DAVIDsTEA

This tea is very distinctive. So, I don’t find I drink it particularly often but I have a tin-full and once in a while get the urge to make a big pot of it.

Taffy Terror/Gunpowder Taffy is sweet, but it maintains a nice kind of rustic/earthy flavour by not overriding the green tea. It’s really quite satisfying and for how sweet it is I find I drink a lot of it at once. The fruitiness, while I wouldn’t be able to identify it as apricot, balances it nicely. It’s helping me avoid eating more as that seems to be all I want to do this evening.

I love this tea but have only had it hot up till now. As expected, it’s wonderful cold! Fruity and refreshing, with the green rooibos coming through really nicely. I wish this summer’s teas included something more along these lines because none of them really call out to me.

This tea DOES smell great. I’m not a coffee drinker but I received a sample of this tea and THOUGHT I really liked it for those first two cups. I was surpirsed at how tasty and lacking in bitterness it was.

Being a limited-edition tea, I thought I should buy 100g of it. After I received that, I wondered what I had been thinking. I’ve only tried it two or three times since, and it’s not awful but it doesn’t do much for me. It can get kind of bitter and I can’t remember what I liked about it.

I’m thinking the difference could be that with the sample I was using milk as I was at my parents’, and since I have been putting almond milk in it. Perhaps I will get some real milk and try it again.

Wow, I’ve never logged a note about this tea!

This was actually the first DT tea I ever tried. And my first rooibos. I added it to my first-ever order and I’d like to think it was because the ingredients sounded interesting rather than self-absorption re: the name, but that’s debatable.

Anyway, I don’t like lavender. But I’ve come to realize I pretty much like coconut in tea any time, any place. This tea is floral, but the coconut smooths it out really nicely and the combination is really calming. So last night when I wanted a good bedtime tea I went for this. It was late but I didn’t feel ready to sleep yet I didn’t want more Mother’s Little Helper. This, I find, is the perfect evening tea. Very relaxing, I’m guessing thanks to the lavender. This one is tasty and great at night but I don’t really feel compelled to re-stock often. My tin is almost empty now. I’ll likely get a bit more to keep on hand, though, because it fills a certain niche really well.

I wanted something rich to drink tonight, but I really shouldn’t drink a tonne of caffeine as I have been up all night the past two nights. I believe pu’erh has less/little caffeine, so this fits the bill perfectly. I hope.

I always get a weird scent when opening my tin of this tea, kind of soapy. I don’t know what causes that, but it always brews up creamy and rich. Rather than a chocolate flavour, I get bitter/raw cocoa from the cocoa nibs, but it is very smooth. This is always great to come back to.

Tonight I threw in some creme caramel rooibos when making this after dinner. Delicious combo! It tastes like a rich, smooth but not too sweet dessert.

So good it’s distracting me from housecleaning. Alright, it doesn’t take much to do that but a big Breville-full of this is making it seriously difficult to clean up after the weekend.

This is the first time I’ve had this tea with milk. I’ve not added anything before. It’s quite nice both ways. It’s so rich and earthy but smooth and the milk contributes a little bit more to the smoothness.

I forgot about this one for a while! What a joy to come back to.

This is the first and only pu’erh I have tried so far. I introduced myself to DavidsTea right in the midst of the fall collection so this is one that made a big impression on me. It’s very satisfying, especially after a meal. It’s a big hit with any visitors, most of whom are not typically tea drinkers. I think that’s because it has a pretty big personality compared to what most people think they’ll be getting when I offer them tea.

I wish I had other pu’erh experiences to compare this with, but Cocoa Paradiso is mostly just a hint of cocoa. I can’t figure out if I can taste the coconut. But, it all blends together perfectly to make a delicious rich, creamy cup.

Stovetop, coconut milk, Pumpkin Chai. Winning combination! This is the perfect cozy, comforting nighttime treat to celebrate a day of lovely fall weather. I love fall.

With the return of Pumpkin Chai, I broke back into my tin from last year. I do love this tea. Pumpkin spice is one of my favourite flavours and favourite scents, and it works really well here. But, my complaint is always that this comes out thin. I feel like it needs more oomph. The scent is to-die-for and the taste is delicious but why do I always get this impression? I’ll have to try some from the new season/batch because I’m intrigued by DaisyChubb’s calling this thick! I’ll definitely have to stove-top it soon.

I need to be warmed up and soothed today, and my headache needs to be chased off so that I can write. I knew what I was going to indulge in: Pumpkin Chai. I’ve been craving it lately but trying to ration it carefully. Today is the day.

It’s incredible how vividly opening the tin takes me back to the fall. I discovered DavidsTea in October, and opened up my first order when I was at my family’s cottage for Thanksgiving. This tea makes one think of fall anyway, but it’s very closely associated with my first memories of DavidsTea. Look how far we’ve come.

