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Sipdown (1079)!

Ooh – I really liked this one! In fact, of the small samples I ordered, I think this is the first one I’ve come across where I would order a full bag of it. It definitely doesn’t taste like Pineapple Upside Down Cake to me, but it DOES taste very heavily of sweet pineapple. A combination between a more candied pineapple (like Pineapple Crush/soda) and also a sweet, syrupy “overripe pineapple” flavour. There was something to it that tasted almost waxy to me, but in a weirdly good and nostalgic way. I’ve had this pineapple flavour in tea before, but not in a long time and having it in this cup felt very nostalgic to me…

So yummy!

I’m pretty sure that VariaTEA enjoyed this one, so even though I’m not a massive ginger fan I was feeling pretty good going into this cup. However, it was mostly just a cup of “nope” for me – drinkable, but honestly far too much straight ginger, without any sweetness or pastry type of notes to offset the flavour and make me think Gingerbread of just ginger.

Gonna need to play with the rest of the sample, I think…

Oooh, now this was good!

I have a weird relationship with ginger – I don’t love the flavour on its own but when you mix it with a sweet/juicier fruit note it kind of comes alive to me and sparks feels of joy that straight ginger simply does not. That’s what happened here, I think. It’s a pretty strong, and spicy ginger flavour with heat that crawls down your throat. However, it’s also sweet and juicy with red berry notes and a slight presence of brown sugar. I understand the crisp comparison and, while I think the ginger could be just a touch more muted and a more pastry/buttery element introduced to better convey the flavour, it’s captured for me in this infusion! The flavours feel dynamic to me, and well balanced.

This is my favourite Dessert by Deb blend I’ve tried so far!

Iced Tea!!

I don’t have ice at home since I have no room in my freezer for a tray – I’d rather prioritize other freezer things. So I really only have iced tea when I’m at the lab now, which I am today. That’s a big part of why I cold brew so much, actually…

This is… fine? Not as tasty as it was as a hot tea, unfortunately.

There’s an astringency at the top of the tea and a bitter bite that throw it off a bit for me, from the black tea. However, there’s also a slightly creamy flavor (not mouthfeel) and a pleasant black licorice finish that have me coming back for the next sip even though that tannic black base didn’t brew favorably with this method. I also wish I got just a bit more raspberry sweetness instead of just tartness.

Oh well.

This is the oldest tea in my queue – I think I drank this in May…

I don’t know why I put off writing it for so long to be honest. I had it during a “Zoom Birthday Party” for one of my work friends. I don’t drink much, but made an exception for this one Porter (it was tea infused, after all) for the occasion. Afterwards I switched back to regular tea. Pu’erh infused Porter/Stout honestly sounds like a fucking brilliant combination but to be honest it mostly just tasted like really good Guinness. Nothing distinctly “pu’erh” to it…

And for the cost, I’d rather just buy a Guinness.

Sipping away at a mug of this now and I have some mixed feelings.

I really, really wanted a good Blueberry Cheesecake tea and I’m just not getting anything from the flavour that makes me think of cheesecake aside from the very forward nutty (hazelnut) flavours of the rooibos base though could pass a bit as the crumb of a nice cheesecake. The blueberry flavour is a really nice somewhat baked/jammy blueberry compote type of note though and doesn’t have too much hibiscus at all. We all know I’m a sucker for a nice blueberry tea!

Plus, I just really enjoy the rooibos that Pudtea is using in their blends – I think it tastes excellent and I really enjoy it with this fruity profile. So, I’m let down by the absence of Cheesecake but the blend itself is still pretty good!

Edit: Just adding that, as it cools, there is a slight creaminess that’s coming out that could conceivably be a mild cheesecake flavour.

Not really sure that I get cider from this blend, but I do get blood orange and that’s both the flavour that is more impressive/trickier to capture (in my opinion) and the one that I actually wanted to taste. I like the sweetness level, and it’s a very fun and approachable citrus profile. I’m sure it would be excellent cold brewed/iced too!

A little while ago on a previous tasting note I mentioned that not only had I recently gotten into Kool-Aid pickles but that I was also taking a stab at making my own variation using tea!

