17199 Tasting Notes
About halfway through this mug, which I’ve been slowly sipping as I work on tasting notes tonight. It’s actually less gingery than I had remembered it being, though certainly the taste is there. I’m really loving the kind of brothy heaviness and slight salinity of the shou pu’erh though! It’s thick and coating with just the right kind of earthiness to compliment that ginger.
After Paru’s Lemon Lychee ended up being not quite what I wanted I ended up pulling this out to drink. I was skeptical because I’d been somewhat unimpressed when I last had it. However, this time around I found it sweet and juicy with exactly the type of straight forward pure-play lychee flavour I was looking for!
I’ve been sort of ‘rationing’ the last of this bag, but I pulled it out on Monday because I just had such a strong craving for lychee teas. Perhaps, because I wanted the lychee so badly, that’s why I found this mug just a hint underwhelming. Still delicious, though! Always delicious. It was just much more of the caramelized/golden sweet potato and honey notes of the black tea and that semi-candied lemon rind flavour with only a little bit of the floral sweetness of the lychee coming through. Beggars can’t be choosers and I’m not about to be upset just because this cup was amazingly delicious in a slightly different way than I wanted. It just didn’t scratch that lychee craving for me.
So, as I mentioned in a previous tasting note for a different Almost blend, one of my subscription boxes was lost in transit. When I pointed it out to Almost they shipped out a replacement with basically no questions asked. I was really impressed with the customer service!
Well… that replacement box arrived on Wednesday and it ended up being a repeat of the Brownie Points box (which this tea is from) that I had already received. Not the one I was missing. I reached out again and, to their credit, their response time is really fast. However, they initially were kind of adamant that this was the box I was supposed to get even though I had very clearly listed in my initial email a few weeks back exactly what teas/themed box I hadn’t been delivered. It was a super frustrating back and forth this time around before they eventually agreed to send out the correct box. So, more waiting…
Anyway, I have extras of these teas now I guess. I gave 1/2 of the duplicates to a coworker to try and I kept the other half, and steeped this one up. Lower temperate and shorter steep time this time around, just to see it that would positively affect the taste of the raspberry which I disliked so much in my first tasting. It does, a bit. It’s still a very chemical tasting raspberry but it’s less harsh. Kind of like the flavour a corn syrup based “raspberry syrup” or jelly from something like a Pop Tart might have…
Anyway, I’ll take the minor improvement.
Steeped this one up yesterday morning and drank it while doing a bit of busy work. Gotta admit, I didn’t really make note of the flavour at all. It sort of just functioned as a sort of an unremarkable – both positively and negatively – blank slate to be drank absentmindedly while working. Caffeine. Basically it was a cup consumed for caffeine.
Made a spontaneous mug of this at the office earlier in the week. I was craving something a bit more decadent and, though I could have cared less about the chocolate half of this tea, I saw this on the kitchen shelf and the memory of the toasty and creamy hazelnut flavour of this blend just wouldn’t get out of my head. I had to scratch the flavour itch!
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.
Made a cup of this one last night!
Couldn’t help but feel like this cup was reminding me a lot of those sweet maple leaf sandwich cookies, though not quite as creamy. Same type of rich maple flavour though with an undertone (from the rooibos – partially) of something baked. Could be cookie, could be crepe, and could ever be sort of like an oatmeal. Nice hint of cinnamon in the undertone that leans into the maple baked good quality for me. Enjoyed it a lot!
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.
Brewed up grandpa style this tea is dense and syrupy with rich notes of dark honey supported by lots of starchy sweet potato goodness and a subtle note of brandied stonefruits. In some ways, it kind of reminds me of a Sweet Potato Pie; rich, robust, and decadent!!
Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp0iQYKuTYq/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtGtQMcLRho
Gongfu!
This dark mahogany liquor packs a full-bodied punch with funky and malty notes of dark rye and caraway breads, molasses, brown rice syrup, golden raisins, and just a bit of petrichor and oak. Last time I had a session with this tea, I remember it being about as equally dense but much more fruity. It’s very interesting to see how those tasting notes have since deepened and traveled towards a more, for lack of a better way of stating it, “brown tasting” direction. I wouldn’t call this a sweet tasting tea, and it’s kind of all base notes and heaviness. However, the liquor is so syrupy and coating! The combination of both qualities makes me think of the persistent but slow-moving flow of magma. It’s kind of trippy in a wonderfully interesting way. Loving how this tea is settling into itself!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp5n07hOJM0/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljHKs15cSBk
So I steeped this because I actually was craving a cinnamon apple blend over the weekend, but I wanted caffeine. Somewhat to my surprise, it was actually waaayyy more of a red apple focused blend with just a bit of cinnamon. I know that, for a tea with a name like Candy Apple, that’s the profile you’d expect it to be – but this tea has always packed a pretty heavy cinnamon punch in addition to those classic candied apple notes. Guess that’s starting to fade away a bit with age…
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.
