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Sipdown (570)!

Finished this off a few nights ago – I realized I was SUPER CLOSE to being out of it, and so I figured I’d just finish it off now instead of doing my normal thing and hoarding. I found it a little light on flavour – maybe because of age? Though the sweet, fruity notes I did pick up on were quite nice; somewhat of a pomegranate kind of vibe, contrasted by wood notes and a little bit of malt.

Had a cup of this a few nights ago before bed.

I’ll be honest, I’m not normally super into jasmine oolongs. I’m not sure why they aren’t my jam but, well, they just aren’t. I wanted to have an open mind though trying this out so I tried to just think of my experience with this tea and not with anything I’ve had previously that was similar. I still didn’t love this one though. I didn’t not like it either, for what it’s worth, but something felt a little off? I almost wanted MORE jasmine and less of the floral notes coming from the oolong itself – they seemed almost competitive? I also was hoping for a little more jasmine sweetness and I didn’t really get any of that either…

I’ll try it again though – either steeped for less time or Gong Fu – and see what I think of it after a retry…

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.

The first tea that I made in the new apartment!

It was honestly just a completely random pull from one of my boxes as I was unpacking, though it’d been a while since I last had it so I don’t think it was a bad selection. It was definitely really, really robustly earthy with kind of that muddy sort of earthy note than not super great quality shou has – but a splash of agave brightened it up a bit and helped smooth out some of the edges, and definitely made that peach note stand out a little more. It’s not that it’s not a nice peach flavour, because it actually is really nice: I just think that the base here detracts from it in a really negative way because of how dense and thick the earth notes are…

Hot with a splash of eggnog to drink on the commute to work. I really like the idea of making a tea for my commute every morning, so I’m going to try to be really good about doing that! If I make sure I’m diligent about doing it right now that could be a really nice habit for me to form.

This tasted really nice though; I’ll definitely still need to have it straight so I can give an accurate account of the profile as a straight tea, but with the eggnog added in it tasted very much like a custardy, creamy “London Fog” creme brulee sort of profile!? Just very rich and decadent, and quite creamy with some stand out vanilla notes.

Made this to drink on my way in to the office today; it was pretty delightful though just a tiny bit astringent. I pushed the water temp a little higher than I would usually be comfortable with; but I was hoping to draw out some of the oceanic seaweed kind of notes. I think I did, but I also the spearmint forward in a very sweet way too.

This was my tea companion yesterday as I explored the city’s metro system and made sure that I knew what my commute to and from work looked like…

The metro was actually SHOCKINGLY easy to use; I feel like I built it up into some big, scary and intimidating thing in my head when the reality is that’s it’s designed in a way that’s REALLY quite user friendly. Which is good! Really good! I’m also so much more excited about it. As for the tea, it was good – a little anise heavy with a fair bit of astringency to the sip. The kind of astringency that I associate with really spice dominant/heavy blends. I just think that in general I wish this blend was a little bit sweeter? I mean, it’s still very good – but sometimes I kind of feel that element is a little lacking…

I feel like I’ve had Hawaiian black tea before, but I can’t be 100% certain. I mean, I have DEFINITELY had tea from Hawaii – I just don’t remember what kind. Clearly it didn’t make that big of an impression…

This was fine; maybe I over did the steep time a little bit but I just found that it had a lot of initial bite/tannin to the top of the sip though that did fade into the mid sip quite quickly after that initial little bit of “edge” to it. Aside from that, I thought the profile was a little malty with a surprising sort of delicate smoky quality to it as well.

I’d be really curious to revisit it again and see if I feel the same about it a second time.

Drank a pot of this – it was nice and smooth, and a lot less tannic/astringent than I typically think of Darjeeling as. I don’t generally drink a lot of Autumnal Darjeeling though, I suppose. A little bit malty, but mostly just nice and floral with some citrus peel sort of undertones.

Probably would be really nice as an iced tea.

Obligatory yearly cup of Santa’s Secret.

This is also the final tea from the “airport” portion of my Montreal journey. I nabbed this one from the DT in the Montreal airport after we landed. Similar to the Toronto Airport this DT also has a really open layout/concept – my favourite part of which is their Merch Shelves which are “free standing” across from the teabar counter and have a glass backing so you can see through them into the rest of the airport. VERY cool. However, because of the lighting, it’s less “bright” and instead feels almost more like ordering tea at a bar!? Which is also kind of cool.

This was tea of the day, and at this point I just wanted something very quick so that’s what I ordered. Plus, every year I try to have at least one cup of Santa’s Secret before forgetting it exists for another eleven months. It’s not my favourite tea; in fact I think it’s a little bit overhyped. This cup wasn’t too bad though; but maybe that was the jetlag/exhaustion talking. Still mildly minty and notes of vanilla; I think the reason I liked it more than I traditionally do is because it had less of that “fondant” quality I normally get from this blend – which, I think, is the sprinkles!?

Bottom line, I think I just prefer my peppermint teas have more “oomph” to them. Which is why I lean more towards Candy Cane Crush, which is sweeter and more distinctly minty…

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 myself a cup of this on the flight from Toronto to Montreal.

I found it surprisingly easy to make tea during my flight to Las Vegas in October, so I knew I wanted to bring tea with me again for this flight. I decided to see how easy Matcha would be to make though; and honestly it was REALLY easy. Basically just stir until there’s no lumps; and with the DT matcha I find that’s easier than straight matcha because of the cane sugar component.

I got a hit of caffeine at 23,000 ft in the air and the lovely flavour of cloves and gingerbread to sip on during the last forty minutes of my flight. What else could you want!?

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.