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Sipdown (211)!

Thanks for the sample VariaTEA!

So, this pretty well does taste exactly like an Oatmeal Raisin Cookie, complete with light cinnamon pastry notes and vanilla notes. Is it a good thing that it’s so accurate? Eh, debatable. I’d probably enjoy it a lot more of I liked raisins. I’ve come around to them a lot since first joining steepster and even enjoy raisin notes in my black teas (Darjeeling/Keemun specifically) quite a bit now BUT I’m a long, long way from appreciating them in real life and I think the fact this reminded me so strongly of ‘real life’ raisins and not ‘raisin notes’ in tea was what made it somewhat conflicting.

I still enjoyed it a lot overall, especially the soft cinnamon notes and really subtle pithy lemon undertones – but couldn’t completely get into it.

Sipdown (212)!

Iced at work yesterday…

- Astringent
- Stonger on the spices than I remember the hot cup tasting
- More cinnamon/ginger/cardamom and less fennel/clove though
- Too much allspice, imo
- Wanted a touch more sweetness
- Orange notes
- Pleasant overall though

#ProjectTeaWall

So there’s a story to accompany this tea…

So last night at DAVIDsTEA work one of our staff members accidentally locked the stock room/staff room key into the stockroom and because of a long series of unfortunate, overlapping circumstances we had absolutely NO access to a spare key to get back into the stock room…

It was kind of a big deal because it looks like we wouldn’t be able to get into the room until Monday and from a store perspective it’s bad if we run out of tea/merchandise and can’t replenish the stock in the store. From a personal perspective, it was far worse because my house keys were in the now locked stock room and both my roommates were out of town so I had NO WAY into my house.

I was kind of panicking a little bit…

I ended up spending the evening at a friend’s house and this morning/early afternoon the store was able to get a locksmith in the open up the door so we could get the stock room keys and my house keys. Thankfully. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if I couldn’t get into the house for a few days. The poor pets, too.

This morning I made us both my friend and I matcha shots because I felt like we needed to really jump start our day. I was actually really pleasantly surprised to see that she had this tea, because it’s the only matcha I have left to cross off for Project Tea Wall but we never seem to have it in store when I’m working. It’s always back ordered because when we do get shipments in it sells so fast I can’t try it myself…

It was a little hard to get a real taste of it in matcha shot format, but I will say that as far as matcha shots go it was pretty smooth! I got a slight sense of creaminess for it, and a kind of “fresh” vegetal quality? I see someone else here on Steepster has described it as “bamboo” and I think that’s pretty close to accurate to what I picked up.

Anyway; I’m home now! It kind of put a bit of a damper on my day off not being able to spend it at home, vegging out like I’d wanted. It was an adventure, though?

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.

#ProjectTeaWall

Interestingly, there seems to be a trend so far of people who don’t traditionally like chamomile (myself included) liking this blend, so that’s kind of neat. I honestly wasn’t excited for this one at all once I realized it was a chamomile based blend but I ended up greedily drinking a whole pot to myself, so take that as you will.

- Shared w. roommate and he liked it quite a lot
- Though I ended up drinking all the pot except the one shared cup because I am greedy
- Mostly just sweet
- Though I actually didn’t really taste the stevia at all and I was definitely looking for it
- The honey is REALLY well defined/strong
- It definitely soften the chamomile a bit and makes this more smooth and bearable
- I say bearable because the taste of chamomile on its own is… bleck
- Soft floral rose undertones, but not all that strong overall
- Pleasant on the whole
- Not a repurchase tea, personally, but given the level I was dreading it it’s a HUGE win

I liked this one better than Mocha Orange Biscotti, as well.

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.

Cold Brew Sipdown (213)!

- Very, VERY old tea leaf (that I stole from my mom’s stash)
- Tastes a little chalky???
- Strong blackberry notes, and a little tart
- Has a very artificial cream taste
- The contrast between the cream and tart berry is sharp and unpleasant
- Floral undertones

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAsTlnjvetI&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ&index=183&shuffle=25700

Not my favourite tea; though it’s always nice to revisit something you haven’t had in years and had kind of completely forgotten about…

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.

