15709 Tasting Notes
Tea Pop!
Finally got around to trying this powder I picked up at the top of the year from Toronto Tea Festival. I was hesistant to make it after being pretty disappointed by Lemon Lily’s sakura powder. Honestly it was pretty solid, though! Definitely whisks up a STUNNING purple-y blue colour that only gets more intense and over time as the finely ground butterfly pea flower continues to infuse.
The flavour is definitely lavender first, but a very smooth and approachable lavender without that sometimes “sudsy” taste or being overly perfumed. The presence of sweeteners and vanilla helps for sure, though. Definitely smooths things out and takes an edge off the florals. The blueberry is there too, but a little milder. Less tart/juicy than I’d have expected, but it does work with the whole macaron sort of inspiration.
I bet this would be a very good latte, and probably lean more into the macaron element. I liked it as a tea pop though! Refreshing and not too sweet. With the vanilla note, it was almost like a lavender cream soda? So much less sugary though. I’d 100% make it this way again though.
Made a cup of this yesterday and it was fine. The white tea still tastes really nice – I very much enjoy the standard of leaf that Adagio uses across all of their white tea blends. However, the pear flavour has faded a lot which is to be expected given how old the last of this sample is. It’s a little dull now, with less juiciness. Still has a hint of floral to it though, which is so nice with the white base.
Cold Brew Sipdown (2586)!
Currently sipping on the last of a tumbler of this, and it’s making for a delightfully refreshing and juicy late morning brew. Very much like a Capri-Sun in taste both in terms of sweetness level, tartness/brightness and the balance of strawberry and kiwi. I do really enjoy it, but I know it’s also a catalog blend that’s easily findable elsewhere, so not too disappointing as far as sipdowns go.
Drank this tea a few nights ago while doing my taxes (I got a whopping $11.00 back) and honestly doing taxes sucks but this tea doesn’t, so it actually made the experience a lot more enjoyable. Very smooth with forest-y and herbaceous notes of rosemary and pine with a smooth and just-sweet-enough note of maple syrup that wrapped it all up like a cozy little bow. I guess there are worst ways to spend an evening!
This is the other new sparkling iced tea that I picked up in my last local grocery haul.
Honestly, it way exceeded my expectations. Similar to the other flavour from Flirt, this had a really great balance between the notes of peach and the black tea base. The peach tasted like fresh peach juice with both a bright and tangy element but also a sweetness to round it out. Not artificial at all, and such a playful and dynamic note with the effervescence. The black tea, like I said in my Lime & Lemon review, strikes a nice balance between something like a Brisk/Nestea and a higher end specialty loose leaf black.
It just tasted like exactly what you want on a hot summer afternoon. Really refreshing, well balanced acidity and sweetness, and just authentic on every level. I will definitely be buying this one again – having that no step sparkling iced tea is so convenient. It might actually replace the sparking Blackberry Lemonade (non tea related) that I often get from Flirt…
So, Flirt is a local(ish) company that specializes in sparkling juice drinks and natural sodas. They’re a partner with the grocery delivery service I do weekly for local produce, prepped meals, baked goods and such – usually I get their Root Beer or their blackberry lemonade. However, last time I ordered I saw that they’d added two sparkling iced teas to their menu so I got those instead!!
I can’t decide if I liked this one or not. Honestly, there were a lot of things in the pros column. For starters, it taste distinctly of both lemon and lime and neither are particularly artificial or cloying or too tart/sour. Just nice and bright/lively. The lime is actually a little stronger than the lemon, which is refreshingly different too. They use black tea as the tea base, and you can actually taste the tea quite clearly and it’s not half bad either. Somewhere between being a Brisk or Nestea level of black tea and, like, a more specialty loose leaf tea that you might use if you were making Southern Sweet Tea by hand and wanted to avoid instant mixes/teabags.
Really the only con here was the aftertaste. Something about almost tasted like spearmint to me!? Flirt has a Mojito Lemonade that has a similar note in it, and I just kept thinking of that tea. It’s not that I disliked the mint note, but it was so out of place feeling that I ended up being a huge distraction from what I think could have otherwise been such a strong drink.
I always forget there’s peach flavouring in this right up until I take my first sip, and then I’m clearly reminded it’s there because this tea tastes really distinctly of an almost waxy floral peach note that I find kind of at odds with the red cherry flavour. It’s mostly the floral I think I dislike, but I can’t totally put my finger on why!? I don’t know. I still find this to be a really confusing tea, and given I have better cherry and better peach teas in my stash it’s one I think I’m gonna struggle a little to finish off even though it’s also not particularly a bad tea either…
One of my favourite Deb teas! I had a nice piping hot mug of this last night and it was very soul soothing. Were it not for the hint of sweet, brown maple that sometimes bleeds through the undertones into the heart of the sip I would say that this particular combo of really bright, tart red berries and hibiscus with the spicy ginger makes me think of Cranberry Gingerale. In a good way. It’s a compliment. As it is, that maples pushes it into being something more unique tasting that verges of the “crisp” part of the tea’s name pretty well.
Sipdown (2587)!
Whoah, Nelly! The aroma of the tea bag after tearing open the overwrap was so much more potent and boozy than expected. Almost like uncorking a particularly strong bottle of limoncello. Steeped up, however, it was very nice. Definitely lost that strong edge while still having quite a bright and distinct lemon note with a hint of more woody yet sweet ginseng in the finish.
Plus, of course, we love an homage to RBG.
Sipdown (2588)!
Something about this was surprisingly herbaceous and savory and I don’t think it was just from the echinacea, which is a pretty unpleasant tasting herb generally speaking. All in all though I thought this was pretty palatable for a clearly very functionally targeted blend. I mean, the combo of elderberry and echinacea is definitely a bit of a powerhouse duo for immunity and it’s a tough thing to get those two really bold flavours to want to cooperate with each other.
I did think the berry notes were really dense and jammy, and almost more cassis/black currant like to me than the somewhat floral leaning and tart taste of elderberry. However I just read the ingredients list and see there’s actually black currant flavouring in the tea, so I do feel a little vindicated in my observations here.
Don’t think I’d seek this out again – especially when I’ve recently discovered a lot of other much more pleasant Pukka teas. However, if you were looking for an immunity focused tea blend I do think this isn’t a bad option. Certainly better than many other grocery store teabags targeting that function that taste sickly sweet because they over corrected when trying to mask the taste of the herbs or of feet because they haven’t tried to mask anything at all…
