Date Shake

Sipdown (809)!

This was a share from VariaTEA and I had a very weird, love hate relationship with it while drinking it. Initially it tasted quite nice; very creamy and vanilla heavy with hints of cinnamon and fruit. However, as it cooled down it almost started to taste a bit salty and like Play-doh!? It was weird so I stopped drinking the cup. I came back to it later when it was completely cooled, and it was better but not as good as it had been hot – more like a vanilla dough/fondant vibe over a shake.

So… not really sure where I land on this one!? It was a strange experience.

I keep forgetting about my swap with Evol Ving Ness because it is buried under a bunch of other boxes and bags. The bags that Evol used are pretty good so there is not cross contamination but the samples are on the older side. So fingers crossed this has not gone bad and also thank you Evol for the share, even if I have not given it as much attention as I should.

At first sip, nothing appears rancid. There is a lot of sweet and some cinnamon but not much distinct flavor. I guess dates are naturally sweet and this is naturally sweet but there is not a lot going on here. The more I drink, the more date flavor I get but the more sweetness that builds. So this gets a bit cloying. It is different than many other fruit tisanes but different isn’t always great and for me, this is not a favorite. However, I can see it being enjoyed by others.

In other news, yesterday was an interesting day. And by “interesting”, I mean terrible. I had to go in to my doctor’s office to get my blood test results. Since I don’t have vacation days at work, I started working at 7:30 am so I could leave at 3:30 pm to get to my doctor’s appointment at 4:45 pm across town. My concern was the subway getting packed at rush hour given my agoraphobia so I figured best to leave earlier and avoid the rush. However, that meant waking up at 5 am to get to work on time.

When I got to the doctor’s office, my doctor told me that there was something off about my results and she wanted to run more tests. That meant more blood work. I am terrified of needles so my mom came to pick me up from the doctor, assuming I would require more blood work. In the past, I have almost passed out from getting blood drawn and usually had to lie down but the past few times I have been fine so I got my blood drawn sitting up this time. The technician used a butterfly needle like they usually do for me but it took her a while and she had to keep moving the needle around. They took 8 tubes of blood and by the end, I started feeling very not ok. I asked my mom for a lollipop to get some sugars and they finished up the blood work.

That’s when shit hit the fan. I passed out. More than just passed out though. I had a seizure while I was out. So that happened. Thankfully my doctor is not overly concerned about it but its a pretty unsettling feeling. Plus, it meant taking off a day of work which was not my preference but I suppose its a valid response to having a seizure.

Autumn Harvest! This is one of Tealyra’s (many) discontinued teas, and since they were discontinuing it at the time I was making an order with them and it was highly discounted at the time, I decided to order some. I like dates and had never seen them in tea before. I’ve been trying to horde it since I know I can’t get it anymore, but since it has coconut chips in the ingredients, I figure that is probably a bad idea and I should just drink it already! Dates are actually a harvest food (albeit rarely thought of as such and certainly not very traditional) so now seems as good a time as any.

This is one of those chunky, heavy blends, so it will go fast. It has big ol’ dried chunks of dates, sour cherries, dried sliced apples (seriously, they aren’t even cut into little chunks, but full dried up slices!), coconut chips, and then some spices like chunks of cinnamon rods, cinnamon bits, and cardamom. It’s supposed to mimick a date shake, and I have only ever had a date shake once, and my memories of that now are a bit fuzzy: I was fourteen, and my family had gone on our first ever trip to Disneyland. One of the days was a bus trip down to San Diego to the zoo, and the bus stopped at some truck stop between Anaheim and San Diego that claimed they had “famous Date Shakes” (I didn’t even know what a date was!) so I asked if I could have one. I remember I loved it, that it was really sweet and creamy. I’m fairly sure I’d have to make this latte-style to try to recreate that flavor, but I’m just making a plain pot of this tonight.

It’s a light golden apple color, and smells of sweet dates and cinnamon in the aroma. The flavor is quite nice; it’s very naturally sweet, with the sweet dates and a sugary-cinnamon taste coming forward on the sip, but toward the end of the sip is a more tangy fruity note that tastes like those frosted cherry heart-shaped suckers around Valentine’s Day.

Another unique flavor and I’m happy to be exploring some surprising variety in blends recently. I’m a bit sad this one isn’t still around, though. I actually have a feeling, knowing now that Tealyra sources many of their teas from Dethlefsen & Balk and seeing “Source: Germany” on my package that this was probably a D&B blend, and that they discontinued the blend, so it isn’t like any other companies are going to have it, either, since it is gone from the source. Bah! I don’t think I’ve ever seen any other date teas, and now I really wish I did!

Thanks so much for sending some of this along, Mastress Alita! I really wanted to try it. This is one of those clunky herbal blends, where the weight of the tea itself makes it pricey and you sure better like the result! I sure do. I’ve never had a date shake before (sounds AMAZING) but this does taste like what I imagine a date shake would (except possibly minus the creaminess of a shake and according to Tealyra’s description, date shakes have a ton of vanilla). But the flavor is in the mug and it is VERY sweet. It’s a perfect dessert tea. The flavor is fruity with a hint of tang from the sour cherry (without having hibiscus) with hints of cinnamon, spice and tons of sweetness. To be honest, it doesn’t taste like dates as much as I’d like it to, considering the name. But the result is scrumptious anyway. It’s just an odd little blend that works. It’s one of those blends I just want to snack on… probably shouldn’t though. I just really have to steep the crap out of it to get that delicious flavor. The second half mug tasted almost just as delicious. Sadly, this is no longer available from Tealyra.
Steep #1 // // just boiled // 20 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled (half mug) // countless minute steep (maybe 30-40 minutes?)

I tried this one for the first time last night. Delicious! But the dry leaf is so so heavy. It is one of those that likely I have to think and rethink several times when it comes to reordering because of the weight of it. The weight + the cost = insufficient cups of tea for the price. But we’ll see, we’ll see.