Honey Ginseng Defense

Tea #3. Still need to play catch up… maybe tomorrow.

I bought this one for when I was sick… yeah, I haven’t been sick in like 2 years now because of all the hand washing and sanitizing, so I haven’t had it in ages! I’m honestly not even sure how long I’ve had it. It’s been that long.

I use to love this one, but I think that I either oversteeped it, or that I over leafed it. It’s got a hint of bitterness to it, which I don’t love, but I’m still drinking it. I think next time I would just added a hint of honey to it to boost the flavours a bit.
Either way, it’s nice and honestly, I might try and use this as an afternoon tea like my Moroccan Mint that I reviewed the other day. The days are getting cold and hot tea is my jam!

I bought this during David’s sale and I’m very glad I did!  This is pretty much how I imagined it would be.  A trifecta of balanced flavors with a hint of honey, ginseng, and gojiberry.  It’s very straightforward and a unique blend to have around, I think.  It’s what it says it is, so not much else to report! 
In these trying times, I’m trying to watch comedies to make me feel better.  MOSS from the IT Crowd is especially helpful.  Or you can watch Travel Man which also has Richard being so much like Moss anyway.  Also rewatching The Guild from what is almost a decade ago now!  And catching up on the last season of Arrested Development.  If anyone also is looking for good comedies, I recommend my all time favorite COMMUNITY, but there are so many I have loved: Raising Hope, Great News,  Malcolm in the Middle, South Side, Dirk Gently (really anything that wasn’t a comedy from CBS.) I guess comedies usually help me, even without pandemics.
Steep #1  // 1 1/2 teaspoons for full mug // 16 minutes after boiling  // 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // 14 minutes after boiling //  2 min
Steep #3 // 10 minutes after boiling // 4-5 min

I’m getting used to this one, although I feel it’s very weak. I’ve been brewing in tea bags though, so I want to try in my tea press. The ginger is nice and so is the gojo berries. It smells amazing in the package. Need to keep trying!

Got this as part of a wellness collection that was on sale. I’m not into wellness teas, but I guess I’m a sucker for sales. The main flavor in here is oolong. It’s an okay oolong, but not great. I’m missing any honey or spiciness. To me, it was pretty boring, but maybe someone else would enjoy the subtleties more.

So this one was a really pleasant surprise, wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I love goji berries and I love oolong so I went for it. Thankfully this blend has a good amount of camellia sinensis, the Seaberry Spa “white tea” I reviewed the other day was severely lacking actual tea, kind of funny actually.

I decided to brew this in a gaiwan. First thing I noticed is how fragrant the tea is, it smells sweet, floral, fruity, and a bit spicy even. The oolong base they’ve chosen is really nice, I think it works well with the ginseng and goji berries. They’ve also added honey, and I’m not mad about it at all. It helps highlight the goji and ginseng notes and just really ties everything together. The floral notes are very reminiscent of other strong orchid smelling oolongs, but I can’t tell how much of it is coming from the oolong and how much is from the marigold blossoms and other ingredients. Super tasty either way.

This also came out absolutely phenomenal as iced tea, going to be making a big pitcher full soon.

Woowww, I didn’t remember that I had tried this at all. Anyhow, I kind of enjoyed it this time. The honey flavour was pleasant and soothing. I should save the rest for the next time I have a cold.

This tea tastes bitter to me…possibly the ginseng to blame there. I can taste the honey a bit which is a nice touch but overall this isn’t my cup of tea.

Geek Steep S3E2 – Avatar: The Last Airbender

So, if you’re unfamiliar with Avatar, there is actually a lot of tea within the series. Like, to the point where one of the characters ends up opening a tea house. That left the door open for a lot of potential tea pairings. I mean, so much of this world is inspired by China and there are gaiwans in the series!

Though it was tempting to go with a straight tea and brew gongfu, I chose this tea for a couple reasons. The low hanging tie in was that beloved fan favourite character Iroh says on multiple occasions that ginseng is his favourite kind of tea. However, more than that, I wanted something that still felt Asiatic in inspiration but that was still kind of punchy, flavourful and fun to capture the joyous child-like spirit of our titular character Aang. The ginseng, oolong, and goji in this blend are all loosely inspired by different kinds of Chinese folk medicine which kept my pairing grounded in the world of A:TLA but the sweet honey and red fruit notes were the perfect upbeat, bright and playful flavours to mirror Aang and team Avatar who manage to always keep the show from veering too dark in tone with their infectious high spirits.

I really, really loved this pairing! Though a million teas could work with this show, it’s hard for me to picture anything fitting better than this did.

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.