andy: 3/10 – “I get the FMA thing…”
Stirling: 4/10 – It IS better than straight Lapsang…
Sarah: 2/10 – Spit hers back in the sink…

So, if you average all of their rating you get a rating of 4.4/10 – on Steepster that equates to a score of 44/100, essentially. That seems pretty in line with the reviews already posted…

As for my own thoughts; I do think it was doable but you don’t exactly want that to be the highest form of praise you can offer to a blend, do you? I actually liked the banana in the blend a lot though – it was pretty sweet, and candy like and if the BULK of the profile had been that sort of banana flavour with much softer hints of Lapsang I think this might have actually worked pretty well. Not, like, spectacularly but a lot more than it does currently. The biggest issue for me was that the mix of Lapsang and other things in the blend just painfully reminds me of a mix of beef jerky and tire rubber and I just cannot get into tire rubber tea. Like, that’s the furthest thing from a pleasant flavour. The smoke didn’t bother me though; I like Lapsang. Just, didn’t work in this mix of stuff so much…

Also, I think Casey was right – when you smell the dry leaf this smells vile, but the steeped tea definitely doesn’t have the same intensity even if it’s not good. I think I’m gonna agree with the overall average rating given by our staff…

Iced tea!

This one was a little weak as an iced tea, but still quite pleasant. Most dominant notes were the pineapple and cinnamon, but there was also still quite a lot brown sugar, lemon, and hay/straw from the base white tea. I wish it had more body/flavour as an iced tea, but it did make for a nice, crisp refreshing cup that was fruity but a bit of a break from the typical fruity iced teas I’ve been drinking as of late.

This is sort of a “dual” review, if you will.

This year DT sold ‘hot chocolate on a stick’ in three different flavours, and one of them was a dark chocolate infused with Candy Cane Crush. I’ve been eyeing up that one for a while now, so I finally caved and bought one. I decided I was going to melt it down/infuse it into a hot mug of the latte mix – for extra candy cane goodness!

It was actually delicious! Very sweet, of course, but a smooth and thick dark chocolate and peppermint/vanilla sort of profile. Really decadent and indulgent, as well. The only downside is that I couldn’t get my chocolate to completely melt down. Most of it did, but there was definitely some that just sort of stayed as these little melted ‘beads’ of dark chocolate floating on the surface of the mug. Sort of a weird textural thing, but still delicious. Also, bought some of this latte mix for at home – just for lazy times/moments when I was sweet tea yummyness with minimal effort.

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.

It’s baccckkkk!!!

Out of all the teas that DAVIDsTEA released in 2017, this one is unquestionably in my top five favourites – I stocked up SO HEAVILY on it because I was just really scared that it’d never come back. However, it soft launched in stores earlier in the week as a core tea in DT’s collection so I no longer have to hoard my stash!

I celebrated the glorious return of this tea by making a huge iced cup of it with a heaping dollop of frothed milk on top, and a honey drizzle! Sweet, creamy perfection to add to the smooth, sweetly earthy and softly spicy profile of the tea! I love the subtle, warming spices alongside the carrot and mellow pineapple notes. It’s so great.

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.

Made this one up as a latte!

This was a lot more spicy tasting in straight milk than it came across in eggnog so I actually ended up diluting my latte a third of the way through with a lot more milk as well as sweetening it with some honey just to cut down on the intensity of the turmeric/ginger/cinnamon notes, and after I did that it was a lot more enjoyable. Before hand it was just a little too intense for my delicate white girl taste buds.

The main thing in this that I’m not really into is the taste of the black pepper though; I get it’s in there to sort of ‘activate’ the turmeric’s wellness benefits or whatever but the taste of it just distracting for me. It ALWAYS pulls me out of the cup. Plus, it does a weird textural/mouthfeel thing that gives the softest bit of “grit” to the cup and I’m just not having it…

But otherwise this is a nice, warming latte.

Cold Brew!

I’ve been WICKED CRAVING the rhubarb in the blend for weeks now. Like, every time I scoop it for someone and I smell the rhubarb I get mad thirsty and I just like hone into all those yummy, spongy rhubarb pieces. This is something that in the past I’d had lots of in my stash though, and I don’t remember it SUPER fondly so I’ve been hesitant to make it in store or buy some for home. The other day was employee shopping day though, so since all employees got an extra bonus amount off our normal discount I decided it was a good time to get a VERY SMALL bag of this to bring home to revisit. Low risk…

As a cold brew? Actually much better than I expected it to be! I swear, DT must have changed the formula for this from the last time I owned it (which would have been like two years ago) because it’s got a MUCH stronger presence of rhubarb; both visually in terms of the size of the rhubarb pieces present but also in the flavour which was actually really richly rhubarb heavy. Also very strong in terms of the strawberry flavour, and surprisingly sweet/creamy! I mean, still tart both from the rhubarb and surplus of hibiscus but not like what I was braced for. Basically, it tasted like that I wanted it to taste back when I had that large quantity of it on hand that I wasn’t super into.

Yeah, either my tastes have just changed over time (totally possible) OR the formula for this one has just been slightly tweaked since I last owned this one. Anyway; it was a nice brew and definitely satisfied the craving I had been having. Knowing me, I’ll probably be good now for at least a few months…

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!

I wish I’d gotten to drink this one in a bit of a more relaxed environment but that’s just NOT the case when you work in retail at this time of year; and in a management position no less. Just stress, and awful customer interactions abound…

I got this one for essentially no cost during Teavivre Black Friday sale; I had enough points and gift cards that I really only had to pay around a dollar overall for my order and shipping. I had never tried one of Teavivre’s herbal blends before so I thought it was a good opportunity to give one a go; I chose it mostly for the pineapple in the blend. I’m a sucker for pineapple.

Ultimately I thought this was pretty good; definitely a mostly pineapple and hibiscus/roselle flavour but that’s what was advertised to me so no surprises there. What did surprise me is that as the ice melted over the long period of time I was drinking this (had to sneak sips in between hours of helping customers) I started to taste more of a peach-like quality. I mean, peach and pineapple worked surprisingly well as a pairing with the much more tart hibiscus but I just wasn’t sure where that note was coming from.

I will have to further explore in future tastings.

It’s opening weekend of the Last Jedi – at least for a few more hours.

I was going to go see SW:TLJ on opening night; I’m a pretty big fan of the series in general (I mean, you’d hope so since I have a Star Wars tattoo) but Friday was also the day I found out my phone got stolen and, like, well life stuff happened. Now I’m kinda hesitant to shell out the money to see it right now ‘cause I know in the next few days when I finally get around to replacing my phone that’s gonna be a BIG expense. Ugh! Fucking money…

So, while I wait to be able to watch the movie in theaters I’m drinking a cup of this tea instead as, like, a nod to the series I guess? Or like, just to be thematically appropriate? I don’t know, really – I just thought it felt right.

I liked this one the first time I tried it, and I’m liking it now too. I just skimmed my first tasting note, and it looks like what I’m experiencing this time is meshing pretty damn closely so I’m not gonna both really expanding on what I’m getting now past the fact it’s basically just a very smooth Nutella-like flavour with some almond stuff happening too. I think anything further would just be repetitious.