David's Tea Assam Banaspaty Black Tea

We had a chance to visit Edmonton recently and took the opportunity to fill up our tea cupboard. In addition to some new teas we splurged on a cute set of mugs decorated like cupcakes an awesome purple nordic mug with golden elephants and a tea travel mug for me.  So yes, David's Tea got maybe too much of my money this week but whatevs.  On to the tea!

Assam is a state in India famous for tea production and this variety comes from the Banaspaty Estate within that region.  I first tried an assam tea when I was in China and I immediately enjoyed the rich, malty flavour.  Since I started drinking less black tea I haven't had too much assam since then, but as I was scanning the wall at David's Tea this caught my eye and I decided to go for it.

Assam Banaspaty is just pure black tea, nothing complicated here, but the aroma and flavour are top notch.  It is full-bodied with a strong bold malt flavour cut with a hint of sweetness.  I really enjoyed this tea and it certainly is representative of the expected characteristics of assam tea. My stash will last me a fairly long time due to how infrequently I drink black tea but I will enjoy every cup.

Highly Recommended.

For more info follow the links:
Assam Banaspaty
Elephant Mug
Cupcake Mug

David's Tea Pistachio Ice Cream Black Tea

I love pistachio flavoured desserts. It started with pistachio pudding from when I was a kid but has expanded to all things pistachio as an adult. That's why when Mrs. ISMOTU wanted to try this new black tea from David's Tea I was all about it.

So here we go into the second ever review of a black tea on this blog.

David's Tea Dark Chocolate Delight Black Tea

A rare black tea review for this blog. Mrs. ISMOTU needed a boost to catch up on some work so I decided to tempt fate and join her in a cup of black tea after noon.   This tea has "spiced" dark chocolate, blueberries, cocoa shells, and natural chocolate flavouring. The chocolate scent is nice and similar to other teas with chocolate I've tried from David's Tea. Flavour-wise this is exactly what you might expect, sweet and chocolatey. I don't really taste the blueberries that much, not like in the Rooibos de Provence, the "spiced" aspect of the dark chocolate is very slight also.  On the whole this is a nicely flavoured tea and perfect for all the chocolate fans out there.
Recommended. 

I'm going to add some milk to it now and continue catching up on season 3 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I know I'm quite behind but it took me a bit to come to terms with the somewhat jarring voice change in Leonardo from Jason Biggs to Seth Green, plus I was on more of a Japanese kick for a while there.

I've quite enjoyed this latest iteration of the heroes in a half shell particularly the running gag the turtles watching a different corny old cartoon each season that homages some of the great cartoons the preceded the original TMNT on the airwaves of the 80's. This time it's "Crognard the Barbarian" a mash-up of Thundarr the Barbarian and Masters of the Universe, with shades of the Herculoids. I might have to do a whole post on the topic sometime.

For more info follow the link: https://www.davidstea.com/ca_en/our-teas/dark-chocolate-delight

David's Tea Organic Coconut Ice Herbal Infusion

Coconut Ice seems a bit of unexpected name for a typically hot beverage. Apparently it is supposed to invoke the flavour of coconut ice cream with its blend of honeybush, coconut flakes, cocoa shells, and natural whipped cream and coconut flavouring. I feel like this was purchased back in the summer with the intention of making it into an iced tea but I don't think we ever did. On paper this tea sounds like a winner and for many people it probably is but for me it's not so good.  I can't remember if I've mentioned how honeybush doesn't agree with me on this blog before, but I really dislike it. Mostly it's the smell I think, it reminds me of something alcoholic, almost whiskey-ish, but that really doesn't go with tea. Even with my nose plugged I struggle to taste the other flavours, the honeybush is just too overpowering.
Not Recommended.

 So this was a disappointing choice but luckily redeemed by delicious chocolate caramel cookies and a new animated discovery Wander Over Yonder from the creator of Powerpuff Girls and starring Jack McBrayer (Kenneth from 30 Rock). It's a silly little show that I will probably add to my post of current awesome cartoons like Gravity Falls and Steven Universe.

Good Cartoons Made When I Wasn't Looking

I love cartoons. I've always loved cartoons and I was lucky enough to have some really great shows to watch as a kid on Saturday mornings (when that was still a thing) and some that are greater in my memory than they are upon rewatching. Today though I'm not going to talk about The Real Ghostbusters, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, or any of the extensive list of cartoons from my youth that I love. No, today I'm going to talk about some shows that sprang up seemingly from nowhere but in reality just at a time when cartoons particularly new cartoons were not on my radar.

To be fair, almost none of these are all that recent but they are new discoveries to me. Without further ado and in no particular order:

David's Tea Apple Custard Fruit Infusion

Another "back of the cupboard" review while I watch the finale to the excellent revival of "the X-Files" that I can only hope will lead to more. I may have overlooked this tisane due to its similar name to the "Sweet Apple Cider" I reviewed back in the fall.

The Apple Custard contains apples, golden raisins, coriander, chamomile, and vanilla flavouring. The vanilla and apple flavours predominate giving this tea a mild sweet taste.  I think this bag was sitting for a while and as such the flavour has faded over time.

Overall this tea has not left me wanting more, unlike the latest adventure of Scully and Mulder.

Not Recommended.

David's Tea Buchu Superfruit Rooibos

Another new one from David's Tea that is based around a "superfruit" this time a "detox remedy" from South Africa. Other ingredients include black current, blackberry leaves, goji berry, strawberry, blueberry, açai, stevia, and natural açai and raspberry flavouring.  I find the smell of this tea very unappealing. I think it's mostly the esters used for the natural flavours, I like raspberries but not usually raspberry flavouring.

This tea is almost a checklist of trendy exotic ingredients, açai, goji, buchu, even blueberries are considered fancy now. Of the new teas we bought this was the one I was probably the least interested in which may have biased me a little bit but Mrs. ISMOTU didn't love this one either.

It's tart mostly with a hint of sweetness to prevent it from being considered sour. I wouldn't say it's bad but definitely not for me.
Not Recommended.

For more info follow the link: https://www.davidstea.com/ca_en/buchu-superfruit-organic-3

Luckily a disappointing tea did not impede my enjoyment of the latest episode of "Legends of Tomorrow" which despite having a terrible name has quickly become my new favourite of the current stable of DC Comics TV series we're lucky enough to be able to watch.  This episode's trek to the Cold War got us a look into the Eighties without repeating the funkalicious vibe from the team's inaugural trip to the Seventies. Plus we got to see some characters and callbacks to John Ostrander's run on "Fury of Firestorm" which is always a good thing in my books. I'll have to write either a Firestorm-centric post one of these days or an examination of my favourite comics written by Mr. Ostrander. Or maybe I should just do both.