95 Tasting Notes
Last time that I went to starbucks, I was pleasantly surprised with the Tazo tea that I had (Passion). It was fantastic and gave me a go-to drink when I’m not feeling all of the whip cream and such that I need to add to my coffee to be able to drink it. So I went back last night with some friends, and with high hopes ordered this tea…
It was however a disappointment. The smell was nice, vanilla and mildly spicy almost?, but the taste was not quite what I was expecting. I also didn’t really enjoy it. I did taste the vanilla but it was almost the background flavour to some weird fruity tones. Probably not the best description, but it just wasn’t my cuppa…
I got this iced to keep me company as I sat on the back patio of the DAVIDs store in Kingston a few weekends ago. I just discovered the patio and it is fabulous, shady and cute. It really makes me wish I was spending the summer in Kingston!
Anywho, I asked the girl behind the counter to make me whatever her favourite iced tea was, and this is what I got. I have to say, having sampled it hot, I wasn’t impressed, but iced is a whole different story! Wonderfully fruity and refreshing, it makes an excellent iced tea on a hot summer day!
Cold brewed this one for about 18 hours… The result? Pure pleasure. It tastes like a cross between a pina colada and a pineapple smoothie, and the flavour is the strongest of any of DAVIDS teas that I have cold brewed. It is refreshing and delicious, nothing really more needs to be said! I used about 8 teaspoons for my Takeya pitcher.
I got this iced a while ago while I happened to be around a DAVIDs (an all too rare occurrence these days I’m afraid!) It was super refreshing but I didn’t find it all that flavourful, but considering that it is based off of watermelon, which is also mostly water, I guess that is to be expected. Refreshing and fruity, it makes a great summer tea, but I am a little disappointed by the weakness.
This tea is getting a huge rating boost, I am newly in love!
I was brewing this in my timolino at work with the lid off so that it would cool down faster (those things hold heat!). Anyway, the next five people who walked by my office all popped their heads in to ask about the smell (I have a full office, my door just wasn’t closed, so the smell had to have been pretty powerful). They were all like “what is that heavenly smell, are you melting chocolate in here?”. So I had to explain and then i’m pretty sure I directed about 5 of them to the DAVIDs website to order some for themselves.
Anyway, love this tea more everytime I have it, so sweet, so flavourful, all pleasure and no guilt!
Preparation
Teavivre just might make a non-flavoured tea person out of me yet! Up until their samples, I had been firmly in the fun flavours camp, without fully appreciating tea for itself! This tea has certainly changed that!
1st Steep: This tea smells rather earthy and bitter, but it is really very sweet (I was quite surprised). It is smooth, mild, still earthy but nice and sweet. It is a pale green colour, with very few stray pieces, indicating the quality of the leaves.
My teapot makes about a cup and a half (Its one of teaopia’s tea for one sets), so I left the half a cup steeping for about 5 minutes, and the result was quite bitter (still decent, but too strong for my taste) so I would advise paying attention to steeping instructions and only steeping for a minute or two.
2nd Steep: And this tea just got a whole lot sweeter! Most of the earthiness is gone, now I just taste yum. This is much better the second time around! I can’t believe how sweet it is (and its still healthy for me to boot). From the tastes of things, these leave would probably hold out for 4 or so steeps, I may just have to try it!
Overall, my favourite pure green that i’ve tried (although its the only), but still, the bar has been set high!
Preparation
I am going to preface this review with two facts
1) Black tea and I aren’t the best of friends
2) I brewed this with boiling water, for a long time and with an ordinary travel mug and a drawstring tea bag, so not ideal brewing conditions for a high quality tea, and I will try again once I have time to do it properly!
Now to the reviewing… I found it to be too strong for my liking (although it wasn’t bitter, which is my number one put-off for black tea). I may have brewed it for too long, I often get distracted at work and forget about my tea just waiting for me on my desk! Anyways, I didn’t get any of the caramel flavours that others did, it was just strongly vegetal for me, and not my favourite flavour. I am going to hold off on the numerical rating until I have a chance to brew it properly and mindfully and then record right away, as this rating is coming from my morning cup yesterday.
I was desperate for something that I could drink from Starbucks without feeling super guilty about it afterwards, and this is what I came up with, and I am glad that I did! This tastes very similar to KANPE from DAVIDs, very tart and fruity. It comes in a bag but there are some large pieces in the bag so it appears to at least be very high quality bagged tea. All in all, a good tea and it will for sure be my starbucks order from now on (you know, for the three times a year I happen to find myself in Starbucks…)
My first tea and work combined adventure! Armed with a DAVIDs drawstring tea bag (one of my favourite inventions ever), a travel mug that my mentor bought me on the first day of my internship (she’s the best), a Ziploc bag, my crappy office tea kettle, and half a sample package of this tea, I embarked on an all day oolong adventure.
First steep (7:30 am)- This was my caffeine hit for the morning, so my tastebuds were less attuned to the taste as my brain was slowly being shaken awake by the mild caffeine hit. I steeped it for appox. 3 minutes, and I can’t give a more accurate estimate as I was crazily running around trying to get all of my stuff ready. This tea was much lighter than I had been expecting, for some reason I was expecting a darker colour (maybe because the leaves are fairly dark). Anyway the taste was strongly earthy and vegetal, but overall very smooth and pleasant.
Second steep (8:30 am)- This was my “I made it to work but am not mentally prepared to start yet” cup. The second steep was much stronger than the first, and had a surprisingly different flavour. It was very floral and very sweet, almost creamy. By the end of the second steep the leave (which dry were only a quarter of the bag) had unfurled to take up the whole bag. This steep was my favourite, absolutely delicious and so very sweet without any sugar!
Third steep (11:30 am)- Early lunch today, all alone in the lunch room with only my oolong for company. There were less floral notes and sweetness in this cup, the earthy flavour has re-emerged as the dominant flavour. I am assuming this is what oolong is supposed to taste like (and I do quite like it), but since I have only ever had one other, heavily flavoured oolong (happy kombucha) I can’t really compare pure oolongs…
Fourth steep (4 pm)- My afternoon got busy and left me unable to steep more until my hunger pangs distracted me at 4 pm. Despite making a cup of tea, I still caved to the office vending machine’s call and bought a Mars Bar. Anyway, the fourth steep was very similar in flavour to the 3rd, smooth, rich and earthy. I haven’t noticed any decline in flavour at all. The tea appears to be getting darker, but I also left this one to steep for quite a bit longer because I forgot about it (oops).
I probably could have gone on for more steeps but alas my work day was done and I accidentally chucked out the tea bag as I was cleaning my desk for the evening. Thanks again to Angel at teavivre for these very generous samples. I only used half of one for a whole day of enjoyment, and am so excited that at least 5 days of enjoyment are still to come!
