Birthday Cake

Well, this is the first of my samples from MissB that I haven’t liked. And apparently this is just not my tea day… I had to pour out 2 teas in a row! To me this one smelled a lot like maple syrup, and tasted like it a little too. It felt like it left a coating on my tongue, and my tongue got sort of numb/tingly feeling? Not good. I could only make it 1/2 way through my cup… seemed like each sip tasted worse than the one before.

Revisited this favourite of mine this morning. I always forget to grab this rooibos, but it really is wonderful. It is sweet, like a cake and nice and light. With a bit of sugar, it is like a liquid cupcake! The rooibos in this is not too strong, though you can taste it as a base. I don’t mind the taste of rooibos, so it is an alright base in my world, but it is strong enough to be noticeable.

Hands down, my favorite tea so far. Who can resist fun, colorful sprinkles mixed in with their rooibos?

I can’t seem to pinpoint why I didn’t like this one. It certainly lived up to its name – it tasted like creamy sugary vanilla sprinkle cake, even down to the slight burnt little crusty bits that get stuck in the pan. It wasn’t overly sweet, but every sip left me feeling like I had just snorted straight cake mix. Unpleasant.

This smells amazing, but doesn’t have quite the amount of flavor that you can smell. It’s a really nice, interesting tea that I received from Roswell Strange and I think I’m going to have to order myself some!

My 11yr son and I are drinking this as a latte while watching Aladdin. He chooses this tea 3-4 days out of the week when asked. I don’t normally like rooibos but I thought this would be a fun one to drink with him at the end of the day and it is. I even had him make it as I told him what to do in hopes that he will someday start my tea before I get out of bed. We enjoy it and someday I will try and describe it better.

Bon a fete a toi? Bon a fete a moi?

This was purchased in my first Davids Tea order I ever got last year. I ventured to them because the Urban Tea Merchant closed down in West Vancouver and at the time venturing DT didn’t seem as viable. I’m a sucker for cake teas, well really this should read: I’m a sucker for cake. Something about a drink being able to mimic the dessert without all the calories and a fraction of the sugar seems so desirable to me.

At first sniff: This tea is potent. I remember when I first ordered it, my boyfriend was in the other room and came into the kitchen and when “Whoa!” because he could smell it. It smells extremely sweet and upon further investigation as the same smell as Red Velvet Cake and Oh Canada. I think it’s the “fake” perfume they use to scent the tea. I’m not a fan of the sprinkles in it. I know they’re more for fun, but I’d rather leave the “stuff” out of it. They don’t really add anything to it.

At first steep: It’s a rich golden red colour (typical rooibus) and I am also getting that very peculiar film on my cup that others have mentioned. I chalk that up to the artificial that’s in it. When I taste it, it starts off with a fake sweet taste (kind of like when I accidentally put sucralose or aspartame in my tea at a restaurant) and then rounds off with light notes of rooibus with a little licorice taste. All in all, it’s not my favourite. I have added milk and sugar to it and it was again okay. I tend to take rooibus straight though and forgo the calories. Would I buy it again? Probably not. I have about 50g left of it and it’s been sitting in the cupboard for a while.

For smelling purposes it does deliver, but the rest is a bit of a let down.

This was the second tea I had tried from DAVIDs. A friend of mine made me up a little sampler pack of their teas after I’d tried Forever Nuts at her house about a month ago. I went through my sampler bag and chose this one to try first as I have quite a sweet tooth and generally gravitate toward anything with frosting and/or sprinkles.

I adore the smell of this tea. It smells just like pound cake and vanilla frosting. To be truthful, I didn’t think this tea would taste good. I really expected it to have a very artificial flavor. WRONG! I was shocked by this tea’s taste…I had never experienced a tea that tasted like this before or that was so true to its name. All in all, I think this is my favorite tea.

Wow, I made Indian food for dinner tonight, but it’s this tea that has filled my house with a delicious aroma. The sprinkles that were in the dry blend melted away in my cup, as did the freeze dried ice cream. This really does smell like birthday cake, and if tasting is so much about our sense of smell, it’s no wonder I feel like I am drinking a not-too-sweet version of birthday cake.

Totally impressed.

On my first steeping of this I went for a full 7 minutes to get the strongest flavor, and I’m drinking it with no additions to get the best sense of how cake-y it really is.

The only down side is that it leaves a sort of cloying feeling in my mouth. Shmeck. Shmeck.

I’m trying David’s teas for the first time this week, and I am already irritated that I live in stupid Houston, and we have no David’s stores here. This is probably my new favorite dessert tea.

So, I went to DAVIDsTEA for the second time ever the day before yesterday and one of the flavours that I chose for a sample was Birthday Cake. I am now ready to try it out. I open the bag and the smell is very sweet! Almost maple/vanilla-like with a hint of something else there. This is the first time I try a loose leaf tea hot, so I’m a little nervous! So, when brewed it is a reddish amber colour and smells very much like it did while dry! I first had a sip when it had nothing added. I wasn’t a fan because it didn’t taste like much. I was a little disappointed. But then, I added milk and sugar! Then it tasted a lot better. The taste does remind me a bit of maple/vanilla and it isn’t that bad at all! I think I may have under steeped it by a minute or two. I’m glad I got enough to play around with! Next time, I will brew it a little longer! But so far, this is decent! It’s VERY sweet, so it won’t be one that I reach for all the time! But when I’m in the mood for something sweet, This will be a good treat!