Featured & New Tasting Notes

I like the ginger flavor here. It’s not spicy, but it’s decently fresh and nice. I don’t really notice the lime though. These BOH blends have been much better than I expected!

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August Sipdown Challenge Prompt – a berry tea

This could also have filled the prompt for a guest favorite. I taste white peach first, then strawberry, and I really don’t taste raspberry but it is supposed to be there. There or not, this is delicious and will hopefully be back on shelf before too long.

Resteeps nicely. Great without additions. Base is noticeable and not weak.

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Sadly, had to toss this one. It must have had citrus essential oils in it, because it had that weird musty “off” smell and flavor that their citrus blends develop after only a few months. If I had known, I would’ve prioritized sipping it down sooner.

Sorry, tea! :(

Cold steep. I used two teabags for a 16-ounce mason jar.

This is actually quite nice. It’s definitely tart, though oddly doesn’t taste like hibiscus. Obviously it does have hibiscus, which I’m sure is contributing, but the tartness is more like rhubarb sour candy. I added a teaspoon of sugar and it definitely tastes more balanced that way. I could do without the slight cloying, musty sweetness of the blackberry leaves, but thankfully it’s quite restrained.

Otherwise I would definitely consider buying this one for cold steeping, as it’s quite unique in flavor and I love rhubarb (and sour candy!).

The maple flavor is delicious, as always with the pancake blends. I also enjoy the added desserty flavors. The pumpkin is nice! This may be my favorite pancake blend yet! The resteep is wonderful as well.

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – July 2025 Tea #4 -  A fruity tea

Not quite a sipdown, but almost.  I just wanted to mostly say that this one is definitely worth two steeps.  Usually a hibiscus blend will be either too light on a resteep or all that will be left in the second cup is the hibiscus, but this one has a syrupy yet strong resteep.  One of my favorite blends with hibiscus, in the rare times I am craving hibiscus.  (See, I said it!) And it is most similar to me to David’s Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait.  One or both blends are cupboardly necessary to me.

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Really enjoyed this blend from the summer subscription box. Somehow pineapple and lemon together ended up tasting like stonefruit to me. The black tea being cut with lemongrass also made it lighter in body, which I really liked. I think they intended this to be an iced tea, since they described it as having “Arnold Palmer energy”, but I drank it all hot with a touch of clover honey and enjoyed it that way!

This is really warming and nice! I feel like I taste pumpkin and a bit of spice, though I wouldn’t have said caramel. I can also taste the oolong and appreciate it, even though I’m not usually an oolong lover. This could definitely have more caramel, but I think the flavors that are there are quite tasty.

No Caffeine TTB Tea

This is very hibiscus heavy. I brewed this one fairly trong with sweetener (~30 minutes, then 45 minutes on second steep) in 350 mL cold water. Even with sweetener it is very tart. I mostly get that cinnamon fruity flavour of the hibiscus with a bit of sour lime. No honeysuckle, though. I was interesting to try. If you really like hibiscus, this might be a nice choice for you. I’m sad I could not find the honeysuckle.

Single teabag from a TTB! This is not for me. It’s the classic hot sweet cinnamon flavor, and there’s nothing else going on here. I shared it with my dad, who hasn’t had a spicy cinnamon tea before, and he was a huge fan. He said it was the best tea I shared with him the whole trip. It’s just a little straightforward for me.

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This was a speculoos-flavored black tea, but most of the time it reminded me more of Almond Sugar Cookie from S&V. Buttery cookie with toasted flaked almond notes and just a touch of spice. There were a couple of times when the stars aligned and it was pure speculoos in a mug, but alas, this last cup is not one of those.

Still tasty, but would’ve liked it to be consistently speculoos!

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I have had this tea for at least a year and I have absolutely no idea where it came from. I have possibly had it for far longer and found it during a tea organizing spree and just added it to my cupboard a year ago. I am wondering if this came from beerandbeancurd or derk. I know I didn’t order it as I have never ordered from this company. Many thanks and my apologies to whoever sent it!

It was neglected because I intended to have some gong fu sessions with it and never made time, but I didn’t want it to get any older with this unknown provenance so we drank it western style throughout this weekend and finished it today.

It is very good. I really love how some oolongs smell utterly different from wet leaf to steep. This is very very lightly roasted, I think. It is smooth with medium to light body, only the barest hint of briskness – just enough to make me gulp it and immediately want more yet without being at all puckery.

The wet leaves have a high, intense scent of the kind you get from lemon peels or mint, yet without BEING lemon or mint, if that makes sense. I will call it a soprano, probably a soubrette. It is rather heady actually. Crisp.

