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Geek Steep S1E5 – Birds of Prey

Another week, another geek! This is our most “modern” Geek of The Week so far, being released earlier this year (though that feels like AGES ago now). Of course, the movie takes inspiration from the much more long running (by contrast) comic series of the same name – but we focused exclusively on the movie for this conversation.

I don’t always plan the tea I’m going to drink during the recording of the episode, but in this case I very much knew in advance what I wanted to drink. Sometimes I just have so many ideas for how to approach a Geek Steep pairing and this was one of those cases where I very heavily considered this as my main pairing. There’s the obvious name pun, which ties into Harley’s OG costume design, but the idea of this really intensely flavoured tea with a massive punch of tartness also works so well with her actual characterization – so it felt like a pairing that fit on multiple levels.

Though, if you know my history with this blend then you also know that it’s not actually a tea I enjoy a whole lot – so what you don’t see/hear in this weeks episode is me taking sips of it during our conversation and reeeaaalllyyy scrunching my face up from how shockingly tart the hibiscus is – and then Marika, in response to that, having the physically fight off laughing at my expression.

Our Website: https://www.geeksteep.com/
Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geeksteep/

Listen to us on Buzzsprout:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1286036/podcast/website

DB topic:
https://steepster.com/discuss/42133-geek-steep-a-new-tea-and-fandom-podcast

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!

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.

Slowly making my way through catching up on tasting notes…

This was a new matcha from last Friday’s collection – definitely one of the more unique ones that have come out in a while, though I think all the matcha this year has been pretty solid. Well, except for Bubble Gum Matcha – I wasn’t a huge fan of that one. I feel like this is almost as far away from a Bubble Gum Matcha that you can get, though!

It’s not as out there as Kale Matcha (I did like that one though), but this matcha has some cool ingredients – including both ginger powder and apple cider vinegar powder. As such, there’s some kick to it! Both in terms of ginger heat/tickle in the back of your throat as well as some tang from the ACV powder. So, it’s really appropriately named in my opinion. I know that Ginger is associated with digestion, and I know that ACV has a TON of associated wellness benefits too – but I don’t really care about any of them on a personal level at all. I just get excited whenever we’re carrying a new ingredient in a tea blend, and as someone who loves vinegar in just about every form I love the flavour in this tea too! The apple just tastes fresh, zingy and crisp. It reminds me a little bit of hard ciders in pubs after long shifts at work – but just a bit healthier/without the hangovers.

Things of note, at least in my opinion – this is a sweetened matcha but it is considerably less sweetened than the typical flavoured matcha from DT so don’t expect that same level of sweetness from the blend. I’m not actually sure what steeping recommendations we’re putting on the web labels for this one, in terms of matcha spoon amount, but my personal preference is to use just a TINY bit more than what I would typically use for a straight matcha. If you dose this one heavily, like a flavoured matcha, you’re in for a world of hurt because the flavour of this one can get INTENSE!

Also – you can’t really make this one into a latte and honestly, even if you could, I can’t really picture the flavour translating well with milk. I like it hot and plain or hot with honey, but it’s okay iced too. A coworker tried it as a tea pop the other day and enjoyed it made that was as well, for what it’s worth.

It takes a lot to get me on board with intense ginger flavours, but I think in this case my love of apple cider vinegar outweighs my complicated relationship with ginger.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGPzBvfA-pK/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUxT5FrpOL8&ab_channel=Bobbing-Topic

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.

Happy belated Canadian Turkey Day, Steepster friends! :)

I had this one on Thanksgiving, with a special “treat yourself” breakfast I ordered in for myself – blueberry pancakes with English cream! Very rich/decadent, but it was the only thing I did special for the holiday so I gave myself a pass.

I couldn’t remember if I’d had this tea or not – it tasted familiar. Looks like I haven’t though. I enjoyed it, one of the better teas from Pudtea IMO. The apple was light to medium bodied, and a bit more of a baked apple than a fresh apple flavour which does make sense for a “crumble” profile. There’s fudge in this blend, which carries through into the steeped tea in the form of both oiliness and sweetness and while the oily mouthfeel would probably have usually bothered me I didn’t mind it as much with my already very rich/sticky breakfast.

