New Tasting Notes
A nice, classic chai. The CTC base is very malty and smooth, and the cardamom is the strongest spice here, followed by the ginger. I do taste a touch of clove and cinnamon as well. The spices taste fresh and aromatic.
I prepared mine plain and added a drizzle of meadowfoam honey, but I think this would be a good classic option to keep on hand for lattes and stovetop chai as well.
Flavors: Acidic, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Clove, Earthy, Ginger, Malty, Smooth, Spices
Preparation
Sipdown! (4 | 107)
Sipped through another bag of this, and it’s still just delightful. Perfectly balanced between sweet and tangy, and oh-so-refreshing for summer. To me, the predominant flavor is the orange and lemongrass, but I can taste tart strawberry as well.
So tempted to go ahead and place another order, but I want to make myself drink through some of my pound bag of Watermelon Cooler from Adagio first… XD
Flavors: Citrus, Fresh, Fruity, Juicy, Lemongrass, Orange, Strawberry, Sweet, Tangy, Tart
Preparation
2025 sipdown no. 33
I while ago I ran out of matcha from Teavivre and picked this up as a replacement. While this is a good matcha, I personally found the vegetal flavour a bit too pronounced. On the positive side: it’s smooth with minimal bitterness and decently creamy. It works in a pinch (and we easily finished off 100g), but I know there are matches out there I’d enjoy more.
Finishing this as a cold matcha latte with homemade lavender syrup and oat milk.
Sipdown! (3 | 106)
Finished off the last of these fairytale tins from Adagio. It was very rainy here at the end of last week and over the weekend, so I was in an autumnal mood. This was perfect for that, as it’s basically a cinnamon candy honeybush with maybe a hint of clove. I think it’s essentially the same as their pumpkin spice honeybush, but with different additions.
Pleasant, but a bit weak and not something I would reorder.
Flavors: Candy, Cinnamon, Spices, Sweet, Thin, Watery
Preparation
The story of this tea is what led me to buy it. The flavor/aroma profile is also very unique. You can check out more on that here: https://teatiff.com/2025/07/08/volition-tea/
Dry aroma: Nothing. More on my thoughts about this below.
Dry Appearance: Trichomes all over. Silvery buds, a mix of dark green and olive green.
Wet Leaf: Mouth-watering. Greens, sweet melon, and a note of freshness that makes you float away.
Flavor: Honeydew, Vegetal. Bamboo shoots. A bit of pine and birch, Minnesota’s varieties anyway.
Mouthfeel: Soft. Like a silk comforter.
On the dry leaf: There is no odor-absorbing packet but there is biodegradable packing peanuts to keep the leaf from moving around. While I understand the reasoning behind it, I would do a few things differently. One being that the peanuts shouldn’t be directly touching the tea. While they are technically edible, they are not made in food-safe areas (unless that has changed?) I also wonder if they absorb aroma like desiccant packs do? According to what I read, some do. A nice double use to keep the tea from being contaminated by other aromas.
This sometimes ends up a little thin. I overleafed it the most recent time, and then it was quite tart and slightly funky. It’s just not for me. It’s best cold with a lot of sweetener. Then it tastes decent, but I’d rather drink a different fruity tea.
Sipdown!
My 1st one since getting back into tea as a special interest 2 months ago. Since then I’ve amassed 5 months worth of tea, assuming I only have one session a day.
Haha the way I deep dive..
Anyway this chamomile is often a fine line between weak and tasting oversteeped but when you get it just right, it is lovely.
Shall be trying more chamomile from different brands now though.
Got 75 g of this tea with my latest WFT order as I liked it so much last year! This year’s batch is similarly amazing, but maybe slightly less so. I’d give it a 98 this time around. Still fantastic, but maybe not as much pizzaz as last year. So glad I got a lot though!
Harvest: Spring, 2025
Cultivar: Qing Xin
Location: Bi Lu Xi, Renai Township, Li Shan, Taiwan
Elevation: 2300 m
Cold Brew!
Thought this was gonna be a sipdown, but actually had a lot more of this left than expected. Such a mellow, fresh and clean tasting cold brew though, with a smooth and pleasantly green flavour coupled by gentle notes of ripe strawberries. I’m so used to strawberry blends having a little more punch and acidity to them, but I like how soft this one is. I know this is a weird adjective to describe flavour, but it just comes off as so quiet to me. Not in a bad way, but in a peaceful one.
The cream component is very, very mild but does as a soft, round feeling to the end of the sip that caresses the palate in a gentle, lingering sort of way.
