#ProjectTeaWall
So I worked it out the other day, and there are just over 50 different teas currently on the tea wall that I haven’t tried. Overall, I’ve tried over 200 of DT’s various offerings – but product knowledge on those blends doesn’t do me much good when most of them aren’t sold anymore. So, I’m starting #ProjectTeaWall – the goal of which is to try every single tea currently on the tea wall that I haven’t yet. Yes, even the ones that I’ve avoided because I typically hate the ingredients in them. Which, it turns out, is like 80% of the teas I haven’t tried.
So we’re starting with this one: I stopped in store today to get some samples to begin with the project and while I was there I also caved and got the rosy pink “gold dipped” Nordic because even though I don’t have space for it with the staff discount that wasn’t a good enough excuse not to get it.
I asked one of our associates to recommend a good green tea for an iced latte. Unsurprisingly, the category of tea that I have the most untried teas in is the Green Tea section. There are nineteen blends in total from that section I need to tick off. After his first recommendation was a tea I’ve tried (Ceremonial Matcha) this was the one we settled on. When I was going through the Tea Wall trying to figure out what I hadn’t tried yet I was actually surprised this was one I hadn’t tried: but I guess I never got around to it ’cause when it was released Hot Lips was also still on the wall, and I was stocking that one at the time. The two were pretty similar, and so this is one I just never got to.
Gotta say, as an iced latte I do think I like this better than I liked Hot Lips so maybe that was a bit of a missed opportunity overall in waiting to try it for so long. The reason I like this one better is very obvious to me though: Hot Lips was primarily cinnamon and this is primarily clove. Good, sweet clove! For anyone who doesn’t know this about me yet; I don’t like spiced teas very much ‘cause I can really only handle spices like cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, etc. in SMALL amounts and generally on their own. Clove is the exception to that; I fucking ADORE cloves. In fact, I’ve been known to pick cloves out of tea leaf and just suck on the cloves for a few hours.
So other than that really wonderful clove note, this does have cinnamon among other spice elements. I couldn’t taste the chili pepper but I got cinnamon undertones. It reminded me a little of cinnamon candy hearts, and that was likely because in combination to the cinnamon notes this had a really sweet finish. Kind of like honey? If I didn’t know better I’d say that the associate had added agave to this but I literally saw him write the no sweetener identifier on the cup, and watched him make it; there was no added sweetener. This just has a really sweet finish, I guess. I’d say that overall that’s the element of the tea I like the least: I wish it was less sweet/cloying overall. Those spice notes/elements taste just fine without the honey like finish. Still, happy I finally crossed this one off the list! It wasn’t as scary as I thought it’d be, for a spiced tea.
Friendly reminder that I am currently not numerically rating teas because I’m seasonally employed for DAVIDsTEA and that would be a conflict of interest.