The tea itself is lovely to drink, and I can’t stop reaching for it. The first steep was one minute as recommended on the bag but it was mild to the point of seeming like a wallflower with our food. Second steep, taken on its own, was given some extra time and now I have a little more light hint if well-done but not burnt toast and more briskness. The taste is lingering more after the sip. But is it floral? Hard to say, but I think I could find a similarity with chrysamthemum.

I am not well-versed in Dan Cong oolongs, I am sad to say, but this was a very enjoyable tea. I do feel inadequate to make a good note on it, though.

This one tastes quite bland?

I do taste mixed berry, and a touch of chalk, which I sometimes find with some berry flavorings (I think in the case of S&V, it’s their blackberry). There’s also a medicinal cherry note, even though cherry isn’t one of the flavors listed. There’s a definite tartness from the apple and rosehips, but otherwise it just seems a bit watery to me.

Might have to try this one flash chilled instead of cold steeped? 0 for 2 on S&V fruit teas so far, ha ha…

Another tea that is in my stash thanks to TeaEarleGreyHot and another delish one. Thank you!

My strainer was in a dishwasher, so I took my old method — fillable bags. I filled the bag with four grams of this tea, some being bigger, some were smaller, there was even a stem; but I decided not to care.

It was also a different vessel than usual, instead of glass tall mug; I took porcelain and wide one, nordic style mug.

After rather short steep, I think it was hardly 3 minutes; but I haven’t measuered it to be exact, I received a wonderfully smelling tea, mostly after malt, a little roastiness, but definitelly no smokiness!
Flavours were equally great, mostly noticeable was sweet maltiness, again the roastiness like a roasted oolongs are and honey-sweetness maybe because it’s bugbitten leaves. In background there were red fruit notes, but I wasn’t probably focused enough to pinpoint the exact fruit; however it was so easy and smooth to drink, I was really sad to see the bottom of the mug so fast. Luckily enough, I have enough of this left.

It’s a perfect tea for colder days as today, a cloudy day, temperatures being only around 20° C; perfect weather for a little hike or so.

Dessert pairing: Poppyseed honeycake; a much better than orginal, which is a little too sweet for me.

I haven’t liked other DavidsTEA lemonade versions, but this one is a little better. It definitely requires extra sweetener, but I taste the fruity lemonade vibes. Sometimes it ends up pretty thin and unexciting. I think it’s ultimately not for me, but not bad.

I don’t recall exactly how I found this tea company, but I stumbled upon their website somehow. They have some interesting blends, and offer samples for $2 a pop, so how could I resist? XD I will say, the samples are fairly generous too, with enough tea for two large mugs.

This is the first tea I saw from them, so I figured I would steep it up first as well. It’s quite lovely. I sometimes have issues with blackberry and mixed berry flavoring tasting chalky to me, but thankfully this one isn’t like that. It has a lovely sweet-tart fresh blackberry flavor to it, which goes so well with the citrusy bergamot. The flavoring level overall is somewhat restrained, but I can still taste both flavors clearly. The base has a touch of musty earthiness, but is also somewhat tannic, so I assume it’s a blend of multiple black teas.

So off to a good start with Apolis! So nice to find a blackberry flavor that I enjoy, and looking forward to trying more teas.

Nice milk oolong with strawberry flavor. Resteeps well.

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Another one from Valhallow, thanks again!

Prepared as an iced milk tea. This has a teeny tiny CTC base – it almost looks like fannings, but upon closer inspection there are little pellets. I assume this probably means it’s meant to be enjoyed with milk, so I figured this was a good way to send it off.

It’s a tasty enough tea, there’s definitely a caramel note to it as well as the cake. To be honest, I find castella cake kind of bland and uninteresting, though obviously I’ve only had the mass-produced type. I prefer the flavored ones, as just plain sponge cake isn’t very exciting to me. So I appreciate that this tea leans heavily into the caramelized notes as it adds interest. Not a tea I would personally order, but really enjoyed trying it and it does fare well as a milk tea!

This tastes nutty and chocolatey. It’s really pleasant warm with milk and sugar. Combined with the black base, this ends up quite hearty! This is a blend they make in-house, and it’s one I wouldn’t mind having again!

Sipdown 28 – 2025

This was underwhelming. Mild honey notes, but a bit muddled.

This is described as a cake tea with pineapple and orange, which sounded delightful to me and made me think of hummingbird cake or ambrosia.

