513 Tasting Notes
Had this for breakfast this morning, and now we’re talking. Strongly fragrant and flavourful, there’s no mistaking that this is a thick and creamy raspberry tea. Again, I didn’t find any coconut, but I’m ok with that. I would not compare this with Fantasy island by DAVIDs tea because that tea is coconut heavy with not even a trace hint of raspberry, whereas this is raspberry heavy and I can’t for the life of me find coconut. That’s ok, though—I am tea polygamous so it all works out.
Oh my gosh this tea was perfect on what felt like such an ideal spring morning.
I had this tea yesterday morning with breakfast (actually I think this was my breakfast), and felt so uninspired that I couldn’t really think of anything to write. As with all vanilla teas, I was hoping for more vanilla, and although the vanilla in this tea didn’t smell of alcohol or anything overly cloying or chemical, it just wasn’t strong enough. The good news is that this tea is still tasty and easy enough to drink; it just isn’t a strongly flavoured vanilla black. The vanilla is gentle, and the base…I can’t remember much about it. You can tell it’s well-blended, and between sharing with people and drinking a few more cups, I’ll have no problem finishing this off.
A good tea, just not awesome.
I fantasized about trying this tea this morning, and after a wonderfully restful night, I did just that. And holy hell delicious raspberry tea! I can’t really taste coconut, but I honestly don’t care. This is probably the most authentic raspberry tea I’ve ever had (my expertise in this area is quite distinct, as this is I think the second raspberry tea I’ve had) and even still, I don’t care because it’s juicy and creamy and you can still taste the base but the raspberries taste as though they’re exploding in your mouth in a most exploding fashion. I had it with my breakfast of bacon and eggs, and it actually paired surprisingly well. This was my first River tea tea, and it was a great note to start on! Add me to the club, guys!
It’s so annoying when your mind is in the mood for tea, but your body simply isn’t. I woke up this morning and groggily stumbled into the kitchen, but no tea in particular was calling to me. Last night I’d had high hopes of trying some of my new teas this morning, but it was a different story when I woke up. So I brewed up something that’s tried and true, that I can generally rely on to brew a consistent cup. And it still tasted lovely and I felt all validated for having topped up with my last Butiki order, but I’m still just generally “not feeling it” as far as tea is concerned. Not a bad thing necessarily though, as I drink a lot of black tea and taking a break for a few hours never hurt anybody…much.
It’s Friday! May the work day pass quickly.
I have those mornings every once in a while. When I do, I drink coffee. I rarely drink it anymore but I still like it. The easy thing about it is – I only have one delicious kind.
That makes sense. I’m not a coffee drinker though, but I figure that not having anything at all would work too haha.
Boo. Hope you snap out of it with the tea thing. I hate it when you stand ther ewith so much tea and nothing sounds appealing… :|
That’s exactly it, cavo! I was like how can I have 140 teas and not want any of them?
Maybe take a break like MzPriss suggested, or pick a tea that is really different from what you usually drink? I hope you snap outta the funk and the rest of you day is spectacular. May the day pass quickly and easily, and the weekend be wonderful!!!
I had a couple of days a while back where every tea I tasted tasted BAD. And these are teas I love from the same bag I had been drinking from. I just didn’t have any for a coupl of days and it got better. I thought it was odd though
One of the antibiotics I was on last month did that to me. There were just some flavors that were completely gone for a little while, and things just tastes awful.
When that happens, I like to restrict myself from having my favorite teas for a week, until I crave them. I usually don’t last a week.
All good ideas!
That sort of thing happens to me as well from time to time. I normally drink black tea in the morning, but occasionally I feel kind of jaded, like, “I’ve already drank everything I have…sigh…there is nothing new under the sun…sigh…”. The first thing I usually do it drink a big glass of water. Then I’ll switch it up…drink something I normally wouldn’t drink in the morning, like an herbal tea, or white tea. Or ice tea.
Re what MzPriss said, I also occasionally have days where every tea tastes bitter, & my allergies sometimes mute my tastebuds, which is irritating because that special tea that is so nuanced just becomes a plain old cup of tea (& I start wondering if maybe I imagined all those amazing things I wrote, LOL).