The one thing in the blend that kind of through me for a loop was that it has a very “red hot” cinnamon flavour in the undertone – like Valentine’s Day candies. I didn’t expect it, and it did break the illusion of a baked apple/pastry profile for me. I feel like it was meant to be the more warm and buttery soft cinnamon that’s in so many pastries but that the wrong type was used, resulting in the blend being unbalanced. I got used to it, but the blend would be better served without it IMO.

Thank you VariaTEA for sharing this tea with me!

Weirdness of the tea name aside, this was pretty good. To be honest, it’s definitely majority hibiscus so the taste is very intense and leans quite tart – but there’s a bit of berry too from the elderberry so it’s not exactly like just drinking pure hibiscus. Not my favourite – I prefer some of the other blends I’ve had from this company. Happy I tried it though, and more enjoyable that I had expected the ingredients list!

Something I drank earlier this morning…

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before with this tea, but my Grandma used to keep a jar of dried apricots in her pantry that she would give us to snack on when we were kids visiting her house. Hell, she might still keep one in her pantry – it’s been so long since I was last there that I don’t know if she does or not. I remember that whether or not they tasted good was directly correlated with how recently she had filled the jar. Well, this cup was like drinking a mug of those really good and more juicy/fresh apricots from a newly topped up jar. Very yummy – and it’s been a while since I last had an apricot tea, let alone one as nice as this one!

It’s been a minute since I last had this one, but I guess I was feeling oolong teas this morning because that’s basically exclusively what I drank for my first half of the day. This was very good – creamy and sweet winter mint and vanilla. A little less floral green oolong base tea than I recall my last cup having, but I did let it steep for a long time so perhaps the flavouring just outweighed the taste of the tea in this case. Delicious, as always though!

Cold Brew!

Not the most intensely blue colour I’ve seen from a butterfly pea flower blend before but at least it is blue which does count for something. I fully expected this to be more mango than dragon fruit, because that’s such a hard flavour to nail, but it’s actually the other way around. Still a very light and refreshing flavour though and not really sweet/juicy. Sometimes dragon fruit blends feel like more of a “fruit punch” sort of concentrated dragon fruit and this is actually more of the mellow and somewhat watery crisp and pear-like dragon fruit flavour that real dragonfruit has. I could drink this like water; it’s the type of refreshing flavour that feels like it would never build up into too much or get too cloying and it feels light – not like something you’d get bogged down by after a glass or two. It also reminds me of something very familiar outside of dragonfruit but I can’t put my finger on it.

All that said, it’s not incredible and I don’t think it’s something I’ll gravitate towards often. It’s just both different and better than I expected, which is nice.

Sipped on over the weekend…

I’m not sure if I’ve ever had a Sailor Moon tea blend before, but I’d be remiss if I turned down the opportunity! It’s actually been a while since I last watched this anime, and with the “reboot” out I think it’s probably high time that I revisited it!

This tasted really solid! It’s essentially a strawberries and cream profile, though heavier on the strawberry than the cream. I liked that the black tea base was still very much apparent in the infused cup, and the slight floral notes that it added were a good addition to the sweeter and bordering on candy-like strawberry flavours. It’s a touch perfume-y/artificial, but not in an off putting way to me.

I wouldn’t have known, prior to trying this, was a “Sailor Moon” tea should taste like but having now tried this blend I think the profile does match with my recollection of the anime!

It was cold and rainy all morning and afternoon today, and all I wanted was to curl up in mass amounts of blankts and drink Hojicha – the plus side of working from home, however, is that I was able to do exactly that in between meetings/conference calls.

This is my favourite of Hojicha Co’s offerings – so it should be no surprise that this is what I brewed up. I can see a bit of a field from my apartment, and all the foliage is turning orange and red now so sipping this while listening to the rain and watching the field was pretty picturesque “Autumn vibes”. I felt cozy and happy!

Gongfu!

This shou kicked my ass earlier this week! Super intense session filled with deeply petrichor rich with wet decaying wood and forest undergrowth flavours filling out the body of this robust pu’erh. The liquor is thick and oily w/ heavy undertones of clove, cassia oil, and sandalwood and a camphorous finish that hits you in the gut – all in an incredibly way. This is basically all my favourite things in a ripe pu’erh!! Something like seven steeps total, so not the most longevity – but it makes the most out of each steep.

Thanks Red Phoenix for sharing!

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGN8dFvgDe_/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze-HcLf5Zhg&ab_channel=Nan%C3%A9-Topic