Final can from my fridge stash of mate/guayusa RTDs. It was actually pretty spot on to the last one I had, which was very juicy and tropical with more natural sweetness. Nice to finally have two subsequent cans with not just similar but very identical feeling tastes.
…now I need to restock from mate/guayusa RTDs for the next few weeks. Only problem is I’m a little tired of some of my usual ‘go to’ flavours. So, gotta find something different to keep me occupied for the next l’il while.
I had this as a hot cuppa over the weekend, and it was very nice! Medium-bodied and smooth with a lot of distinct floral character from the oolong itself, which I thought played really nicely with the fresh, bright and tropical flavours. I’d call this more of a pineapple tea, but in that sweet and juicy way and less the tangy, acidic qualities of pineapple. A few sips sent me back a decade to drinking Butiki’s Flowery Pineapple Oolong and wow what a trip of nostalgia! The dragonfruit does the pretty predictable thing of tasting more like a fruit punch than real dragonfruit, but that’s to be expected with a commercial blend.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the average person simply doesn’t know what dragonfruit tastes like so the flavouring industry has basically created a generic and pleasant enough flavour that could be attributed to dragonfruit without feeling offensively out of place. It’s a nice flavour, but anyone looking for real dragonfruit is bound to be disappointed. At least it’s not too saturated, and just sort of rounds out the sip following those fresh florals and gentle pineapple notes.
Probably this would have been better iced or cold brewed. Arguably more juicy made that way. However, I think potentially less oolong forward too – and I like that I’m not losing the base in this blend.
Any idea if mangosteen tastes as good as is rumored? Ever had it?
Mangosteen as in the actual fruit? I’ve had it a handful of times and thought it was nice. Reminded me a little bit of lychee. I’ve also had mangosteen flavoured blends, most of which kind of had a generic tropical kind of taste to me. Sorta sweet and lightly tangy, I suppose?
Yes, the fruit. I have long heard of it but never had opportunity to taste it. For a long while there has been an agricultural ban on it, then there was a scheme to grow it in Puerto Rico, but a hurricane came along and destroyed the plants. Haven’t heard anything in the last decade or so.
Any dragonfruit teas that you’d recommend? I love the fruit so much
As far as “true to the fruit” dragonfruit blends go, I still haven’t found one that feels quite right. However if you don’t mind the more fruit punch-y kind of interpretation, I do really like the White Dragonfruit cold brew from DAVIDsTEA – but obvious bias on my part because I helped develop it.
The dry leaf of this tea smells very strongly of cinnamon, but in a kind of musty and earthy way that makes me think of cheap quality candles and dust. Steeped up, it is much more palatable with a juicy and slightly tart cranberry and red apple flavour accented by a playful touch of ginger and more cinnamon. In some ways it makes me think of cranberry gingerale and in other ways of mulled cider. However, even steeped I’m getting a bit of that funky musk and candle note as I smell the tea before taking a sip. Again, not in taste – but whatever this unpleasantness quality is doesn’t want to seem to detach itself from the aroma.
Hot cuppa!
Many, many years ago DT used to have another pomegranate blend called Pom Tango, and as I was sipping on this hot cuppa I found myself unexpectedly flashing back to that tea. I think maybe it’s because I’d steeped this mug a long time so it was both a little thicker and more full bodied than usual, but also some more of the apple/pineapple notes were coming through alongside the juicy, sweet red pomegranate. Kind of a weird semi-nostalgic moment to be thinking of such an old DT blend while drinking another slightly-less old one.
Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
Gongfu Sipdown (2944)!
Rarely does a tea leave me speechless, but that’s how I felt while drinking this absolutely beautiful aged oolong. It’s dark, and just packed with dense, complex flavour notes. In no particular order; sandalwood, bitter dark chocolate, roasted hazelnut, coconut toasted to the point of caramelizing and beginning to char, tonka bean, clove and other slightly numbing spices, resinous oud wood, musk, and just soooo much roast. I steeped this for such a long time that I lost track of the steeps. It just kept going, and the journey as the leaves came back to life and then tapered out was so… just, wow.
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DLvaaZvywg8/?img_index=1
I usually gravitate towards an eclectic “mix and match” situation when it comes to my teaware, but lately I’ve been really into matching tea sets. I find I go through phases with my teaware, like with only wanting earth-tone pieces without prints/patterns or clean, crisp whites. So this is just the latest fixation – but thankfully one I already have plenty of teaware to support!!
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRELqKofxpk&ab_channel=TX2-Topic
