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Adventaggedon Day 18 – Tea 3/6

I’m not a huge fan of the coconut nectar based matchas from DT, but I do this this is the best of them – and it’s nice as a latte. I didn’t make it as a latte today, though I would have liked to, because I slept in and didn’t have much time before needing to leave for the metro.

So, I whisked it hot and straight – was a little sad it didn’t froth, but the coconut nectar matchas rarely do. It tasted fine – with those Coffee Crisp sort of notes I often get from it. I wish I would have had more time today to really enjoy it, but it was the little boost I needed before taking off for the office.

Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CI9HTxrAALU/

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.

Adventaggedon Day 18 – Tea 2/6

I feel like I was caught just as off guard with this cup as I was the first time around – it’s so deep and robust, with thick and cooling menthol notes that leave me feeling chilled out. Yet, at the same time, they’re sweet and coating. The blueberry is jammy and thick, and bordering on medicinal. It almost feels tinged with black currant!? The whole thing feels heavier and less fresh than I would expect from these profiles – but it works so well and keeps me fixated on each sip.

Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CI9HTxrAALU/

Adventaggedon Day 18 – Tea 1/6

This is one of my favourite Bird and Blend teas – I think last year, during the advent, was my first time trying it and it’s only grown on me since then. I think, between all of my advents, there has been a criminally low amount of mint blends so I was especially thrilled by this today! I didn’t realize how much I had been craving a good mint blend.

Thick, creamy and coating with rich peppermint and chocolate notes – so smooth and velvety and full of flavour. The buttery milk oolong in the blend was also very prominent today and seemed super fresh; really making itself known in the top notes of each sip. I actually enjoyed it greatly and felt it really helped differentiate this blend from the myriad of other mint chocolate blends I’ve had this year.

Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CI9HTxrAALU/

Geek Steep S1E14 – Princess Jellyfish

Cold Brew Sipdown (1260)!

Firstly, a big thank you to Sew Geek who is an instagram follower of our podcast account who very kindly sent us some fandom tea samples to review! When we decided on doing Princess Jellyfish for one of the podcast episodes, I knew immediately that Pistachio Icecream was going to be my pairing for the rewatch, and also that whatever I drank during recording would HAVE to be something super fandom-y and fun!

Well, as it turns out, during the time of recording the episode it was the week of the series finale for Supernatural – so this was just great timing! If you’re not seeing the connection for why I would want to do something fandom related (aside from us being a podcast that celebrates fandoms), you should totally listen to this week’s episode! Spoiler alert though; it’s because the thing that basically all the main characters in this anime have in common is that they are all MASSIVE fans of different niche interests/hobbies/fandoms and a huge reoccuring theme is this celebration of our unique passions and how our interests make us beautiful.

Hence fandom tea!

As a tangent – I just, knowing the plot of the Supernatural series finale, realized that there’s some dramatic irony in the name of this tea in. Of course, the pie tie in was already an inside joke/gag – but… next level, now.

Aside from all of that, I just really nice to point out how incredibly delicious this tea was! I had it cold brewed, and it was so rich and sweet. It’s a rooibos blend with caramel and apple and it may, legitimately, be one of the best caramel apple teas I’ve ever had. More than that, it might be one of the best caramel teas I’ve had in general. The flavours were just so on point that several times during the recording of this podcast episode I wanted to stop the conversation and comment about how fucking incredible this tea was. Juicy, crisp red apple, sticky and gooey medium bodied caramel, just a bit of red fruit and nuttiness from the rooibos.

I. Was. In. Heaven.

Much like Dean.

Okay – that’s my last pun, I will see myself out now.

Our Website: https://www.geeksteep.com/ (This week I wrote the blog post!)
Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geeksteep/

Listen to us on Buzzsprout:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1286036/podcast/website

DB topic:
https://steepster.com/discuss/42133-geek-steep-a-new-tea-and-fandom-podcast

Geek Steep S1E14 – Princess Jellyfish

You know something good is about to happen when you make a Butiki tea to accompany it – and that’s exactly how I felt going into this podcast episode. This was one of my fandom picks – and it was really exciting and emotional for me to introduce this anime to Marika. I discovered it during a time I was really, profoundly depressed and it was a bright spot in that time frame.

This is the tea I chose to pair with the anime rewatch, and I picked it because it’s one of the teas I was actually drinking when I first watched the anime – and I remember it vividly! Right down to being cozied up under a heap of blankets in the rocking chair in the corner of my shag carpeted basement apartment in Saskatoon & the mug I was drinking the tea in. There are just moments in your life where, in the moment, what is happening is so profound that you literally have the thought “Wow, I’m going to remember every detail of this” – and that’s what happened here. It’s not that I wanted to bring up memories of being depressed, but more the cathartic feeling of joy I experienced drinking this tea and watching the series for the first time.

