10238 Tasting Notes
Gongfu!
It’s finally feeling, and looking, more like Autumn in the park now; so I took the opportunity yesterday to have a tea session of this ripe pu’erh because I guess I’m leaning in hard to that woody and camphorous profile right now. It’s shou season, truly! There’s a dense and darker sweetness to this one too though; like molasses and dates. It’s very thick and clean finishing, but with the intensity of flavour and body that I crave in shou!
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGSSBFIArC6/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1zLXt2Suu0&ab_channel=TheSnuts
Gongfu!
Pleasantly surprised by this short tea session. This shou puerh is surprisingly sweet, with a finish that makes me think of fresh out of the oven sweet bread, with warm notes of cinnamon and stonefruit preserves, almost like a Hot Cross Bun! Aside from such a tasty and interesting finish to the steeps, the rest of the profile is a bit more mineral and earthy with hints of molasses. I think this would be an excellent candidate for Grandpa style brewing, too!
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGYFk14gwHX/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGCTotw7_jA&ab_channel=Wilderado-Topic
I was so curious about this tea when it originally released this year but Adagio is not the cheapest company to order from when you’re only curious about one tea – if I’m going to order I want to make it a BIG order with lots of new things or restocks of my favourites. So, finally, I had the excuse to do that – I picked up a ton of new Halloween and fandom samples but also tossed in some of their main assortment that I had been interested in trying…
I’ve heard great things about this tea from Instagram friends, and so my expectations were pretty high. I wanted to get this as LLT but the small LLT sample was sold out and I wasn’t willing to blind buy the large bag of it, so I went with the tea sachet options instead. So that’s not my ideal format, but I’m willing to roll with it!
And… this was good.
I cracked open the bag and was just flood with intense boozy bourbon aroma – it was VERY strong/concentrated. However, steeped up the edge is taken off a bit but the flavour is still excellent. Looking at the ingredients list may have been a bad idea for me because I see that, among other things, it has “candy apple” flavour in it and that unfortunately pulled me out of the cup a little bit because I feel like I can actually taste that in the composition of the blend. However, that aside (and trying not to think about it) the flavour is a really excellent bourbon. I’m struggling to explain it as anything else other than “bourbon” because, well, well the flavour is nailed the flavour is nailed.
I’m impressed.
This is the last of last Friday’s new teas!
Honestly, I think it’s about time that DT had a Lemon Ginger blend on the tea wall. Like, when was the last time we did!? That’s such a commercial profile though, and I know people have been asking for one for a long time. Hell, I don’t even like ginger very much but even I always keep a Lemon Ginger on hand for when I’m feeling under the weather!
On the spectrum of lemon ginger tea blends, this is one that I enjoy a lot. It’s not something that I love outside of that spectrum, but I’m also not really the type of person who drinks this flavour combination “for funsies”. It’s something I turn to when I feel under the weather and want comfort, and so I think this blend checks all of those boxes for me…
I personally feel like the lemon is stronger than the ginger, although both are present and pretty well balanced. I think the lemon comes off as very fresh and aromatic – and a bit zingy. I don’t know if this is a pro/con and under or overselling the blend but the lemon note kind of reminds me of really good, sweet and puckery home squeezed lemonade!? With the warmth and tickle of ginger root to offset the sweetness/tartness if the lemon, though! There’s also fennel/licorice root in the blend but to be honest I don’t really taste either – I think they do a good job of adding sweetness/body to the tea without imposing on the flavour of the blend, and there’s something to be said about the inclusion of licorice root from a functional angle, because if you are drinking this as a “sick tea” then licorice root is very soft and soothing on the throat.
I mentioned this briefly in my most recent tasting note for Ginger Honey/Ginger Crystals, but I prefer this blend to that one – which is another Lemon/Ginger type of flavour profile. I think, for me, the main differences are that there’s no lemongrass in this blend, which is an ingredient that I don’t prefer, and the lemon is more dominant here while in Ginger Honey the focus is more on the Ginger. Just a personal preference.
So overall, this is a thumbs up for me. Nice iced, good hot, best hot with honey.
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.
I have two more tasting notes to do for the teas from last Friday’s launch (including this one) but that almost feels like old news at the point, since DT’s two different advent calendars launched today – the normal one and a matcha one…
Let’s focus on this tea for a moment, though! Of all the blends from last Friday, this is my favourite of the new teas – something that has surprised me over time because when it was originally developed I didn’t love it. It’s gone through some changes over time, and the initial flavour was actually really heavily inspired by bubble tea. Not the milk based bubble teas, but more of the fruity ones with things like jasmine green tea as the base with a sweet and juicy fruit note layered over top of that. It was later adapted to have more of this fruity and relaxing type of profile and to incorporate some other ingredients (like linden/silver lime tree blossoms) that are more known for uses as sleep aids. I’m also going to take a moment to pat myself on the back, because this is another blend that I named and I think it’s just really fun to say!
