652 Tasting Notes
Merci beaucoup Sophie et Laurent for this sample! (My French only goes so far, also I live in New Brunswick where it’s perfectly acceptable to speak a mash of both languages, haha)
I was so happy to receive these samples because I had wanted to try this ever since reading other reviews on it. I am also still on the hunt for the ‘perfect for me caramel tea’, so this was on the list to try.
My first impression was that it reminds me a bit of DavidsTea Salted Caramel, which is more burnt toffee and less creamy than I’m still hoping to find. On second sip I can tell it isn’t as burnt tasting as SC, must be the vanilla toning it down a bit. That’s the only real hint of vanilla I’m getting though.
All in all I did like this more than the SC, but not sure yet if I would order it. Maybe my idea of what caramel should taste like is just wrong?? Or doesn’t exist as tea? Kraft caramel cubes, that’s what I want. Brown sugar mixed with butter and eagle brand sweetened condensed milk!
Incidentally, today my third….ummm maybe fourth? (haha) Della Terra order arrived, and I got a custom sample pack including Caramel Creme which I’ve been wanting to try. I opened the bag up for a sniff and it totally reminded me of this!
Anyway i still have two Nina’s samples to try and I am excited. They’ve gotta be better than Grand Amour! (go check my review :))
Made this at boiling for 2.5 min
In the mood for one of my old school Davidstea favorites. I was going to have Buttered Rum but it’s seriously putrid. Completely rotten. I’m actually going to bring what’s left of my bag to the store to make them smell it. Haha. I need more. But clearly coconut tea doesn’t last that long.
Had this instead, I used to like it even when I didn’t know to not make it with boiling water. So now it’s extra good. Reminds me a bit of the plain Genmaicha I have (not from Davidstea).
I don’t notice much besides the nuts and sencha though. No coconut and no pineapple taste, but I’m sure it’s helping to sweeten it, I guess I can taste the pineapple if I try really hard.
Weird that the coconut in this tea didn’t turn weird…. I’m sure I got them around the same time. Hm.
Anyway it’s an old favourite for a reason! I like that it’s not too sweet. Takes the edge off the green tea. Brewed as per their directions.
I’m listening to Silverchair. Another old favourite, older than the tea, way back to jr high/ high school! I think just dated myself :)
ETA
I’ve been drinking so many new teas lately it’s hard to force myself to drink more than one steep (though I do), so sometimes they sit in my little tea basket on the counter until the next day waiting for their resteep which may never come. I was just making some tea, and I needed an empty steeping basket to use, I could not remember what was in one of them, so I was trying to think back to what I drank last night…. It was this. The already steeped still wet leaves have no real smell, and I tried a resteep so I can confirm they also have no real taste. Which works great for me because now I can throw them away after one shot totally guilt free :)
Mmmm, I just got more of this in the mail today! So tasty.
Silverchair! Now I have to see if I have their CDs ripped so I can put them on my phone. :) And I also have to go sniff (maybe drink) the buttered rum I have.
You didn’t get a good second steep out of this one? I just had some the other day and resteeped it three times, and then dumped the leaves in a jar to cold-brew… and had a delicious cold tea the next day. :/
I find that with flavoured teas, the number of good infusions I can get is unreliable. I think it depends to some extent on water:leaf ratio, but also whether or not I shuffle around the infuser basket while it’s steeping, which lets out more flavour.
I think I’m just not a fan of weak tea… I don’t use more than enough leaf for one cup (10-12 mug), and I find a lot of teas are so flavourless after one steep that its not worth it to me, especially green. I didn’t stir the leaves around, just took a sip of the weak liquid (it didn’t even have a scent at this point!) and dumped it for something better. I don’t know if other people are doing something different or if I just have no interest in “delicate” flavour or what. I do try to do two steeps of everything though. Just often it’s so weak I don’t enjoy it. In fairness, this tea is probably close to 2 years old at this point so the flavour may have been compromised from the start. I also didn’t want the second steep so was happy to chuck it without further investigation. I don’t want to work hard for tea, haha.
I’m on my phone so I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors!
*(10-12 OZ mug)
Also I should try the cold brew thing, that might be beneficial to me!!
Yeah, I just dump my used leaves in a jar and add some water, and let it sit for up to 24 hours, checking every now and then to see how it tastes. It’s a fun experiment, since I was going to toss out the leaves anyway.
LOL! I accidentally put this review under the Organic Silver Needle White Tea instead, which just underlines the fact that I’m so not ready for this. Hahaha. Oy. Here it is:
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I drank this.
I don’t think I was ready for it though. I will keep my last two samples for later in the future when I might (hopefully) be able to appreciate all the subtle nuances of a fine tea such as this. I really didn’t get much flavour out of it.
I’m not going to rate it because I don’t think it would be a fair rating.
Big thanks again to Teavivre for the awesome samples!
(90 degrees for a min or two, I forget)
This tea is awesome. Just got 100g of it. I thought white tea was more weak and subtle….I didnt find it with this one at all. how long and what temp did you steep it?
As per their directions! I need more flavour for myself, just didn’t cut it for my tastes.
Maybe if I’d started off drinking straight tea, but I’ve been spoiled by flavoured ones for years.
Thanks TastyBrew for sending some of this my way!
I have wanted to try a black coconut tea since falling head over heels for Davidstea’s Coconut Oolong, but I’m not sure why.
