Rhubarb Cream Soda

Well…this one tastes and smells a bit off even though I just bought it. It’s still drinkable, just a bit off-putting. The fruit flavor is okay, but the main flavor is an artificial cream that isn’t great. I sense a bit of the fizziness they were going for, so I guess it’s somewhat accurate, just not completely pleasant. Yeah there’s something weird about the flavoring they used here. I added rose hips to my next steep to try to tone down the weirdness, but the strange flavor is too powerful! Yeah it’s going to be difficult to get through my whole 2 oz of this one.

Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug // just boiled // 6 minute steep

I followed the tea pop recipe by DAVIDsTEA using their current perfect teaspoons and this is bad. Very bad. Like gross. It’s just too much of that waxy and cloyingly sweet fruit flavor. It’s just way too much “leaf” which is not allowing the “pop” part of this to come through.

I tried 4 of DAVIDsTEA’s newer (newish) iced teas all in one week, and I wasn’t really impressed with any of them. I didn’t add any sugar, steeped the tea as instructed, and then poured it over a cup of ice. After a fair number of sips, I added lemonade “to taste” – half my cup ended up as lemonade.

First let me say I know this is my fault. I decided to cold brew this, since the idea of warm cream soda sounded wrong to me. Stuck it in my pitcher, went to sleep – and left it in there for three days. Oops. It actually didn’t end up super strong, but there’s an almost metallic taste to it? The sourness of the rhubarb doesn’t blend smoothly with the cream flavor (which is more accurate than I thought it could be!). Next time I’ll do it properly…maybe steeping in lemonade??

I had this iced as a tea to go and all I can say is I’m glad I didn’t pick up any? It has all of the desired bright red berry/hibiscus/rhubarb notes but something about the second half the sip comes across as musty to me (I think this is it trying to be creamy). C’est la vie.

I was really curious about how this would compare to Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait, one of my favourite DAVIDsTEA fruit blends. Yeah, that one is by far better. I could barely taste the rhubarb in this? It was a little vague when it comes to the fruit. I’m writing based on memory, but it was like a watered down, sugared up SRP. Not really tart at all. The mango came out more and even then, it didn’t scream mango either. Been there, drank that.

This was a disappointment. I’ve only tried it once, so I won’t completely write it off just yet. The flavor was so muted and weak. I was expecting a tea that was a bit more tart, especially with rhubarb AND hibiscus. However, the ratio of ingredients in the blend is heavily skewed toward pineapple and mango. That wouldn’t be so bad if it was a more mango-forward tea, but it isn’t. This reads very much like a pineapple-flavored cream soda on my taste buds, and that just doesn’t jive for me. I purchased a lot of this because it sounded like something I’d really enjoy, but I daren’t open a second bag. I’ll give it another go this weekend before deciding what to do with the rest of it.

Finished my sample of this one off today as well. Again, it’s fine but i prefer other rhubarb teas that DT has created in the past.

This tea is weird and I don’t know what to make out of it. I’m a hibiscus hater, so I’m surprised to be saying that they didn’t overdo it with the hib in this mix! It’s just enough to give the rhubarb flavor some tartness. The tea has a sweetness to it. It is fruity in the sip and creamy in the finish. I have no verdict here, but it was a fun sample to try.