Anyway, I love anything pumpkin and anything with bakey spices, so this tea is perfect for me. I’m typically left wishing this one was a bit stronger, so today I brewed it extra-strong and allowed myself to use a little extra leaf. Also helping is one of my new favourite things, this bag of coconut sweetener I found at a health food store, extracted from the nectar of coconut flowers or some such thing. It surprised me with how low-glycemic it is so I had to try it. It is delicious and gives me that brown sugar taste I crave. I hadn’t put it in tea before as I really never sweeten, but it’s working well and it’s pumping up the flavours in this really nicely. Also, a bit of half-and-half. So decadent!

I’m down to just the tin of this now and no back-up baggie. I really hope it reappears this fall! It seems like such a fan favourite, for good reason.

Yeah, this is delicious. I haven’t had it for a while as I want to save it though I think I have an extra 100g stashed away in the ol’ tea cupboard. So I let myself indulge in what is left in my tin and made this nice and strong.

I put a bit of half-and-half in (no milk on hand again as I use it so little). I remember hating it when I tried to sweeten this tea (I have never been a sweetener but thought it sounded good for this one) so didn’t go there this time. It’s getting me in gear to drive up to the cottage today after waking up late, and making me wish it was crisp fall again instead of heavily snowing winter!

This was a blast from the past today. I’m doing some 12-hour (incredibly slow, boring) shifts at the office conveniently located near a DT, and have taken to popping in for a to-go cup. The problem is that I never know what I want; I have pretty much any of the teas I have any interest in drinking at home. And I feel silly paying $2.63 or whatever for a cup of things I have tins of. But, I have to do it. It’s just too damn convenient.

Anyway, I haven’t had this one in ages though I often pause over it when choosing what to drink. I think it was in my first-ever DT order, so we go way back. And it just jumped out at me today. I knew it was the tea for me. When the employee opened the canister to scoop mine out, the scent was incredibly powerful and had me excited to get back to my desk for some quality time with that turquoise paper cup. It didn’t disappoint. It’s as good as I remember it being. I think I might need to indulge in some fresher stock, as my love for this one has been renewed. So sweet! So creamy.

I finally got myself some vanilla beverage syrup, and just made myself a London Fog with this tea. Delicious! I need to try telling myself these are only meant as special treats, because I am going to want to drink these all day long.

I woke up to some ridiculous snow. It’s been so nice out that I’d put snow completely out of my head for at least several months. I need tea, pronto.

And then I saw the news that Elizabeth Taylor has died. I need something creamy and comforting!

This was the obvious, logical choice. It’s dependably delicious, and good for waking myself up gently and gradually.

I just had this as a latthé from the store. I had a stressful meeting and decided to stop in “on my way” home (not really on the way, especially not for a $4 drink, but it made me happy). I chose this one on the suggestion of the lovely employee who has now, shamefully, seen me twice in the past five days.

I love this tea normally so I thought it couldn’t be a bad choice, and it wasn’t. As soon as she mentioned it was like a London Fog, I was in. I have recently become pretty hooked on Second Cup’s London Fog lattes, made so delicious by what looks like several pumps of vanilla syrup.

Anyway, yes. This was tasty, though mild. I left the bag in while I drank and it remained pretty innocuous throughout. The bergamot cut through the milk pretty nicely though I don’t know that I could taste the tea much. Of course, the vanilla worked well in this format. I don’t know that tea lattes are worth the carb-counting and insulin-dosing required of me for the milk when the milk seems to render most teas quite a lot less flavourful, but it’s a nice indulgence and this made for a good alternative without the generous serving of (delicious!) artificial sweetener-laden syrup.

Another day that I relied on this one to comfort me through taking care of things I’d rather ignore and commuting to work in gross weather.

Yep, good no matter what I do to it. I haven’t tried other creamy Earl Greys but should.

I made this before heading to work and didn’t drink it till I got there. It steeped for a very long time and I expected it to be ruined. Surprisingly, it was still quite smooth and enjoyable. I think this is becoming one of my go-to teas.

It took me a while to try this one, and I’m not sure why. Probably it was because I am a longtime fan of Earl Greys. And, I perhaps didn’t want to fix what wasn’t broken.

But Cream of Earl Grey is delightful! It’s nice having the twist on an old classic. I can be picky about creaminess, but really like it here. The vanilla blends surprisingly well with the the bergamot. This is a tea I can drink any time, but especially times like this when I’m trying to calm my nerves. It’s very soothing. Soothing to the point where I often crave it at bedtime despite the caffeine.

Revisited this one last night. I have concluded I like it better with milk.

Drank again, trying to use up some of my tin. Still nice, but I think I officially prefer Creme Brulee these days for my dessert rooibos!

I was thinking I needed something strong and black to coax me awake today. But, I found myself reaching for this old fave instead.

It’s sweet and gentle and doing the trick. The red rooibos taste is definitely present but mixed with delicious caramel. I’m mixing it up today by adding a splash of milk. The scent alone is making me less cranky!