DAVIDsTEA

I always make chai latte-style, so this was no different. Almost pure 1% milk, just a splash of water to make up for steam loss, and sweetened with a teaspoon of brown sugar (as suggested on the package). Heated for about 10 minutes on medium heat.

The taste was definitely reminiscent of pumpkin pie – the brown sugar really helped make it authentic tasting. It’s not as spicy as most other chai’s, but I think more spice would have overpowered the pumpkin notes and ruined the whole point of having pumpkin chai.

The blend of chamomile & peppermint is perfect. Honestly, this tea could help anyone unwind after a rough day, and do so with flavour. I’m not a big fan of straight chamomile so having the other ingredients there definitely makes it easy to enjoy.

Drank it straight, without sugar, lemon or milk.

Unfortunetley this was just part of the David’s Tea Summer Collection 2010, but this tea is amazing! I stocked up before the summer season ended
I find the problem with some herbal teas is that it tastes better either hot or cold. This tea, is perfect both!
It also gives off an amazing fragrance
Doesn’t require much sweetening

Fruity with a mild tea flavour. Nice with some sweetener and milk, especially as a first-thing-in-the-morning tea.

I drank this with a touch of agave syrup and milk. The taste is nice and smooth, with a bit of bite near the end because of the peppercorns. There’s also a slight smooth sweetness that lingers for a little bit.

This is the first rooibos I’ve had and liked – I tried it because it was being given out as a sample.

My boyfriend adores anything Pumpkin Spice flavoured, so I got him a tin of this as a gift. I also got a sample for myself, and although I don’t like pumpkin pie, I like this.

In the tin, the tea has a very strong, sweet smell. Once brewed, it mellows out nicely. The overall taste is very nice and cozy, and the warm spice was very welcome after a long, cold bus ride home. I’m impressed by how smooth it is while still tasting spicy.

ETA: This is now my most favourite tea. I’ve played around with how much to add and how long to steep, and it’s magnificent.

I was prepared to not like that tea, seeing it actually contains only dried fruits and nuts (no actual tea), and after infusion, the water remains mostly transparent as if nothing had infused. I was prepared for a bland infusion that doesn’t taste of much.

I was proven wrong on my first sip. It was definitely like drinking a slice of banana nut bread. The rich taste of banana nut bread is all there, and left me in awe. Like the previous reviewer, I let the tea infuse the whole time, and the taste was perfect this way. I’m very impressed!

omgggggggg how delicious is this tea? Reminiscent of a bagged maple tea I used to drink in high school…..but SO MUCH BETTER. So much maple flavour! Top marks for this tea, best DavidsTea product I’ve tried bar none.

1 TB for 450mL water @ 82 degrees, steeped 5 minutes.

So DavidsTea reformulated this one slightly … it seems to me there’s more green and less rooibos. They’ve also re-classified this blend as a green tea. I’d found that this new version sometimes got bitter, and I’d been avoiding it. This evening I tried it with water at 82 degrees, like you would for green tea. While it takes a bit longer to get the rooibos flavour out, both the green tea and the chocolate are smoother and more noticeable. Definitely worth trying at the cooler temp.

1 TB for 450mL water, bare.

DavidsTea has jigged the formulation of Super Chocolate. I keep detecting a bit more green tea - lovely dark long leaves to look at- a little less fruitiness, and more creaminess from melting cocoa. I can no longer drink this one before going to bed, but I still knock it back throughtout the day. I swear, I can feel the antioxidants coursing through me. Still not a heavy chocolate tea, but definitely sweet enough to feel like a treat. Highly recommned.

1 rounded TB for 450mL water, half a packet of stevia (equiv 2 tsp sugar)

It’s baaa-aaaack! DavidsTea has been tweaking the recipe a bit during this blend’s long absence, and they’ve re-classified it as one of their green tea blends versus a rooibos blend. That said, the amount of caffeine in the old blend could not have been very high; I regularly drank Super Chocolate before bed with no problems. The green tea that is in here is much more noticeable in appearance: long, dark and twisted.

The bright — sometimes fruity — taste remains as a dusting of cinnamon plays with the gentle green rooibos. I am seeing much more green tea in this than before. The cocoa bean pieces seen bigger. While this tisane hardly tastes like a cup of drinking chocolate, it does now taste a bit more of naked cocoa, and the mouth feel is creamier.

Much less of a fruity taste, I’m finding, more of a mellow, almost mediative blend of gentle cocoa, tea and rooibos. Yes, “gentle” is getting used a lot here. The tweaks to Super Chocolate are not major, but they are lovely. If anything, this unique and terribly healthy tisane (I credit Super Chocolate with a major reduction in the number of colds I got this past fall and winter) is better.

Long live Super Chocolate.

PS — I also used slightly cooler water than usual. Directions say to use 98C water; I suggest cooler than that, maybe 87 out of respect for the green, but not much cooler or the rooibos won’t develop.

1 TB for 450 mL water, 1 scant tsp white sugar.

My beloved Super Chocolate is STILL unavailable from the DavidsTea site. It’s been three months now!