I’ve been there Keychange! It’s an icky feeling, like your hobby failed you. Not cool tea, not cool :/
Yes yes yes!! as if my previous recollections were wrong, or like my hobby—my escape from the world—is somehow broken and I can’t enjoy it anymore. And then you panic and think you’ll never want tea again.
LOL, we all know THAT will never happen!
Ack!! Exactly. What if you are all of a sudden OFF tea, forever?? As if that would ever happen, but then… what if it did?!
I found this started with me after I began my tea sommelier certification. Almost like knowing so much about it, tea lost some of its magic. But then it came back, just not to the same level of crazy for me.
This is a perfectly acceptable chocolate and coconut tea. A bit thin, although I think that can be remedied with a bit more cream. The addition of rock sugar makes this fairly sweet, although you know I couldn’t resist adding a touch more “just in case”. You can still taste the black tea base underneath the nutty chocolate and coconut, although I wonder what would happen if I brewed this for slightly longer (I’d say this steeped for about four and a half minutes in total).
Overall, a good cup. I can especially envision enjoying it in the winter.
This is sort of a cheat tasting note, as I only tried the sample size of this tea in store today. It was a hot sample, and I didn’t like it. It smelled amazing, like fresh, tart peaches. Unfortunately, the tartness is quite present in the sip (at least when brewed hot which is how I had it), and sort of distracted me from enjoying what I think could have been a pretty authentic peach flavour. Keep in mind though that I tend to sweeten my teas, so those who take their teas naked may still really enjoy this and not find it as tart as I did.
Backlog from this morning. Thanks are owed to courtney, who sent me this sample!
Honestly, I would have written a review for this sooner, only I just wasn’t feeling inspired to write. There isn’t anything wrong with this tea; it’s a light combination of a creamy strawberry flavour and a thin black tea, and not much else. It tastes good, but compared with ruby pie (my gold standard for strawberry tea), it just didn’t measure up.
Thanks again, Courtney! I still have enough left for another cup, and certainly enjoyed it enough to keep it in my sipdown pile :)
You enjoyed it more than me at least. :) I have enjoyed two strawberry teas to date, and everything else I’ve pretty well borderline despised haha. I’m too picky sometimes!
Haha you really didn’t like this eh? it’s ok—I’m really picky and fussy in general. it’s a miracle my loved ones put up with me haha!…but whatever, let’s just drink all the banana teas.
Yes! All the banana teas. I’m pretty picky about fruits, especially my favourite ones haha. I still have hope for the perfect watermelon and pumpkin teas too.
I got this as an iced tea to go when I was at david’s today. I actually thought they were sampling it, but it turns out they weren’t. I was going to get a latte (of chocolate macaron), but their latte maker was broken so it is what it is and all that sort of thing. I must admit I was a bit skeptical: I thought that the tea would certainly be weak and watery, but I was very pleasantly surprised.
Cold, this tastes exactly as the description would lead you to believe: like watermelon and mint. You can absolutely taste both, and I thankfully couldn’t taste the carrot, although apparently there is some in this tea. Perhaps you can taste it hot, but certainly not when it’s iced. I ended up buying a sample pack to bring home, and will try it hot, but suspect I might actually just want it iced all summer. The combination of watermelon and fresh mint tastes so very refreshing.
I definitely recommend at least giving it a try.
I wanna try this one so bad!
I liked the smell of this one but thought that i wanted it for a warmer day. So maybe I will get some soon, but not now. Seems more promising than the Cool Cucumber one from spring.
It was quite delicious. Yes, I liked it far better than the cucumber one from the spring collection. I can’t quite imagine how it would taste hot, though I have some to play with and see.
Oh my god, bringing this to work with me in my carry mug today was probably the best decision I’ve made in like a week. I had my doubts as to whether it would be “viable” in a travel mug, because travel mugs can really stifle many a good tea, but that simply wasn’t the case. I used slightly more than two tsp of leaf for 16 oz of water, added a touch of cream and sugar, and drank what I swear was hot melon juice/milk all morning. I used up the last of what was sent to me by the lovely ifjuly, and am very lucky to still have some left from Nay Lynn!
Anna, you started this addiction of mine! Ifjuly and Nay Lynn, thank you so much for being my suppliers!