Well, this was what I used for my first batch – I’m sad to say that I forgot to capture them in photos but the first trial was an overall success. The pickles _ very much_ took on the flavour of the tea and they even turned a weird purple-y kind of colour! I did like the blackberry flavour with the tangy pickle, but the part that didn’t work was the fact the cream element of this blend also carried through into the taste. I wasn’t counting on that flavour transferring so well and so clearly. So, it worked but it wasn’t the best that it could have been in terms of flavour…

The other thing is that the pickle got a bit soft and lost their crunch. I wonder if that was more the result of my slicing them to help them brine faster?

So my takeaways for the next trial, which there WILL be, is to choose a different flavour and to dilute the brine less with my take concentrate, and maybe not slice the pickles to help them keep their crunch. I’m thinking something with cherry…

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.

So pleasantly surprised by this tea!

I’ll be really honest, I bought it because I thought the name/pun was too good not to. I don’t really like Earl Grey very much though, so I expected to get a clever tea pairing for the next time I read an X-Men comic but not a blend I overly enjoyed. It was worth the trade off.

However! This surprised me with nice it was. I mean, it’s not a new fast favourite or anything like that but I didn’t find myself struggling to get through the mug of it or grimacing at the bergamot. In fact, it was surprisingly smooth and even kind of creamy as if there was a vanilla element to the tea – although I don’t see vanilla or any type of flavouring listed with the ingredients. The bergamot was light to medium bodied, and primarily the flavour was just this silky floral that I enjoyed – nice notes of rose, which I found really soothing.

Always nice when a tea surprises you!

The newest tea from DT! It was the lone new tea in the recently announced batch of teas.

I want to be careful not to over hype this tea, because I would truly hate for people to see how excited I am for it and buy it based on that only for it to not live up to their expectations. However, that said, I loveeeeeee this tea! I think all my Steepster friends here know that I’ve basically been looking for my perfect “Caramel Tea” for years now. It’s my White Whale, if you will. I believe that caramel is one of the hardest flavours to capture in a tea because you need density/richness and thick flavour but you also can’t just have generic and “one note” sweetness because that’s not what caramel actually tastes like. It’s a creamy sweetness, with caramelized sugar notes and sometimes hints of molasses or fruit. Like, in the range of “sweet flavours” caramel is surprisingly nuanced and full of depth! The majority of caramel teas I’ve come across are simply not rich enough or too generic/flatly sweet. I also really don’t want caramel/chocolate – I think those blends can taste nice (ex. English Toffee from DT) but that’s _not_a “true” caramel tea in my opinion…

So is this my mythical “perfect caramel tea”? Well, no. I think the perfect caramel tea would be a black tea base – however this is SO CLOSE to checking all the boxes that I want in a caramel blend! It’s probably the best one I’ve found so far. There’s only one other caramel tea that comes to mind as anything close to what I like about this tea, so if this is not the best then it’s the second best!!

I just think it has the perfect level of thick, rich sweetness while also having that creamy note that good caramel has, the hint of fruity flavour that rounds of that sweetness, and even a tinyyyy hint of that molasses-y quality that adds so much dimension of caramel. I also do like the oolong base – it’s not really the forefront flavour, but the gentle floral notes aren’t totally lost either. The salt level is solid too – I could live with or without salt in my perfect caramel tea, but what I do appreciate about it is that salt is a flavour carried so it does add an extra bit of “oomph” to the blend, and dimension to the flavour. I taste it softly in this tea, mostly in the finish. So, if you’re wondering if you can actually taste the salt, then my answer is yes – a bit. With milk it’s pretty masked, though.

I guess the other ingredients that people might have thoughts on are the carob and the chicory. I like carob, personally. I think it has a pleasantly sweet flavour that compliments the caramel really well here and adds a subtle and less detectable layer of depth to the caramel – anything to keep from a generic or flat/one note kind of sweetness is a win in my opinion. I actually wish we used carob in more teas. I don’t personally love chicory, but I appreciate that the use here is to also add a bit more depth and lean into that caramelized sugar type of quality. I don’t actually taste it on its own, but there are people who are much more adverse to its flavour than I am so I don’t know how much it might stand out to them.

Overall, I do think this is a real win for caramel tea lovers so I hope it does well enough to stick around for a while! There isn’t anything else on the wall right now that really tastes like this, so I’m excited for people to try it and happy to have such a nice caramel flavour in my own tea rotation now!

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CEepa02g2Xh/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfGMS0M8aFo

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.