10238 Tasting Notes
Another DT blend that I’ve been drinking a lot of with the change of season.
I enjoy this one a lot – even when I’m not feeling under the weather. It’s got a great honey flavour, but what I like most about that taste is the interesting way it compliments the orange flavour. I don’t think of honey and orange as two things that would go together, but honey and lemon is a MASSIVELY popular pairing so why not honey and orange!? It’s a similar balance of sweetness with acidity, and the hint of mint just emphasizes that even more…
It’s a nice cozy blend, and a way to sneak some fruitiness into the evening without going full blown fruit explosion!
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.
This tea shocked everyone with how well it did last year, and so I am soooo glad to see it come back this year – it’s an insanely good tea, and while I had a significant stock pile of it for myself since last year it was very nice to get the chance to top it up.
It also means I’ve been drinking more of it lately and not hoarding so much! It’s a lovely dessert with with marshmallow, decadent brown sugar, pecan, and starchy notes that just make me so happy to sip on. I also love steeping it extra long so that more of the tannic black tea base comes out. Mmmm!
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 S1E3 – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
This is what I chose for my three episode intro to this Star Trek series. If you listen to this week’s episode, you will soon find out that I don’t know much about Star Trek at all and a lot of what I do know is heavily informed by Pop Culture.
So, I decided to pick something fun with a nod to space in the name to drink – I even steeped myself up a large Western style pot of it with some white chocolate to nibble on and bucked down for my three episodes. The tea was lovely, as I usually is, with roasty chocolate notes and a sweet raspberry compote undertone. Milk would have made the taste better, but I did have the creaminess of the white chocolate to help come close to that feeling.
It was not a good pairing for the episodes we watched – and if you want to know why you’ll just have to listen to the episode for a more detailed explanation why. I know we’ll be exploring Trek again in the future, since this is Marika’s absolute biggest fandom, so I’ll definitely get a chance to do better with future pairings!
Our Website: https://www.geeksteep.com/
Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geeksteep/
My Geek Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CFvNFOHg66T/
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.
Geek Steep S1E3 – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
This week on the podcast I got to take a look at a new to me fandom through Marika’s eyes, and it was really cool having this very tailored/curated intro to DS9 to get to form an impression around.
This was the tea that I chose to drink while we recorded this episode, and while sometimes the tea we drink over conversation has significance to the episode we’re recording this was not one of those times. It was just very early in the morning, and I was feeling a straight black tea with a lot of backbone and robustness to it. This came to mind as something loosely in the vein of a breakfast tea – but better. More umami with spice notes like cumin and a woody quality I liked. It was a nice tea to drink over our conversation because it made me feel very grounded and focused, which was important for the topics that were covered in the week’s episodes – a lot were more political or just a bit heavier in tone.
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
Of the three Sparkling Matcha flavours that I tried from Toro Matcha, this was the worst one. It had the exact same off putting flavour to the matcha that i observed in the Sparkling Ginger, but without as intense of a flavour to mask it. The Lemon was a little too pithy and unrefined, and didn’t lean enough into being either a tart lemon or a sweet one. The mint felt at odds with this type of shrill lemon, and the more menthol quality of it only seems to exaggerate the seaweed-y taste of the matcha.
If you’re going to try one of these Sparkling Matcha drinks, I think Peach is the one I’d recommend. The matcha seems the least off putting in that one.
This is a canned sparkling matcha RTD like the Sparkling Peach from the same company that I’ve already reviewed…
I have a complex relationship with ginger – sometimes I really loathe it but in other specific circumstances (like paired with sweet and tangy fruits) I enjoy it a lot. Ginger Beer and Ginger Ale are both in that weird zone of uses of ginger that I like. This RTD tastes a lot like a Ginger Beer, and so far that reason I enjoyed it.
However, there’s an undertone of something that tastes a bit funky and by the end of the can it was building up and really tainting my impression of this tea. I’m sad to say that that thing was the matcha itself in the beverage – it was just so seaweed-y, while also tasted a little bit like a wheatgrass shot, which isn’t a pleasant flavour either. I think it’s just a not super great quality matcha; which doesn’t really surprise me because you probably wouldn’t use an amazing top notch quality matcha in an RTD in the first place and based on the marketing it seems like this is more promoted as a “natural energy booster” and less towards traditional matcha drinkers in general!? Hard to say.