I have a… particular relationship with jasmine, in a few ways. To start, I don’t often enjoy jasmine teas (especially jasmine green tea) but there are exceptions to that such a jasmine white teas and DT’s Jasmine Black Pearls. Another thing about jasmine, to me, is that I almost always feel like it reminds me of grapes in terms of flavour – fresh, floral and sweet/juicy green grapes particularly. Most people disagree with me about that/think I’m crazy. It’s actually, for me, that sort of grape-y taste that makes this taste so good though – in my opinion. Lychee is another fruit that has a very sweet and syrupy/juicy taste while also being incredibly floral tasting so it meshes so incredibly well with the jasmine because not only does the floral quality of the jasmine work with the floral quality of the lychee but for me the fruity qualities of both go together so well too! All in all, I was just describe the taste of this tea as very fresh, juicy and floral. Mostly lychee, too – similar to Lychee Bellini but slightly less syrupy. I taste some apple in the undertones, as well, and a hint of carrot and lemongrass.
I’m not sure how well this tea will do because I think lychee, just in general, is a divisive flavour and then on top of that I imagine a lot of other people will be weirded out by the combination of lychee and jasmine but I do urge people to try this if they get the chance because it’s a really cool combination in my opinion – like, if you enjoyed Blackberry Jasmine Blast and the way the fruit/jasmine played off each other in that blend I do believe you’ll strongly enjoy this one too. Assuming, I guess, that you don’t hate lychee.
Also, I also just like diversity in my tea blends and there are A MILLION sleep teas that are chamomile/lavender/mint/valerian/etc but I can’t think of another one that’s lychee.
It’s also killer iced/cold brewed.
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.
Cold Brew!
I had this one on Thanksgiving. I didn’t do much this year for Thanksgiving, in part because I don’t have any family here in Montreal and in part because even if I did we’re in the middle of a pandemic, so…
I liked this as a Thanksgiving brew though because it’s such an interesting and beautiful mix of cranberry, apple, and savory rosemary – and while this was obviously not intended to be a Thanksgiving blend it is hard to deny that all of the flavours I just mentioned aren’t Autumnal and sort of Thanksgiving-y. Cranberry and rosemary, in particular, sort of just says “Thanksgiving Dinner” to me. So it was my sort of very loose nod to the holiday.
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.
Been a while since I last had this tea; but I was craving it earlier this week so I steeped up a morning cuppa on Tuesday to drink while I worked at home. This was the same day as my under steeped Cherry Berry Punch, and I think I must have just been having an off day with eyeballing my leaf amounts because I felt like this cup was also underleafed. All the flavours were present (chocolate, cinnamon, marshmallow, and hazelnut) but just quite thin/weak…
It was still a nice cup, but didn’t satisfy my craving as much as I wanted.
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.
Soothing cuppa from late last week – just a nice herbal and slightly savory blend to sip on during an evening when I wanted to escape a little bit more from more heavily flavoured sweet/fruity type teas. This was basically all mint and Greek Mountain tea – as it should be, honestly. Accurate to the name.
And yes, that is a big of a humble brag – since I’m the one who named the tea.
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.
I under steeped the mug of this that I made earlier in the week, and so my Cherry Berry Punch ended up lacking the “punch”. The berry, however, was very present – with a whole lot of raspberry coming out in this cup, with soft cherry and hibiscus notes. It was a fine cup.
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.
Geek Steep S1E5 – Birds of Prey
This is the tea I paired with my rewatch of the movie, and it might seem like an odd choice at first but with the majority of my tea pairings for the podcast thus far I definitely seem to favour picking teas that help me capture a feeling/experience to mirror the tone of whatever we’re watching/reading. So does this relate to Birds of Prey/Harley at all? Well, no…
What it does connect to is the experience of seeing this movie in theaters, which is how both Marika and I experienced this movie for the first time – together as well. It’s the only movie we’ve watched in theaters together, and like we talk about in this week’s episode we kind of agreed that this is one of those movies that is sort of just best as a “theater experience” so since we’re in a time where you can’t really go and have that theater experience the next best thing I could do was attempt to recreate it.
And so my cold brewed thermos of Root Beer Float and all the tasty movie snacks that I ordered in (bless you, Uber Eats) for my rewatch were the perfect feeling for capturing the fun and excitement of Birds of Prey. And, ultimately, shouldn’t that be what a tea pairing is!? Fun, and exciting?
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DB topic:
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If you want to get caught up on the Geek of The Week for next Thursday, the spoiler for our explored fandom is at the bottom of our latest DB post!
