18246 Tasting Notes
I haven’t had this tea in sooo long, but I had the strongest craving for it this past weekend so I went and fished out my old tin of it to steep some up. First observation is that the dry leaf was so much more amazing smelling than I’d remembered. Slightly creamy with a very deep orange note to it. Blood Orange Creamsicle is the thing that popped into my mind. Steeped up, it’s not really creamy at all (which tracks with my memories) but it is very sweet in a borderline saccharine way. Very syrupy notes of oranges, but with a hint of grounding pu’erh.
I think if I were trying this tea for the first time today I might be underwhelmed or find the sweetness unbalanced, but for better or worse there’s a nostalgia factor baked into this tea for me now and I think that definitely left me viewing the mug through rose tinted glasses.
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.
Sipdown (2628)!
I had an awkward amount of this sample left following Advent Season, so I ended up finishing this off as a Western style mug. Very toasty and dark, with more prominent notes of cocoa, roasted peanuts, rye bread, and caraway laced with buckwheat honey or molasses. Very enjoyable – arguably more so than when I had made it gongfu.
Made a cup of this one today and I have mixed feelings about it…
The dry leaf smells really good with very bright notes of sour tropical gummy candies and a hint of banana. Steeped up, it’s quite juicy and bright with an upfront sourness and then a mix of mango and banana flavours that come through quite strongly. I’ve had a bit of a recent obsession with the Sour Banana Gummy Bears from Squish and there was something about this combo that really reminded me of that. I feel like sour banana candy isn’t exactly easy to come by, so I was vibing with the flavour profile.
However then it gets weird. There’s genmaicha in this blend and though it’s not super strong it does give a very distinct nutty/toasty flavour to the finish that feels all wrong with this really sour fruity candy kind of vibe. The finish is also a little funky in the way that tropical fruit is sometimes a bit funky and body-odor like. I did gag at one point because of it, when the tea started cooling and it got more prominent…
So, idk. I feel like I went on a whole roller coaster with this tea and right now I’m in that place where I’m deciding if I need to sit down and take a breather or if I want to hop right back on and ride the wave of adrenaline.
Gongfu!
paired with some juicy lychee while I escape the thunderstorms outside. This tea is quite full-bodied and rich, with very dark and dense notes of malt, bitter cocoa, molasses, and buckwheat honey. Ever so medicinal in the finish after the heavy, saturated sweetness passes. It’s very interesting with the lychee, as the fruit is basically the opposite: bright and saccharine tropical sweetness with very floral and rosy undertones. There’s definitely a sharp contrast here, and yet I find it highlights the more distinct types of sweetness between the tea and the fruit quite pointedly. Each steep feels especially rich, with almost fudgey chocolate pulled to the forefront and each bite of fruit especially lush. It’s a big, big explosion of flavours!!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8kjgNCO-jD/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijvyO1KIsPo
Every summer since moving to Montreal, I think, “This will be the summer I get used to the humidty,” and every summer it is decidedly NOT. I suppose it doesn’t help that this past week we were basically going through a heatwave. It’s countless cold brews and iced teas like this one that get me through it, though. Light, crisp, and nutty with just a bit of a buttery undertone. I typically do prefer roasted kukicha over its greener counterpart, but this was very nice!!
Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8mgZp3uSjN/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULdc6ZV-kMk
Gongfu!
I rarely use this rubber duck teapet because it’s so large, but it was too perfectly on theme to not pull out for this session!! Steeped up, I found this tea pretty dynamic and flavourful. The top notes were woody and mineral, like licking rocks or seashells, before exploding into a mix of juicy lychee, green grapes and tropical fruits with a very heady floral finish. Smooth, fresh feeling, and ultimately well balanced. I have to admit that I’d forgotten about this tea sample since I just don’t drink a ton of dancong, and I was worried it may have aged poorly, but it made for a surprisingly lovely session!!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8pw2v9h-NR/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCDLQl4h-qA
I’ve had this flavour before, but it was nice to revisit it. One of the things I remember from last time is feeling like the raspberry wasn’t nearly as strong as the watermelon but this time around I thought the two flavours were pretty balance. Tart, juicy raspberry first and then a sweeter melon note to round out the sip. Like all Ooya’s flavour I appreciate that they don’t mask the taste of their guayusa base – though I do think this is a bit lighter than some of the other flavours I’ve tried recently. It was still very, very good but so many of the new flavours have been so strong that I think this actually ends up being ranked a little lower for me in their overall line up than I expected it would be.
It’s a shame this is a limited edition flavour because I think I’ve just found my new favourite Ooya flavour and by, like, quite a lot. It’s very fresh and juicy with really forward notes of sweet and floral lychee followed up by crisp apple and a hint of more earthy guayusa. Quite well balanced while being very dynamic, and I’m impressed by the fact there’s a distinctness between both the lychee and the apple. It’s clear the apple isn’t just being used as a “filler” juice like it often the case in fruitier RTDs…
I was initially a little surprised how sweet this was after taking my first few sips, but I realized quickly that I had naively assumed “sugar free” meant “sweetener free” and that was not the case. This Ooya flavour uses erythritol as an alternative sweetener, which is a synthetic sweetener. The overall drink was pretty good. Citrusy lemon top notes and then a smooth, grassy and ever so slightly earthy and smoky guayusa base that makes up the bulk of the profile.
I would much rather drink the sweetener version of the “Original” flavour though. It’s not that I’m personally against artificial sweeteners like erythritol on principle, but I do find the aftertaste lingers in a similar way to stevia and I just don’t care enough about a drink being sugar free to outweigh the taste difference…
Definitely quite a dense and sweet tasting blend. In the past I’ve found the maple very prominent but in this mug it was a little more of a general “sweet brown” type of flavour that I felt better leaned into the overall carrot cake vibe. I could taste the creamy white chocolate from the drops that had melted into the mug, and that was satisfying because it conveyed that signature frosting vibe to me. I also tasted a lovely mix of cozy, warming spices and the sweet, crisp earthiness of the carrot itself. I would say this nailed the carrot cake vibe, and was very delicious too!