I read back my old tasting note of this tea from when I watched the anime, along with some other tasting notes from the same time frame, and it’s crazy – I can see in my writing, and pulling from my memory, how depressed I was at the time but I pushed a lot of that down (or tried to) when talking about discovering this anime. I joked about how I was drawn in because of the drag, and the cute shipp-y moments – but I dodge the root of why the anime hit me so far. I’m not really willing to say it.

Well, in this episode of the podcast we do talk about cross dressing, and we talk about the romance between the characters – but I also talk about why I really connected to the show as well. The mindset I was in when I found it. This one… was a really cathartic episode for me to record.

Our Website: https://www.geeksteep.com/ (This week I wrote the blog post!)
Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geeksteep/

Listen to us on Buzzsprout:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1286036/podcast/website

DB topic:
https://steepster.com/discuss/42133-geek-steep-a-new-tea-and-fandom-podcast

Adventaggedon Day 17 – Tea 6/6

There was another tea earlier in the advent that was quite similar to this – down to the vanilla and the butterfly pea flower – but I can’t remember what the name was. I think I liked the flavour of that one just a bit better, but this was nice too. Smooth and silky, and a perfect compliment to the Earl Grey scone with marmalade that I paired it with.

Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CI6lipOAskU/

Adventaggedon Day 17 – Tea 5/6

Oh, hell yeah!

I waited and saved this cuppa until a moment during the day when I was feeling least nauseous/queasy because I expected the flavour, regardless of whether I liked it or not, to be pretty volatile on my stomach. That was likely a good call, as the blend was on the sweeter side.

B&B used to carry a tea called Lime + Cola Guayusa and I was a big fan of that tea – I still have some very ancient leaf of it in a tin somewhere. This feels like an improvement on that cola flavour for sure – effervecent, and punchy with a hint of hibiscus and a sweet cherry note! I would totally order this one again.

Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CI6lipOAskU/

Adventaggedon Day 17 – Tea 4/6

Oh, sweet respite from turmeric and masala! I was chuffed seeing this one today!

I’m so straight tea starved in between advents that my initial thought with this was “Oh, I should brew it Gongfu” but I didn’t have time to do that today. Honestly, that might be a good thing, because I think Gongfu brewed Darjeeling would have been a little weird even for me.

This was pretty nice, but there was a Darjeeling earlier in the advent (first flush, I think) and I thought that one was much nicer. This was very gently astringent and a little muscatel, but mostly pretty flat and thin for a Darjeeling. Very easy to sip on, and didn’t give my sensitive stomach today an issues – was a nice midafternoon cuppa.

The “Daily Darjeeling” name seems fitting though – would be a really easy tea to make a pot or mug of to drink over the course of an afternoon. Nothing unpleasant, but nothing that commands your attention. Perfect type of tea for that daily drinker moniker.

Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CI6lipOAskU/

Adventaggedon Day 17 – Tea 3/6

Another familiar friend! I’ve been sleeping verrrryyy irregularly this last week, and I’ve also had some stomach stuff going on – so I decided to brew this one up first thing this morning because I thought the toasty and cozy genmaicha with the subtle maple would be a gentle enough way to start my day.

I was, uhhh… Surprised.

Firstly, this is a delicious genmaicha. I just want to be SUPER clear about that.

It was not gentle though – I don’t know that the flavouring was bumped up for this reblend (I’d actually be really surprised if that was the case) but it’s definitely VERY fresh seeming flavouring, and so the maple was pretty intense and sweet for what I expected from this tea. It’s a really good maple flavouring, actually – Canadian approved. It almost has an almond-y nuttiness too, which compliments the toasted rice so well. It was just too rich for my stomach so early in the morning and I felt a bit queasy by the end of the mug.

I’m really looking forward to diving back it at some point when my stomach isn’t being a little bitch, though!

Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CI6lipOAskU/

Adventaggedon Day 17 – Tea 2/6

I wasn’t as hesitant about this blend seeing it today because it was surprisingly nice the first time around – and, in fact, I think I ended up liking it even more this time because I knew what to expect from it. Obviously the chamomile is pretty strong, but so is that sweet and juicy white peach flavour! It’s actually such a star – and while I wouldn’t order this one again (because of the chamomile) I remember that the peach note was the same in the raspberry/peach green tea, so I’m waiting eagerly now for that tea to make a reappearance! Offblak is really killing this peach!

Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CI6lipOAskU/