However, even though pineapple flavor is listed in the ingredients, I can’t taste any fruity notes at all here, not even a hint. It has a long list of ingredients, but ends up tasting like a buttery cake flavored black tea. It almost has a bit of a pancake-like flavor, with decadent butter and syrup notes. Which is fine, but not what I was expecting given the tasting notes and description.

It’s actually a bit much for me, since I’m not really a dessert tea person these days, so I’ll probably put this one into my rehoming box.

I had seen this company in passing a few times, and thought the concept was cute. They have created a fairy character for each of their six teas, with pretty artwork to match. I always found their teas too expensive ($17 for 20 sachets) so never ordered any. But now they have a 40% off sale for the rest of July, so my curiosity got the better of me, and I ordered four blends to try. The packaging is very pretty, albeit impractical since it’s just a non-resealable foil pouch inside a cardboard tube. But the empty tubes will look lovely in my teaware cabinet!

This tea is an Earl Grey with caramel and vanilla (although the ingredients list has blackcurrant and not vanilla). Of course, I immediately thought of Paris, but this is organic and doesn’t seem to be the same tea. The EG part here actually reminds me strongly of Dessert by Deb, it has the same weird musty/earthy quality to it that I remember from her bergamot blends. As for the other flavors, I do think I get caramel, but it’s difficult to tell if there’s currant and/or vanilla. Mostly it tastes like a plain EG with that weird musty flavor. A little bit powdery, even?

So not off to a great start heh, we’ll see if the rest of the teas follow suit. I kind of expected these to not be great, since it seems like they put so much effort into the packaging and overall theme. But we shall see!

I unscientifically weighed this in my uncontrolled kitchen environment on my small digital scale, and I found this ball to be 8.33 grams, compared to vendor’s promise of 7 grams. So I have some extra gas here!

Excited to try this, as I have recently enjoyed experimenting with the bitter Campari liquer in various cocktails, and found this to be a rewarding experience, so let’s bring on the bitter!

1st steep – 205° in 16 oz water for 1 minute – nothing much going on here. No real bitterness, not any sweetness, no aroma, no florals, etc. Just some barebones vague “teaness” here. Maybe I should have done a rinse or had a longer first steep. Will adjust next time, as I have four of these minis to play with.

2nd steep – 195° in 16 oz water for 2 minutes – Okay, here it is – pretty much a one-note chewing-on-crushed-aspirin type of bitterness. The brew is a noticeably cloudy looking amber color. Not too appealing, with maybe kind of a chalky texture. The bitterness is strong, but I wouldn’t consider it “mind-bending.” Might have been disappointing or annoying if I wasn’t expecting it. So far, I don’t notice any “returning sweetness” or really anything else but the aspirin.

3rd steep – 195°in 16 oz water for 3 minutes – More aspirin. The liquor is clearer now, with a better texture. Nothing else seems to be going on still apart from the aspirin flavor. I’m hoping to find a reward somewhere for hanging in there.

4th steep – 195° in 16 oz water for 5 minutes – Still got that aspirin thing going on, but it does seem to be fading in power and liquor color is still clearer and even better texture. But I don’t really notice any rewards for hanging in here.

5th steep – 195° in 16 oz of water for 5 minutes – I went ahead and gave this a 5th brew, because it seems to have some more “gas.” It’s a lazy Saturday at home, so why not? Fun to experiment with a new tea for most of the day. The aspirin has now very much faded and there is kind of the lingering elements of a basic raw pu-erh here, maybe something more akin to the 941 blend I tried a couple of days ago. I don’t really find this one too rewarding so far. I’m thinking perhaps I should try “flash steeps” as recommended by the vendor or change it up in other ways with the remaining minis, and I suspect maybe there is more here to discover.

Difficult tea to rate – If you are looking for a bitter, aspirin-like tea, then hell yes, I recommend this one to you. Otherwise, I would say no at this point. I guess I could maybe rate it a 75, as it clearly does what is promised. This tea is about the bitterness. I would rate it higher if I could find some other things going on, like some nice florals or some sweet elements.

This tea is now 20 years old, and in the 4.5 yr that I’ve had it in my ventilated cabinet it has gotten even better. Brewed Western with 5g leaf in a stainless steel infusion basket and 8 oz boiling spring water after a 10s discarded boiling wash. Three serial infusions so far, 15s each. Aromas of leather and tobacco on the liquor. Very little astringency, but strong tea flavor with slight smokiness, savory peppery punch, and a lingering aftertaste that is still lightly bitter. No fishiness, no compost notes. Quite nice, and still available on the YS website (but not their US site). I’ve used over half the first tuo now, will recommend— and am raising my rating to 76.