A dear friend recently visited Halifax-Dartmouth, where there’s a bricks-and-mortar DavidsTea, and brought me back a packet. I am sipping the second infusion now. Not as much chocolate or cocoa taste in this batch, but plenty of green rooibos and a bit of cinnamon. I can see what DavidsTea wants to re-formulate this blend a bit — if only to make it consistent from batch to batch. It’s always been good, though. (I wish they’d hurry up!) Delicious and refreshing and a bit sweet. Excellent evening tisane. Love.

1 TB tea for 450mL water plus 1 packet of stevia, leaves and filter sac left in.

Siiiiggghhhh … my beloved Super Chocolate is still unavailable for online order. There is no retail David’sTea in my province, let alone city, so I rely on the heartless internet for my supply of this one.

Unless a good friend travels to a city housing a bricks-and-mortar David’sTea.

This batch, bought from the Halifax-Dartmouth store, is noticeably different from my last two batches bought online. Much smoother, almost creamy. Lovely subtle chocolate and very faint cinnamon aftertaste. Far more chocolate bits, and more long green tea leaves (they look like Dragonwell). Less apple-y green rooibos taste but stil plenty of green rooibos, which has a freshness no other tisane can match. This particular variation on Super Chocolate is my fave and tastes most like the very first batch I ever ordered. I love all the variations, but I do wish David’sTea would hurry up and get the recipe standardized — and more importantly, back online.

1 scant TB for 400mL water, 1 packet of stevia, no milk.

Ah, a new bag of Super Chocolate under the tree, lucky me!

Luckier than I knew … SC is temporarily out of stock. David’sTea assures me they’re not discontinuing this one, just re-formulating. They suggest I drink their Spicy Chocolate Rooibos in the meantime. SCR is nice, but it’s red rooibos and can get a bit woody. Hmph. Be keeping my eye on this …

This particular 250g bag has much more cocoa in the nose and in the flavour than my last two, which were apple-y (and delicious). But it’s good to have a decent whack of cocoa back in this blend; the chocolate scent wafts out the cup and beckons you to kiss it and sip in green rooibos goodness, that apple-y taste, if not so pronounced this time, plus a bit of cinnamon.

I got two great steeps from the 1 TB in the 400mL mug. Not so great a second steep in a 500mL mug, which makes sense.

Super Chocolate is also fabulous chilled. So if you let some go cold and don’t want to nuke it, fret not! Just knock it back.

Hope everyone’s having a great time.

4 TB for a 6-cup Brown Betty teapot, 2 packs of stevia (for the whole pot), no milk.

I don’t often make tea by the pot for myself. I like my teas and tisanes mad hot, so even a cozied pot tends to cool off long before I can finish it. And microwaved tea — I dunno, it never stays hot very long, and I figure I’m probably wrecking anything beneficial in the brew. (I have no evidence for that feeling; it’s just a personal hunch thing.)

But today I thought I’d play with my beloved Super Chocolate. Measurements above. I put the stevia in the pot with the loose leaves. No infuser. (I can often taste something papery from those handy disposable tea-sacks, and something tinny from cheaper metal infusers.) A good 15-minute steep to get things started …

If my kidneys can handle it, I might have this pot gone before it gets too cold.

That said, room temp or even chilled Super Chocolate is quite delicious, too.

1 rounded TB for 500mL water, plus half a pack of stevia, no milk.

Ah, my beloved (precioussssss) Super Chocolate, in all your apple-y, sweet-sharp and smooth if elusive cocoa goodness … the green rooibos base must be packed with antio-oxes or vitality-mins or somethin … because I’ve been feeling like crap the last few days, and several big servings of Super Chocolate seems to be reviving me. I feel, if not better, at least more refreshed after drinking some.

I must have a REALLY fresh batch this time, because the apple-y taste of the green rooibos dominates. And that’s fine. I get the cocoa on the aftertaste. Perhaps not as much cinnamon as last time. Still, my favourite rooibos-based blend ever. And really refreshing.

Yes, I’m yakkin about Super Chocolate again.

Today I steeped 1TB in a filter bag in a 300mL glass mug rather than in my 450mL travel mug, and I forgot to add stevia. So I have a stronger tea base, and I can really get the sharp nip of cinnamon this time. Seriously, the more I drink this stuff, the better it gets. Puh-LEEZE, Canada Post, bring me my order that you said would arrive on the 28th.

I think this stuff is helping me beat back a cold. And it gets better every time. Try being generous with the amount of tea; I use 1 TB for 450mL. Tastes of cocoa, apples and cinnamon, yet it doesn’t. Like no other tisane I’ve tried. I steep this one a long a time, keeping the leaves in the infuster basket of my travel mug as I sip it. Not candy-bar chocolate.

Delicious, though I didn’t like it first go — didn’t know what to make of it. There is chocolate, of the dark cocoa-nib kind, which blends surprisinglly well with the little biut of greenb tea and the lods of green rooibos in here. Cinnamon sharpens everyone up and keeps the flavours playing nice. Very little, if any, caffeine, to this one, and it’s ridiculously healthy. I’ve drunk nearly 200 grams of it in less than a month. One TB in thre basket of my 500mL travel mug plus a packet of stevia, steeped a good while (it’s mostly rooibos, so steep away) — bliss. Happiness.