David's Tea

Day 5 of the DavidsTea 24 Days of Tea advent calendar – Glitter & Gold. I missed Day Four. I mean, I was extant and that day occurred and I even pulled the little drawer out to check what the day’s tea was and put it back thinking I’d brew it up a bit later, but then fell asleep and didn’t. I’ll go back and do that one, though. For today I’m staying on track numerically and jumping feet first into a mug of Day Five’s tea.

It looked and smelled promising: black tea with a citrus-spice vibe. Cute little candy stars. It looked pretty in the infuser as I waited for the timer. I thought I was in for a probably pleasant-ish cup. But I was wrong. I was hoping for a lighter, more gold-toned brew, but it was very dark, almost black. The scent and flavour profiles do not match up. It smelled nice, both light on the citrus note and grounded with the spiciness, not over-powering like some DavidsTea offerings. But the flavour just fell flat. It was oddly weak. I’m getting not much in the way of discernible notes of clove or lemon peel. It just tastes like black tea that has been vaguely adulterated in a too-tepid manner to have much taste at all. The add-ins are enough to keep it from being a nice black tea, but not enough to make it anything but an sweet-ish brew of utter ‘meh’-ness.

I am not even halfway through the mug as I write this and I doubt I’ll bother finishing it. The Day Four tea I skipped was a jasmine green tea that might have been a more enjoyable tea experience. Kind of wishing I had skipped this one instead.

I may have either over steeped or used water that was too hot, but this was awful. That surprised me because I’ve never had a bad DAVIDsTEA, so I’m assuming it was my error. I received this in the 2017 tea advent calendar so I’m hoping I have another chance to try this again.

Currently drinking this one with a sandwich so hopefully that doesn’t knock the flavors off much. This is a cute blend with the gold stars. Though let’s be honest, with what they are made out of I could have done without them. The dry leaf has a nice spicy scent to it with a few chocolate hints. This would make a really good potpourri. The flavor is nice. Can definitely taste the cloves but I’m also enjoying the nutty/chocolate flavors. However, I won’t rate it higher then what I did for their use of artificial flavor and the stars.

The cinnamon and spice is nice and not too aggressive, but it does kind of overpower the black tea flavor.

Perfect for the fall. I like it with a touch of almond milk!

This is the last of the three samples that came with my DAVID’s 24 Days of Tea. I’m trying to decide if I like it or not. i’m usually a pretty big fan of spicy teas, but sometimes rooibos tastes off to me. That is the case here.

The scent must be quite strong with this one because I caught a faint whiff of it. I used twenty ounces of water in my small bubble tea pot and the whole sample package, and let it steep for 3.5 minutes. It is a lovely dark color, and as I said, it must have a wonderful scent. At the beginning of the sip I get a warm, cinnamon-y glow on my tongue. However, it is quickly followed by the woody rooibos. That quite ruins it for me. I drank about half of this and decided to pour the rest out.

I am giving this one a recommendation because I think someone who enjoys chair and rooibos would love this tea.

It’s fine, but very mild for my taste. Its possible I didn’t steep it long enough so I’ll come back to this at a later date.

I am usually all about sweet, creamy, dessert tasting teas, but I am addicted to Tie Kwan Yin. It’s a little vegetal/earthy, a little bitter, and tastes so amazingly roasted, toasted and dry… like toast burnt on the edges, burnt popcorn and roasted nuts (so I guess it is dessert-ish, in a way, lol), but not sweet. Has a woody quality to it, a hint of golden, honeyed goodness, and an addictive warmth, and I love how strong the aroma and taste are. A little like roasted coffee beans, but so much better.

I really didn’t like this and the other 2 blends in this chai collection. I felt like they were far too sweet, leaving nothing but the sweet taste and oily mouth feel.

For more on tea: www.TastetheTea.co.uk

Beautiful peachy/apricot flavor

This tea has been one of my favorites so far. It has a floral taste, and smell that isn’t overpowering, with a slight fruity flavor, but still allows you to taste the blend of white and green tea. Very relaxing and tastes wonderful. I would only recommend one steep, however, as it gets a rather bitter aftertaste if you steep it twice.

I usually hate ‘pumpkin spice’ scented and flavored things, but this tea is amazing to me. Earthy black tea with tons of sweet caramel and a rich, spicy chai with lots of clove and cinnamon. So yummy. Sweet, rich, spicy.

First tea of the morning as I continue to experiment oomphing up my pumpkin spice teas with pumpkin seed oil. Not bad. Even better with dark chocolate. But that hardly counts as a tea review.

It’s all been more or less said about this tea, so I don’t really have more to add. It is probably far better as a sweetened latte, or at least with milk or cream.

Further, I find that I am moving more towards removing the bulk of imitation flavours and colours from my world—not completely, mind, but slowly, slowly. Health continues to challenge me, so I do what I can to simplify and purify. With the occasional binge, of course. But only when it is well worth it.

And ouf! How their prices have escalated! Quite a number of their products are now sold prepackaged and they seem to be putting even more effort on packaging and presentation, if that is even possible.

All in all, clearly, someone like me is not in the demographic their marketing team is aiming for.

And I still have mountains of their teas from before they decided to imitation and stevia everything to death and boost up their marketing frenzy. So, for the time being, I will content myself with those before I maybe maybe maybe make another purchase with them again. If absolutely necessary.

Yesterday, when I went for my tooth cleaning, the hygienist asked me if I was a tea drinker. aha. The proof is on your teeth, people! Tea only, she said, not coffee. Apparently, the tea residue latches onto something or other on your teeth and shows her where she needs to concentrate her efforts. All good then, I guess.

This tea would be far better with cream or milk, but after my recent fling with adding real cream to my teas, I am off dairy for the month for health reasons. We’ll see what happens in a month. I am hoping for big improvements.

This cup is ok. The pumpkin pie spice blend is a good one, with no one spice taking centre. There’s no pumpkin to speak of. The black tea base is ok, likely Ceylon, nothing special but a good carrier for the other flavours. Then there’s some sort of slight caramel whipping cream bit flavour melding all the things together and softening things up. I wouldn’t be able to identify the caramel flavour if it weren’t mentioned in the ingredients, just the vague slightly sweet whipping cream like flavour.

Not bad, but likely not something that I will reach for often.

Sipdown (from last year!!!). Favorite autumn tea, perfect balance of chai spice and pumpkin flavor. I am an unapologetic fan and will be replenishing this shortly.

This is a great black tea…. Unfortunately lacks Pumpkin & Chai flavor. I do love blending this with sweeter Pumpkin teas, like the Pumpkin Spice Brûlée from Teavana.

One of my all time favourite teas! The blend of sencha green tea and roasted brown rice is perfect for me. It’s nutty, smoky, and earthy — not to mention affordable!

This is my favourite matcha. It is a vibrant green colour, and it’s very finely milled. It has a high content of antioxidants. Also, a Davidstea tea guide once told me that it has approx 4x the amount of antioxidants that their flavoured ones do. The tea has a very bold and rich flavour. It’s very full bodied and earthy. I think that it really gives me a boost of energy and focus. I often mix it with my flavoured matchas. Even if it’s too much for you to drink straight up, I think it would be a great additive to smoothies and other stuff. I personally put about 1/2 a teaspoon into oatmeal and it’s incredibly delicious.