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Day 85 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge.

I have to say, this tea confused me. Enough so that I made some fresh today to make sure it wasn’t just my… less than ideal tea-ball (I have a better and a worse one I will admit) playing tricks on me.

You see, I had this in store once before, and it was VERY cinnamon-hot. But when I had it yesterday… it was much less so, and more… cinnamon-sweet if anything, with only a hint of the spicy-hot.

However, I made it loose in my two-cupper today…. and even over-steeped it. While it was at least somewhat spicier, it was still far more sweet (and not at all bitter, thank goodness!).

So, this tea certainly confuses me. Perhaps it was different batches, and thus different degrees of spiciness. Still, I’m a little alarmed that it could vary in spiciness that much!

Either way, it smells JUST like cinnamon hearts. And that, at least, is lovely.

Day 84 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge, and the very last of my Advent calendar teas. (Yes, it’s February. I know.)

Dumped the container in my Chinese tea pot and made it with around 3 cups of water.

Sweet Dreams is caffeine free. Who am I to disagree? I’ve travelled the world and the seven seas, everybody’s looking for something…..

Ok. Admittedly I’ve been singing that ever since I’ve heard of this tea. Unfortunately, this tea appears to not be what I’ve been looking for.

The large array of ingredients in this tea makes for a rather deep flavour. That much was intriguing. However, I found the overall taste to be, while not bad, not something I’d want to have on a regular basis. It also bittered quickly, which again muted my enjoyment of it.

I suppose I’ll have to keep looking for that “something”.

Day 83 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge.

1.5tsp in my tea ball, brewed in-cup.

This tea smells AMAZING. Just like lemon curd, I was so excited to drink it. Unfortunately, the taste was not quite as good as the smell suggests. I totally wish I could bottle up the scent and turn that into a beverage! Now THAT would be amazing.

Day 82 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge, along with their green rooibos!

1.5 tsp in my tea ball, brewed in 1 cup water.

I found this to have heavier flavour than the green rooibos, which makes sense knowing the fermentation process. This is something I was more used to, and quite enjoyed. However, I found that given the choice between the red and green versions, I wanted the green more. The heaviness is nice, and mixes with some flavours like vanilla wonderfully, but on its own, the lightness of the green is more refreshing.

Day 82 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge, along with their other straight rooibos!

1.5 tsp in my tea ball, brewed in 1 cup water.

I found that this had a much lighter flavour than the red variety, while still having that rich, hollow flavour that defines rooibos. Wonderful on its own, I found it a VERY good cuppa… something I’ll definitely be wanting more of.

Day 67 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge (and my final backlogged day).

1.5tsp in my teaball, brewed in-cup.

You know the saying “where’s the beef”? Well, with this tea, it’s more like where’s the raspberry? The tea itself isn’t bad at all, but while raspberry makes me think of a succulent, tart, juicy sweetness, all I get from this tea that is remotely like this is a hint of fruity sweetness. The predominant flavour is the citrus. Which, while nice, does not seem to match the raspberry-inspired name.

And it looks like this tea just got discontinued, so I’m glad I tried it when I did! I hope if they try creating a raspberry flavour again, they put more effort into making it, well, more raspberry-y.

Day 81 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge.

The tea has a nice full-bodied flavour to it, flowery with a bit of smoke. Probably one of my favourite straight blacks so far!

My mark for a good black tea is something that I can — and want to — drink with or without milk and sweetener. And this fits the bill. I tried it first plain, and had the rest of my first steep (which had by that time slightly oversteeped with milk and honey). It tasted wonderful both ways. The resteep wasn’t bad either. :)

Day 80 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge, and my 100th tea note on Steepster. (Wow!)

10g of this dumped into my Chinese teapot, which is approximately a 4-cupper.

This has a lovely flavour to it. It has a subtle flavou to it that really highlights the rice as well as the tea itself. I found it very relaxing to drink, which is always wonderful. Resteep was lighter on flavour, but not to the point where it wasn’t worth the resteep.
As the tea continued to steep both times, the flavour did intensify. I found that it got slightly bitter as it cooled as well (poured from the pot), but not to the point of it being off-putting.

I’ve had some genmaicha from another company in my cupboard for quite some time, and I think I’ve been brewing it wrong, after making this. I’m certainly going to want to try that as well, making sure it’s done properly to see if it will be just as good and relaxing as this was.

Adding a second note because I had a note done for this right when I drank it, but I forgot to post it. Aaargh!

Advent calendar sample dumped in my 2-cupper. Waited a day to post this because I wanted to have it resteeped before I made my final decision….
Sunday was a day of heavy meals, and so it seemed appropriate to have this, which has a lot of digestive aids.
…unfortunately, without any label quite on my little sample and separated from the advent calendar itself, I seem to have mistaken it for an herbal tea. Oh well…

First cup was wonderful – it tasted… kind of herb-y and citrus-y. I think the oolong flavour was coming out as well, and this was confusing me a bit – the first hint that I wasn’t dealing with an herbal tea after all. Second cup, which had been brewing longer, was quite bitter (oops! That’s my fault, so I’m not blaming the tea for that), but still drinkable at least.
Thank goodness DAVIDs usually labels their teas quite clearly – it makes it harder to make mistakes like this. Still, a nice tea, and certainly did help settle my stomach after too much heavy food for one day.

Day 65 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge. More backlog catchup!!

I found that this had a… rounder, sweeter flavour than the mint did. In something like chewing gum, I might prefer it. However, in tea, I much prefer the straightforwardness of the regular mint.

I oversteeped it the first time, which brought this out more. However, I still got it a second time around (new leaves) with a much shorter steep, though to a lesser extent. Short steeps help, but I still prefer the peppermint amour.

My mom loves mojito and mint teas, and she likes both of these as well. I’m slowly beginning to understand her tea preferences, even if my own seem much broader! (My tea selection has long-surpassed hers to the point that I’m storing most of it in my room to not clog the kitchen. …eep?)