Dreamsicle Darjeeling

This has been my go-to morning tea the past few days. It’s good enough that I can drink it down easily while I’m getting ready without much thought, but not so good it makes me wanna stop and concentrate on the tea while I drink it. Eventually I want to get my cupboard down to a point where every tea is one I want to focus on and thoroughly enjoy, so this isn’t a tea I’d probably restock.

The scent of the dry leaf is really citrusy and promising, with maybe a slight tangy hint that reminds me of orange sherbet or marmalade. There is quite a lot of orange rind mixed in with the darjeeling leaf so that could explain the marmalade evocation. I’m not a fan of this plain, I’ve found, as the darjeeling is a lot stronger and more bold than expected (even after sitting in my cupboard for a year or so and brewing it below boiling) and has quite a bit of astringency which personally I’m not a fan of – I usually prefer a smooth black tea. I do think darjeeling was a good choice for the base though, and the fruity backnotes of the tea pair well with the orange flavouring. Plain this tasted more like an orange or marmalade tea, but when I added a tiny splash of milk the astringency really pulls back, and the cream flavouring comes through more and it really does remind me of orange ice cream. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a dreamsicle before (do we have them in England??) but this tea does a decent job at approximating what I imagine they might taste like. I originally thought this would be a good dessert tea with milk and sugar, but I definitely prefer it as a bold breakfast tea with just a splash of milk.

The last cup I had of this tasted a bit weird as it cooled – I kinda got a slightly sour milk note coming through in random sips (yeuch) but not in all of them. This put me off a bit but since it’s only happened once and I did add milk to it I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt and not reflect this in my rating.

Cold Brew Sipdown (140)!

Wow, my cupboard is feeling hella full right now! I have to work on these sipdowns! It certainly doesn’t help that I just had a great tea mail day: orders from Liquid Proust AND Camellia Sinensis. I should definitely be good for the summer, now.

This cold brew was quite smooth with pretty even parts orange and muscatel grapey notes. It wasn’t quite as sweet as the gong fu session; I think the brew time drew out some of that characteristic darjeeling astringency/mild bitterness. But even still, this was gone in minutes: I couldn’t stop drinking it!

Really, really loved playing around with this one.

I have milk this week, so I pulled this one out to try again. It’s much improved with a splash of milk, for sure. The base tea is smoother, and the creamy orange is allowed to shine. It really does taste like a dreamsicle now, and not just an astringent black with orange zest. I’ve improved my rating based on this cup, because THIS is how I wanted it to taste and now it does.

From Pass the Stash TTB 2.0

I like citrus flavored teas, and I love Darjeeling, so I have high hopes for this one.Honestly, I don’t know how I missed this one when Frank first offered it, but I’m happy to see it in the TTB.

Because it’s a Darjeeling I boiled the water and allowed it to cool to around 200 degrees. The first sip reminds me strongly of orange rid and does have a fair bit of astringency. I don’t consider some dryness a bad thing in a Darjeeling, so I’m good with this. As the tea cools some there is much more of the dreamsicle flavor which melds really well with the muscatel notes in the tea. Lots of bright orange flavor and a nice creaminess. This is definitely the golden spot for this tea. It does make me wonder if this would be a good cold brew. I’ll have to try that before passing this one along.

Pass the Stash TTB 2.0

This is the first tea I’ve tried from 52 Teas. Theirs flavors seem interesting, but it’s not something that’s high on my tea priority list. I’ve also never had a Darjeeling that I know of… Looks like black tea leaves with a bunch of pieces of dried orange peel. It smells very orangey in an orange peel oil sort of way – more sharp than sweet. I don’t know much about Darjeeling, but I’ve heard it needs to be steeped at a lower temperature, so I did 190 in lieu of my usual 200.

This tea is…interesting. The orange is very present, and it’s definitely that same sharper orange oil flavor. There’s a touch of sweet and creaminess from the vanilla. And the base is giving me this interesting herby spice flavor, similar to what I’ve tasted sometimes in some Yunnan teas. Fennel seed, maybe? It’s definitely a savory spice. Overall, I feel like the flavor combination of this tea wasn’t that well thought-out. This is definitely the wrong type of orange flavor to go with vanilla. A sweeter, more juicy orange would have worked better for a dreamsicle tea. Overall, I did like it, but I kept coming back to its shortcomings…

This tea has a pleasingly light, crisp taste of citrus. It’s fantastic as an iced tea. It is not at all bitter or astringent and the flavors are very light. It’s like catching a whiff of orange and a hint of cream. The aftertaste is short, crisp, and mainly the black tea with a touch of creaminess. It’s delicious and very refreshing, but it may be that I might prefer slightly more leaf or a longer steep time. I brewed this hot and chilled it overnight.

If I were to choose between this one and Dreamsicle Puerh, I would definitely pick this one. Beyond that though…..Meh. But I wonder if part of my dissatisfaction of this tea has to do with Della Terra’s Pineapple Upside Down Cake, in that alot of other teas would just pale in comparison? Hmm. Possibly.

Dry smell: Creamy orange to the forefront, with a I guess Darjeeling smell coming in the rear.
Tastewise it is just the opposite. I would prefer the Orange be just a touch more prominent, not to the extent of drowning out the Darjeeling, though I have limited experience with Darjeeling, what I’ve tasted for the most part I’ve liked. I think I will let it cool down, maybe add alittle more sugar, see if it would do well as a iced tea.

I’ve tried the Dreamsicle Puerh in the past, so I’m curious to see how the Darjeeling stacks up. In the bag the smells are very similar – I’d say the darjeeling is a bit more in your face about the orange flavouring, but not in a bad way.

Once steeped – with a tsp of sugar and wee spot of milk – I’m a little surprised by how bossy the darjeeling is…it stomps right up to the front of the cup and demands to be acknowledged, leaving the orange and cream notes to trail meekly behind.

It’s not bad – although nothing like the puerh, where the flavouring sits at the forefront – and strikes me more as a nicely flavoured breakfast tea than as a dreamsicle cup of deliciousness.

And as it cools the orange and cream notes come more to the forefront. It’s still a more full-bodied cup than the puerh, but that seems to be working in its favour.

A tasty cup and one I would have again, but not my favourite of the two.

Sipdown no. 116 of the year 2014. Just enough left for me and the BF this morning.

An enjoyable sipdown. I hope for more like this, where I’m not dreading having to make the tea go away (and arranging it so the BF’s cup is much bigger than mine each time I steep it).

I should find/drink more orange flavored tea that I like. I’m sure I have some in the stash somewhere. I really do like orange flavor. I have an orange from our tree in my refrigerator at the moment. I didn’t even know we had an orange tree until the BF and kids came in with three huge oranges. I think what happened was: we had a crazy neighbor who we couldn’t work with on a fence repair so the deer had been eating the little trees and the fruit. The crazy neighbor died, and a couple with kids bought her house and completely gutted it and made it look very nice. They also, of course, worked with us to put in a new fence. I think the tree has recovered! I’m pretty sure we have a tiny lemon tree out there somewhere too.

Lest you think it is weird that I don’t even know what sort of trees I have in the backyard, our house is on a hill, and it’s a pretty steep slope. The backyard is terraced but not very easy to get to and not overly usable, so we don’t go down there a lot. I’d like to change that—would really like to completely redo it and make it kid play friendly but landscaping is so incredibly expensive.

Time to buy a megabucks ticket.