Dammann Freres

Another of the tagalongs from my Dammann advent order. I’m not sure what possessed me to choose this one, I’m not one to order a plain peach black tea. I do enjoy peach, I just find it boring I suppose? Plus I already had a plum/peach tea in my order. It must have been the mention of apricot that drew me in!

The flavor here is somewhat light, but I’m really enjoying it in this case. The beginning of the sip is mostly the base tea, smooth and woody with a bit of malt. The peach starts appearing in the middle, and then I’m left with a lovely true-to-life peach flavor in my mouth at the end and in the aftertaste. It’s somewhere between fresh and stewed peach, a nice combination of the two. I think I taste some apricot, but honestly it’s hard to distinguish from the peach flavor. The woodiness of the base tea combined with the sweetness creates a suggestion of vanilla, even though none is there.

A lovely tea with a restrained peachy flavor, perfect for the afternoon. I can imagine this being served at a tea party, accompanied by scones and teacakes. I hope someday all of us Steepsterites can come together for a fancy tea party weekend or something!

After being dissatisfied with the other chocolate teas I’ve had lately, I figured I would give this one a try. This is from my recent Dammann order, I added it in partially because of the cute tin, and partially because the combination of chocolate, almond, and biscuit sounded so tasty.

Hmm. It has a nice aroma with chocolate and marzipan, but it’s not really translating to the taste for me. Mostly I just taste a generic base tea and a little bit of amaretto flavor…

I wonder if I’m doing something wrong with these Dammann teas, as I had a similar blandness problem with another tea that I just bought. Perplexing.

Reserving judgment until I’ve tried this with some other steeping parameters… :(

I just skimmed the reviews of this one and was surprised to see they’re fairly mediocre. This is one I really enjoy from DF.

I find the scent translates to the flavour nicely and I enjoy their subtle flavours so much. Even Lex leaned over to smell my cup and asked for a sip haha! There’s a smooth vanilla flavour with a hint of orange in the background. This is a lovely tea to finish off my studying for the evening.

Another tea from my Dammann advent order. This is one of the few Noël teas that I haven’t tried yet, and the flavor combination sounded lovely, so in the cart it went! It’s listed as an apple, peach, pear, and mirabelle plum black tea with hazelnut and chestnut. I’ve never had a mirabelle plum before, except as preserves, but I love all plums and stonefruit in general, so this seems right up my alley! The smell is very sweet mixed stonefruits, and I would almost guess there was vanilla as well.

This steeped up very light in flavor, which I think is well-suited to the mix of fruits here. The strongest notes are the apple, which is crisp and somewhat tart, and the juicy plum. The peach sort of melds into the plum, being quite similar, and I don’t think I’m tasting pear here at all. I also can’t pick out any nutty notes. The base tea is generic and unassuming, a good foil for the lovely fruit flavors. There’s a tad bit of tannic astringency, which sort of enforces the idea of apple and stonefruit skin on the tongue. And perhaps a hint of floral at the tail end of the sip from the rose petals?

Overall, I’m very happy with it, as the plum flavor is quite pronounced and not overshadowed by the peach. This would be a lovely choice as a light afternoon or early evening tea. I definitely don’t get any Christmas-y association from it, but I’ve also never been to St. Petersburg! ;)

So I placed a Dammann Frères order because I wanted the advent calendar, and I figured if I was going to pay €15 in shipping I might as well add on a few teas for good measure. Don’t ask me how I ended up with three green teas, but here we are.

I was surprised to find there wasn’t an entry for this tea. It’s a pineapple, mint, and lime green tea which I would think would be a winning combo. I’m always happy to find a tea that has pineapple without coconut.

For some reason, this came out quite bland? I’m not sure how that happened. The dry leaf has a strong aroma, but the steeped tea is extremely light, on both the base tea and the added flavors. I can taste a little bit of pineapple and a little bit of generic green tea but not much else. Hmm…

I’m perplexed, and I think I’ll skip the rating for now in case I accidentally picked the wrong temperature on the kettle or something… :/

TTB. I love hojicha, and feel like it’s so under-utilized in flavored blends. The idea of a vanilla pear hojicha sounded absolutely mouthwatering. This is an absolutely lovely hojicha- roast and comforting. The vanilla is very subtle, and I’m not picking up on any pear.

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Not loving this one. Not sure what it is. I get orange and vanilla and green tea and while it’s fine, it’s also nothing special.

Having this again this morning. SO GOOD. Perfectly creamy, with just a bit of salt. I’m going to have to place a DF to grab more of this. I’ve also decided to grab their advent again. I wasn’t going to…but I can’t resist.

TTB. Another tea kindly included in the box per my request, thanks Roswell! This is absolutely wonderful. It’s a salted caramel shortbread in a cup. Caramel+oolong is a match made in heaven.

TTB. Roswell very kindly included this in the box upon my request- thank you! I didn’t read Arby’s tasting note, and ended up brewing a hot mug. It was indeed a mistake. It’s just so hibiscus forward that I can’t taste anything else. A bit of the nuttiness begins to peak through as it cools, but it’s mostly just hibiscus.