I brewed this this morning and as soon as I smelled the dry leaves I was a bit put off, because it was doing the same rancid coconut thing that my sample of 52Teas Coconut Cream Pie did. I gave it a shot though, and if I looked past that it did taste very coconutty, but also kind of bitter and soapy too.
I decided not to do a resteep, and made some Coconut Oolong instead MUCH better!!! Going to stop looking now because I’ve already got my winner. I just hope that my Coconut Oolong doesn’t go all putrid on me one day, because I plan to seriously stock up before it is gone for good. I wanted to compare the two and the oolong isn’t bitter or rancid or soapy at all, just smooth and sweet and creamy and amazing. I’m drooling. The Coconut Oolong hijacked my tea note!
Glad to have tried the So Coconut and glad I can stop the search to focus in my next tea goal…. The perfect Caramel (non rooibos) tea!!
Coconut blacks without that rancid aroma/flavour are actually pretty decent. However, I’ve also had enough bad experiences that I’m kind of put off, myself. Perhaps one day if you’re in a tea store and they have one to smell, and it doesn’t smell off, you might be willing to give it another shot! :)
Oh, and perfect caramel non-rooibos tea? Try Je T’aime by Nina’s.
I have a Je T’aime sample waiting at home! Yay!
And I am not opposed to trying more but will no longer actively seek out coconut black teas :) Also you just made me realize the rancid coconut is probably why the rest of me Buttered Rum from Davidstea smells like cat pee :(
Haha I meant “my”, silly phone, I’m not a pirate!
Affirmative on the Buttered Rum. :(
I’m giving this one another shot. Last time was March 17. I’ve been avoiding this and the Valentine’s Blend because I was so disappointed with them.
I’m happy to report that I’m getting a lot more chocolate this time, and definitely some nut flavor (I can’t say I’m getting Nutella out of it though), so I am actually enjoying it more than the last time.
This time I only brewed it for 3 min instead of 5 so that may have made all the difference. Also I’m sure my tastes have expanded a bit since March 17 (3-6 teas a day? I imagine so!)
Yay!
Going to bump my rating up (previously 58)
Holy crap, yum!! Big thanks to TastyBrew for a sample of this!
Can’t say much now but basically this is what I was hoping Della Terra’s Oatmeal Raisin Cookie would taste like, but didn’t!
I will have to try that one again. Otherwise maybe an order from this company is in my future, depending on how kind their shipping rates are to Canadians!!
Made this as a matcha latte this morning, as per the norm for me. I didn’t love it, I think that’s because I prefer my matchas to be NOT fruity. I might have liked it more had it been cold, or perhaps without milk, but it’s not one I would order for myself. I will stick to the creamy, sweet flavors like vanilla and caramel.
I am glad I got to sample it, thanks to Starfevre!
Thank you to Stacy for a sample of this with my last order!
Given all the reviews and considering how much I love her Eggnog tea (another creamy Butiki offering), I was really looking forward to trying this and was hoping for the best.
Guess what, I was not let down!
It’s like liquid cantaloupe! What! Not even one of my favorite fruits but yum. The perfect creaminess to balance the melon, and just the right sweetness. I didn’t add anything to this!
It was delicate and lovely and another one I will probably add to my future order.
No idea if those flowers have a major taste but they sure make the dry blend look delightful and happy! This is a happy tea.
Going to have a resteep later before I toss the leaves.
Steeped as per the directions!
ETA I had my second steep of this and decided I probably wouldn’t order it, not because it isn’t tasty, but because it really does taste like cantaloupe! And I’m just not that big of a fan of that melon :)
Hmm. My friend ordered this from H&S and brought me a sachet to try last night.
I can’t say I was a huge fan…. Not sure if it’s because I’m not a huge fan of straight up fruity black teas anyway (with no delicious creamy additives like vanilla or caramel, I mean) but it just wasn’t for me. It was alright, but too fake tasting.
Perhaps it would be better iced, but contrary to the other reviews talking about fresh juicy peaches, all I got out of this was weird chemical peach taste. Like those fuzzy peach gummy candies you can buy. Never liked those much either.
Another H&S to cross off my list!
She left me with a sachet of Blueberry Green to try so I will dig into that later!
(3 min @ boiling)
Received this as a sample from Sophie and Laurent, merci!
Decided to try this one first.
It’s VERY fruity! I think it may be a bit too fruity for me, though it is tasty for sure, I find the fruitiness is so extreme it borders slightly on cough syrup territory. I am enjoying it though, I might like it a bit more if there was more caramel/vanilla taste in it to balance off the extreme fruitiness.
Not sure what red currants taste like but I am noticing the raspberry for sure!
Overall a pleasant tea, my own tastes just stop me from loving it.
So glad to have tried this, and I am looking forward to digging into my other samples from Nina’s Tea!
(3 min @ boiling)
ETA
I was going to resteep the remnants of this and then I went upstairs and got distracted on Facebook (Weird, right? That never happens!) and forgot it was steeping. Came down like half an hour later and I took a sip anyway, because I figured it would be a bit weaker and maybe more forgiving since it was the second steep. Silly me, it was disgusting! Everything I didn’t like about the first steep was highlighted and multiplied by 1 million. Straight up cough syrup. First tea I’ve actually spit out! As soon as it touched my tongue. I mean obviously no sane person would ever drink tea steeped for 30 min but I thought it was worth noting. The extreme cough syrupiness, that is. Blech. I want to lower the rating because this legitimately left a bad taste in my mouth, but I know that wouldn’t be fair. So I won’t.