But it’s sad that the matcha was the least good part of this Sparkling Matcha.
This is the tea from this new collection that I practically lost my mind over and just HAD to try as soon as possible – the idea of a cinnamon raisin profile on a houjicha base is just so brilliant to me, and I do basically always love any tea that utilizes houjicha…
I want Deb to do more with this base, because it’s incredible! The liquor is medium bodied, with a really clean and crisp texture. The perfect level of roast with a nutty quality, hint of minerality, and kind of barley like flavour. It works so well with the subtle kiss of woodier cinnamon, which is my favourite cinnamon of the moment – I am officially over “hot cinnamon” (like Valentine’s Day hearts) tea for the moment. I get just a bit of sweet raisin, and that obviously compliments the cinnamon so well. It’s almost elegant feeling, because while you get that cinnamon/raisin profile it’s not over powering the tea base at all – it’s just a solidly balanced profile where they all get the representation that they deserve.
Only thing I’ll say is that, to me, a “pudding” would indicate some kind of creaminess and that was absent from the cup for me. It’s probably more accurate to call this a Jojicha Cinnamon Raisin Toast type of profile – but that’s equally delicious!
The name of this tea sucked me in – I’m a total slut for a good rhubarb tea, so my hopes were very high with this blend! I did enjoy it a lot, but sadly my hopes weren’t really met. Maybe they were just too high!?
My absolute favourite part of this tea though is the loose leaf visual. There’s something so magical and stunning looking about those chunky pieces of apple coated in that fine beetroot dust to tint them red. There’s actually no rhubarb in this tea as far as I can tell, but they sort of cleverly trick your brain into interpreting its presence. I also think that Deb was really smart in combining a more tart and drying apple note with hibiscus to sort of “mimic” rhubarb. It’s a nice flavour and it kind of does what I think it’s trying to do, but honestly the reason this didn’t meet my expectations was because it doesn’t taste enough like rhubarb – so the absence in the blend WAS felt by me.
That said, it’s a good flavoured tea – I like the sort of tart but also baked apple note and the mix of subtle maple, and warming ginger. I can see a pie influence, and it feels appropriately autumnal. If it weren’t for the name setting up my expectations in a different way, I think this would have been something I’d have enjoyed way more right off the bat.
I’m still working my way through the teas from this latest collection, but so far this has been my favourite – which was a huge surprise to me. I actually almost didn’t order this one because I was pretty confidant that it wouldn’t work for me, but I added it in at the last minute to hit free shipping for my order…
I wish I could better explain the flavour, but I’ll have to retaste it and try to take better mental notes. For this cup, I had it at the very end of what was basically a ten hour work day and I was totally drained – but it was such a delightful moment of positivity after that tiring day. I remember the bergamot being pretty strong, but offset but lovely notes of cardamom & vanilla. And it’s crazy, because I don’t normally love bergamot and I don’t normally love most spiced tea but together it sort of… clicked!?
I’m actually on pins and needles to see if this was just a fluke brought on by exhaustion of if I actually found a flavoured EG that I really enjoy!
So recently the new Autumn Collection from Dessert By Deb launched and all of the teas sounded amazing so I placed an order. The collection actually does have a different name, but I can just never actually remember what it is…
This wasn’t from the collection, but Deb kindly added in three free samples for me & even let me pick out which samples I wanted to try. I tried to pick things that I would absolutely have never ordered otherwise that I just wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to try. When my order arrived, I let a coworker pick the first tea that I tried and this is the one that she chose.
The dry leaf smell is way more herbal than I anticipated it smelling; like a mix of grass and maybe nettle leaf!? With just a hint of lemon from the abundance of lemongrass in the blend. It steeps out pretty herbal too, and now I feel like I need to check the ingredients again because I struggled with what specifically was giving it that distinct of a herbaceous quality. There were notes of lemongrass, green tea, and a smidge of orange as well but they all paled in contrast to whatever that other flavour I was getting was.
It wasn’t bad, though it also wasn’t really my cup of tea either. Mainly, though, it was just so much different than what I had expected it to taste like from the name and also the dry leaf visual.
