Shooting Starfruit

This is the final tea I tried of the DT summer collection, no Mango fruit punch this year as I tried it last year, oh and I tried Watermelon Mint this afternoon but didn’t pay enough attention to write a tasting note yet lol ( I was reading a good book haha), and I made this one tonight. It smells SO TROPICAL in the bag. Like, sooo good and juicy and fresh!

I steeped this for 4 mins with 185 degree water. In the scoop I put in the mug, it looked like there was actually quite a lot of white tea, although it was all chopped into bits and not much whole leaf at all. The tea smells tropical and mango/starfruit like when brewed, quite a delicious scent actually! As for the flavor, there definitely is white tea in my cup, it has that characteristic mild bitterness of a DavidsTea white tea base in a blend, probably because it was brewed for 4 minutes, in my opinion a long time to brew a white tea. But other than that, it’s juicy and sweet and tastes like starfruit with mango! Quite tasty, although I need to tweak my parameters to get rid of that bitter flavor from the white tea, maybe I’ll steep 2-3 minutes next time. Another one that I bet is awesome cold!

Perfect both hot and iced! Fruity, sweet, delicate. I like to add a decent amount of sugar to it of I’m brewing iced, but that’s the Southerner in me talking. Great as-is hot, lots of apple chunks to sweeten it up.

I received this as a sample with my last order, and I wish there was a little more in the sample pack, because I think this would be a good cold brew tea.

As a hot tea, this was pretty ok. The aroma was lovely and it had a fruit flavor that didn’t really taste like anything I am familiar with. Unfortunately, it had a sort of artificial aftertaste. I sometimes find these unpleasant notes are diminished with a cold brew.

This is a limited edition summer tea, but I think it could have been a little better.

Overnight coldbrew

The smell of this made my mouth water and I couldn’t wait to try it. My wife took one sip and gave me the rest of hers, but I was so excited that I was happy to have the whole pitcher to myself.

You definitely get a starfruit flavor, and the white does come out to play…it reminded me of a fruitier Buddha’s Blend. At first, I was all for using my rewards to get a free 50 g of this in July. But as the pitcher wore on (all 64 ounces of it), I grew less and less impressed. Luckily, I pawned some off on my sister in law, and she put it best. “I like it, but it’s not my favorite.”

The day ended with me chugging the last 24 ounces right before bed and then eating a good two cups of watermelon >.<. But it had turned into a chore to finish it. It is definitely not something I plan to stock, especially not at 9.50 for 50 grams. It’s a very heavy white and very expensive…I feel like this could have been done just fine as an herbal, but they don’t ask me ;).

So…meh. It was alright, but the price definitely affect my rating in this case.

It’s been a while since I’ve written any tasting notes, but i’ve been drinking a lot of tea. I’m going through this odd phase where I sort of drink tea automatically—haphazardly choosing a tea from my collection without giving it much thought, drinking it without really noticing it, and not really feeling inclined to write deep tasting notes with all my feelings and interpretations. But then I also think that one of the main reasons I update on steepster isn’t necessarily to explore all my feelings about a given tea, but mostly to feel connected to people who love what I love. And withdrawing from my various networks is never really a good indication for me, and so I’ll make more of an effort.

Random thoughts on this tea:
1. It’s wonderful iced; I haven’t even tried it hot.
2. I’m really into making my teas iced now, and I find I’m actually preferring them iced to hot now. I never thought I’d be saying that. Oh, and I really like the instant cold-brew method (that of steeping in a bit of hot water before topping up with ice) to letting it brew for hours on end, but that’s because I’m impatient.
3. This tea tastes like a conglomerate of tropical fruits, with perhaps the slightest hint of white tea at the end of the sip. I know this combination of fruit is meant to taste like nothing else, but you could probably tell me that this was a tropical papaya and guava punch and i’d believe you. That being said, I’m actually going to buy some more iced tea packs of this tomorrow because I still really, really like it.
4. I love that DT sells pre-packaged iced tea packs. People can carry on endlessly about how they can measure it out themselves, but if anything exists to support my laziness and reliance on all things convenient, I’m all over it. Besides, DT’s website says that iced tea calls for eight perfect spoonfuls of tea for each pitcher (and omg I got the blue and green pitcher and love it!), but each package seems to have far less in it than that but still yields a fairly strong and flavourful brew. So what gives? who knows. But yeah, packages are where it’s at.
Ok bye

Backlog.

I was really excited about this one. Starfruit in tea! I remember having starfruit in elementary school and thinking that it was the most exotic, wonderous thing ever. It’s delicious and it looks like a star! I was probably seven and very easily amused (actually, still am…).

Anyway. This one smells like the very definition of tropical in the bag. There are a ton of fruit pieces and I don’t see any white tea whatsoever. Bummer.

Steeped, there’s a lot of tea debris at the bottom of my mug and the tropical scent is mostly gone. It tastes vaguely fruity and very very juicy. Seriously. I’ve heard teas described as being juicy before, but couldn’t imagine such a taste until I had this tea. That being said, it doesn’t knock my socks off. It’s kind of weird, which isn’t a bad thing … I’m just not sure I need this tea in my cupboard.

I’m reading everybody else’s reviews and I can’t help but to think there is no WAY I am drinking the same thing they are. I made iced tea with this and the flavors that pop into mind are apple (ok not so bad), jackfruit (again ok whatever) and a sort of bitter, terrible soap taste. It’s worst than soap. I can imagine laundry detergent tasting like this. A lot of people like it, so maybe it’s just me that screwed it up horribly, but I mean, there is like 3 twigs of something that might be white tea’s cousin in there, with a bunch of fruit. Can you really screw up herbal tea? Agave makes it more palatable but definitely not better. I think I prefer DT"s Pink Lemonade over this. Which says a lot about how much I just don’t like it. I really WANTED to like it, and it makes me sad that I don’t.

So I was working in the garden this afternoon and I had to drink. I decided to get an iced tea. Since I had this one for 1 week and hadn’t tried it yet, that was the perfect occasion. I steeped it hot, then poured it on ice. I fell in love. It was yummy and I don’t know what else to say. Great summer tea :)

I recently tried a cup of this while in the airport. Although it does have a bit of an aftertaste, the fruity notes are still quite pleasant. I took the advice of the girl at the counter who instructed me not to let this one steep for too long (she said that it took on a really strange taste if left too long) so I steeped it for her recommended time of 3 minutes. This tea was pretty good and I’m glad I tried it but it did not make me feel the need to rush out and buy more of this. I would recommend that you give it a try for yourself.

I was bad today and bought this, chocolate macaroon and hot mama! Only 25g each but still – now I’m back at 200 with an uncertain amount soon to be incoming.

No real regrets though! Chocolate macaroon sounded good, I had try hot mama as a belated mother’s day (ok, that’s a stretch?) and this one just sounded good! I bought the kids iced tea tumblr for my daughter, and made some of this for her and she just loved it. It totally blew her little mind! Hahah. I wasn’t worried about the white tea component because it’s just mosty all fruit anyway.

I tried some after and I really enjoyed it too. It’s very tropical without being citrusy. I can taste the mango, and while I can’t recognize the other fruits, they all mix together quite nicely! I think I should keep this one in the fridge all the time for her (us) this summer. The only downside is that it’s a little expensive at $19 for 100g. But I’ll have earned enough points for free tea soon enough!

It totally doesn’t need sugar as the fruit makes it sweet enough on its own!