I have the day off work, so upon awakening I made my way to the kitchen, fed the cat, threw the kettle on and looked through my sample collection. I was feeling like rooibos and so I grabbed this one, the only rooibos left in my little Dammann sample bag. And it’s been a while since I reviewed anything.
Upon opening the tea bag smelled strongly of olives in brine – very green, very fruity, and very reminiscent of oregano and thyme as well (please forgive me if I got my herbs mixed up, it is still so early in the morning as I’m writing this…) Given my still very limited experience with unflavoured rooibos, I was quite surprised. Once steeped, the brew has a very reddish robe (unsurprisingly) and a very nice and round smell, the herbaceous side not overpowering its sweetness.
The taste is sweet as well, but not too much, even for someone who likes their drinks unsweetened. This is the moment where the whole bouquet really gets to unfold and shine. At no point does it taste medicinal to me though, it’s really more on the food side of herbs, without tasting like any kind of herb mix I know in particular. And while I can tell that the smell from earlier for sure comes from what I’m drinking, there’s a huge difference between the smell and the taste, both in concentration and in balance. It is enjoyable until the very last sip, which I always appreciate.
The website advertises it as a drink for both adults and kids, to be drunk hot or iced. I definitely think that this could be really nice for either an afternoon tea with kids (although, have something else ready just in case, it’s still rooibos) or for a regular breakfast drink if you want to avoid cafeine. I’d have to see what I think of it when it’s cold – I might go to the shop and get another sample, in which case I’ll add an edit to this review.
All in all I recommend this rooibos to anyone who, like me, is new to rooibos and wants to see if they’d be interested to look into it more. For me that’s definitely the case: I already have a few flavoured rooibos in my all-time favourites, I’m interested in the unflavoured base – and I wonder if what I like in the flavoured ones isn’t actually the rooibos underneath… Exciting!

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I don’t like this. It tastes like chestnuts. So in that sense it might appeal to many. But for me that flavor just isn’t working. Like I can see how people would like this but I really do not. I am not even sure what exactly I hate but I hate it.

STTB Tea

This is from last week, but I forgot to write a tasting note.

I enjoy houjicha a lot, but I’m not always in the mood for it. The other day was a cloudy and rainy autumn day [stupid changing seasons >:( ] and I wanted something toasty (And roasty!). This blend has some subtle vanilla, however I found the fruity flavours were overshadowed by the base. I still enjoyed it, I just didn’t taste any pear. The base is very roasty (like whole grain bread or over baked pizza dough)…or like a houjicha. Minerals (like how burnt marshmallow charcoal is a touch bitter and minerally) come out the longer you savour the mouthfull of it.

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Finished this one last night while I wrote thank you cards for my sister and nephew for baby gifts. Figured her and her husband literally had their hands full with the baby so I wrote while she dictated.

I remembered enjoying this one but I genuinely couldn’t say why. I wasn’t really paying attention but I do remember thinking it was good and I finished off the mug quickly enough.

I just brewed this one up for a wee treat this afternoon. This one, along with Coquelicot Gourmand from DF were ones I really went through quickly. I have only a small amount of this one left after taking a hiatus from it between last winter and now.

The scent is very cookie-like, with a nice chocolate to it. The taste is more lightly flavoured and a bit thin/delicate, but it really translates from the scent. For me at least, I’d much rather a lightly flavoured tea than something over the top, so this one is overall quite lovely.

I’m always impressed with DF’s ability to make a tea truly what they say it is.

Update: Much better with some sweetner. I also get a lot more pistachio flavour by brewing it longer. I can see the appeal of this one.

STTB

Don’t try this hot: you have been warned

Iced, it is still extremely sour/tart and quite heavy on the hibiscus and fruity. I do taste the strawberry but didn’t get a ton of fresh or distinctly strawberry flavour. No pistachio flavour in my cup. Definitely some generic nuttiness, just nothing that is any distinct nut. It is quite difficult to make out the flavours because the sour is overwhelming. I will be trying it again with 3x more sugar to see if that makes it more palatable to me. I’m a sour wimp xD

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I don’t love this one but it does scream Christmas to me through the spice blend. I blame the licorice since that’s not a flavor I love. With that said, it’s more tolerable here than in a lot of other blends that have it.

Sipdown (278)

There’s a lot of passion fruit here and I’m into it. I’d get this again.

enjoyed this one from variaTEA. UNlike others this one actually came through like the spices in carrot cake. Enjoyable cup.

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Me and Dammann Freres black base aren’t getting along. Like this tea is fine but not my favourite at all since that base comes through stronger than anything and it’s not my favourite. Also I was a bit surprised by the fruitiness of this since “Christmas Teas” are usually orange and clove and this went a bit more tropical with some sweet/tart pineapple.

Sipdown (279)

I was feeling a bit off today and I think perhaps my body got used to a little bit of caffeine since I’ve been in quarantine and this is my first cup.

I literally grabbed this so I could get a quick up of caffeine and also a sipdown. Alas, I really don’t like it. I am mostly getting the black base tea which is not my favorite. There is a muddiness to it which I think is intended to be the chocolate but it’s not really doing it for me.

I like this. I’m getting a lot of caramel and sweet citrus. It’s thick, almost syrupy and while I don’t love Dammann’s black tea base but it works well here.