#ProjectTeaWall

Came in bright and early on the day these teas launched so I could try them as soon as possible; of course I didn’t have a laptop at the time so I couldn’t write about them the same day. Suffice to say, I’ve been looking forward to this collection and being able to talk about it for a while…

Wasn’t sure how to feel about this one; I was surprised it was a black tea given the theme of the collection is “Evening Treats”. I expected everything to be caffeine free, honestly. So both the base and coffee beans in the blend took me back a little. I still kind of think rooibos/honeybush would have been a better base, as well.

Oh, I tried this as a latte.

- Not as bad as I’d expected given that the dry smell didn’t appeal to me
- Very soft coffee notes overall
- With a light handed touch of chicory/roastyness
- Sort of a “medium” chocolate/cocoa body note
- Thick/silky (partially from it being a latte though, to be fair)
- Does have a bit of an artificial quality to it that gets under my skin a little
- The orange is nice/complimentary and my favourite part of the profile
- Although it’s not a realistic tasting orange flavour
- It’s a subtle background flavour that creeps in and seems more intense in the finish
- Around average overall; maybe good for an occasional cup on shift
- This isn’t a “stock up” sort of tea for me though

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.

This review is for the Toasted Walnut infused Milk Chocolate.

This is the last of the Mini Chocolate Bars released with the Feel Good Collection that I picked up to try, and so far my success rate is half so I was cautiously optimistic about this one. I haven’t grabbed any of the full size bars because the flavours didn’t jump out at me, but I may end up doing so at some point just to say I’ve tried the full collection…

- One of the few bars I’ve had where “chunks” in this case walnut have been appropriate
- Good balance of walnut pieces
- Milk chocolate is really creamy/silky
- Complimenting notes of vanilla and coconut, from the tea
- As a chocolate is tasty but also a good representation of the tea

Honestly, this tea is kind of light bodied overall so I worried it would feel really dominated by the chocolate but the balance here was striking in a very pleasing way. Definitely no issue with the tea not coming through well.

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.

This is a queued tasting note.

Drank this as a commute tea on one of the really nice days we had this week. Seriously; just gorgeous! Tons of the snow melted away, and it really did start to feel like Spring.

This is the first of the floral/scented oolongs I recently bought; I found myself deeply craving them as the weather started to warm up. Actually, it’s the only one of the scented oolongs I purchased that I hadn’t tried yet either so I was especially excited for it.

- Rose top notes; a little too intense/perfumey
- Buttery/grassy
- Just a slight touch bitter

It wasn’t love at first sight, but I see promise here and I’m willing to put in the effort to experiment with steep time/style and leaf amount in order to get this one just right.

Sipdown (214)!

Thank you for the tea VariaTEA! This was a really fun one.

- Made in gravity steeper
- Used a blue gumball in my tea leaf; the orange one is in the leaf I added to the GCTTB
- Dry leaf smelled like bubblegum and bananas
- Steeped up a weird, cloudy bright green hue (not a natural “tea green”)
- Initial taste is candy sweetness
- Definitely tastes like bubblegum, but the bulk/dollar store type of gum
- It is fun though; gotta give it that
- And the green base is JUST present enough (grassy)
- Overall, I’m not mad at it and would call it just slightly above average
- But you have to buy into the fact it’s bubblegum w. real bubble and will taste artificial

This is a queued tasting note.

Sipdown (215)!

Drank this one cold brewed on the balcony because it was nice enough outside to do so.

Honestly? Wasn’t in love with this one. Really, after the Strawberry Oolong I first tried, all the other For Tea’s Sake iced tea collection seemed like a big step backwards. That said it wasn’t bad; it’s just that it came off as a very generic and average quality apricot/peach black and I’ve had more than my fair share of those.

Still very refreshing for an early Spring(ish) cold tea on the balcony though.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhU9MZ98jxo&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ&index=3

I love The Chainsmokers and I strongly feel like this may be a solid contender for the Spring/Summer anthem of 2017 – and we’re only in January. Give it some time and it’ll likely be as overplayed as Closer though. Pairing was mostly for the Spring/Summer vibes as it was definitely that kind of atmosphere.