You are braver than I trying a precious tea in a travel mug.. So glad it worked well for you :)
It’s just confirmation that my travel mug is extremely awesome!! go carry mug!!
This review made me smile. I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Another endorsement for the carry mug! Go keychange!
i sometimes wonder what other ppl are going with their travel mugs that they have funny tasting teas in them…
I don’t know-I’ve definitely found that often tea tastes different depending on what you drink it out of. I like the carry mug (and the timolino) because you can smell as you drink.
fair enough…the smell factor i can get behind :)
I agree that what you drink tea out of can make a difference in how it tastes. Some teas just taste better if you can smell them too… it’s a whole experience thing.
I just gotta break down and spend the money to get the carry mug….. It’s funny. Some things I’m willing to just drop money on, but for whatever reason I’m hesitant on this one and I really want it.
My carry mug is by far my favourite piece of teawear. May I ask what’s making you hesitate?
I don’t know. I think it’s that I don’t want to just buy the carry mug, but I haven’t found any of the teas that are calling to me. (I should go look again and see what I find.)
Okay, I did it. I found a couple of teas that I thought sounded good to try and placed the order. Whew.
Wow!! what colour did you choose? (I really want more colours). And I hope you like it as much as I do!!
Ice Blue. I love the color blue. Almost everything I own is blue. Now I’m excited!
I have it in ice blue also! woohoo!!
I have to drink tea out of glass/ceramic or it tastes funny to me.
You know how you can have the exact same life you had yesterday, and somehow yesterday you were happy to be you and have your life and your choices and your tentative future, and then today you wonder why the hell you chose what you did, where everything went wrong, and what on earth will become of you and why is there so much misery?
It’s one of those days (the latter, I mean). No good reason-nothing momentous has happened; in fact, the plans for our wedding are coming together nicely, and we’re about to book our honeymoon—but I can’t shake this general sense of hopelessness. I’m also really tired, which never ever helps. Anyway, I’ll be fine, but it is what it is at the moment. Perspective is everything and all that jazz.
Anyway, this sample came to me from VariaTea, who so thoughtfully included it in our swap package that was filled to the brim with things on my wishlist! I brewed it up without reading any reviews, so may have botched it a bit, but still really enjoyed the cup. The maple taste is slightly weaker than the smell might have you believe, but it’s still there, supported by a fairly hefty black base, which I like. I brewed for three minutes and added a small amount of sugar and some cream. I can’t decide if I should add a touch more sugar to draw out the maple next time or if I should brew it for a touch longer, but either way there will be a next time thanks to variatea’s generosity!
I hope that feeling passes quickly. I understand it though.
I hope so too, and thanks. I really need some sleep.
Those days just kinda happen sometimes. I hope the day gets better. (And YAY! for wedding plans coming together nicely. It can be so stressful when they’re not.)
Our best wedding-related decision was to hire a wedding planner, and that has helped immensely. And thanks for hoping this mood’ll pass-I’m sure it will also.
Ms Theresa’s recommendations for moodiness, depression, etc:
1. Eat a banana or 2 just in case it’s a B6 deficiency.
2. If possible, spend a little time in the sun with relaxed deep breathing.
3. Pamper your awesome self in any & as many ways as possible!!
4. Breath deep & savor the moment :)
5. Feel better!
Thank you so much! those are all lovely suggestions.
I’m so sorry to hear you’re feeling down today. It’s normal to feel that way from time to time. Just don’t let it consume you. Try and do something that you know will make you feel better. For me, that’s usually eating chocolate and working out for the endorphin rush and good self-esteem that follows (although I don’t recommend doing those two things together or you’re likely to vomit). Snuggling with my husband usually helps too. Feel better soon!
Feel better. I know the feeling. Just do a couple of things you really enjoy — whether it’s food, books or whatever — to make yourself happy again.
Terri – you forgot number6!! the best one ever…
VISIT SIL!
Hang in there! You have so much going for you! Sometimes life just takes a tole and we need to regroup. Pamper yourself and get some rest… you deserve it!
Tea polygamous haha.
haha the spice of life. It’s funny because coffee drinkers typically drink one kind and stick to it…whereas I’m always standing in front of my shelf being like “what do I want? I don’t want any of this! I don’t have enough tea!” haha
So true! I enjoy my coffee too, but my tea is far more variable.