DAVIDsTEA

I picked this tea because the flavor sounded different and interesting. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy it very much. It’s too sour and also very floral. I feel like the floral flavor could have been better with a different base. Maybe with a black tea or maybe with a mostly strawberry herbal base. Unfortunately, I feel that this one needs a few tweaks to be good. As I drank it, I did start to get used to and sort of enjoy it, but it’s definitely not one I would reach for often. I’ve tried it brewed regularly and also cold brewed. The latter might result in a slightly less sour brew, but I’m not sure.

Absolutely delicious aroma and flavor. Strong flavors of caramel and coconut. And it works! I slept well after drinking this according to the app on my smart watch. Love it!

I love this tea! When you open the package there is a strong aroma of coconut and caramel. After steeping, the flavor is still great too!

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this one, but the result is lightly fruity. It’s a little thinner than I would like. Also it contains an almost pointless amount of black tea. I am definitely enjoying how light and refreshing it is. Not sour at all, just a mild strawberry. I was really hoping to taste some juniper, but unfortunately, I didn’t.

A very relaxing tea for nighttime. Either that, or my day caught up with me all at once when I started drinking it. I’m all of a sudden very sleepy.

I really enjoy the sweet spices in this chai. It’s not at all spicy hot, so that’s a plus when it comes to a bedtime tea. I taste cinnamon the most, thankfully not the red hot kind, but I’m missing some of the other flavors. No cardamom or clove, both of which I love. I especially like a clove-heavy chai. This is an older sample so maybe it was stronger in the beginning. I would definitely enjoy it again as a sample, maybe even purchase a small amount to have a caffeine-free chai on hand.

Coldbrewed the only bit of this I had, and I am thankful to be out. Honestly, I couldn’t even drink more than a sip. It had a pretty standard melon flavor, which I don’t mind. Then the sour rolls in, and it just doesn’t work with the melon. The worst part is this odd flavor that is in the fragrance and flavor- no other way for me to describe it but feet. I haven’t had this tea all that long, so I don’t think it’s gone off. But, it’s just terrible.

This tea tastes similar to The Glow, which is one of my favorite DT blends. I’m very happy to find a similar flavor profile, though this one leans more sour. Depending on what ingredients you end up with in your cup, sometimes it’s very sour. Otherwise, it’s almost like tasty oatmeal cookies, but this time with cranberries. Really, most of this blend is cranberry/hibiscus/rose hips, so the sourness isn’t surprising. The Glow is definitely the much better tea, but this one is an okay substitute. I’ll try to keep steep times shorter to curb the sourness.

I’m happy I finally got to the post office… though not for this tea. I’m happy I now have my mini tumbler! It’s so cute! I have the big one for teas and water, and the mini for coffee. Well, for now it’s for coffee. I’ll probably also use it for matcha at some point.

This tea tho. I needed a new eg cream and thought I’d get this one. And uhh, this is not it. I generally love me an earl grey, and I also love me a cream tea, but this one smells like sugared baby topped with cream cheese frosting.

What. WHY.

Tasting it isn’t great either. It’s incredibly sweet, and definitely has that cream cheese thing going on. Vanilla cream cheese frosting tea, maybe? With a tiny hint of floral citrus at the finish? Idk. Definitely will not repurchase this. I can get much better earl grey creams from smaller local shops.

I bought this tea back in March when DAVIDsTEA had their free shipping promotion, and I’ve gone through almost the entire 50 g, which, given the number of teas I have, is impressive. This is partly because it’s a good chai and partly because it’s one of my better decaf options. I steeped around 4 g of tea in a 355 ml mug at 200F for 3.5, 5, 8, and 10 minutes.

The dry aroma is of cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, cardamom, ginger, and licorice, and the flavour reflects those notes. This is a particularly spicy chai, and the cinnamon, cardamom, and pepper are prominent. I’m not sure what ashwagandha tastes like so I can’t comment on that. Sadly, the ginseng in this chai makes me think of licorice, which is not one of my favourite flavours. Some form of licorice seems to find itself in almost every herbal chai I’ve seen online, even though there’s no similar flavour note in regular chai. Maybe this is due to the assumption that decaf chais have to be sweet (which is annoying, as I’d prefer them not to be, and the cinnamon takes care of that anyway). Whatever the reason, this detracts somewhat from my enjoyment of this tea, though the licorice isn’t strong enough to prevent me from drinking it often.

This tea is quite resilient, maintaining its oomph into the fourth steep. As decaf chais go, it’s something I could buy more of, though I’m looking for an alternative that doesn’t contain that dreaded licorice.

Initially I wondered who was dreaming of unicorns and in what decade (Answer: an awesome and eccentric 6-year-old, 1980’s). But then my mind went to other places that may or may not be less anthropocentric and more low-brow fantasy. Blame the tea.

What do imaginary creatures dream about, if anything at all? Are those dreams reminiscent of mundane slice of life dramas? Or are they something so fantastical and whimsical that we can’t (and wouldn’t want to) comprehend them?

Judging by the dry blend makeup, I’m assuming David’s Tea went with the latter theory (RIP to the sanity of anyone involved in the creation of this blend). There is so much stuff in here it’s absurd and frankly intimidating (just like a real unicorn! Haha). Pineapple and papaya pieces, a million different kinds of sprinkles, flowers, and stevia.

Steeped up cold it’s a bit more tangible. My taste buds translate the chaotic array of confectionery, dried fruit, flowers, and cotton candy flavouring to cake. Or cotton candy ice cream, because this blend is creamier than plain old cotton candy. Citrus and hibiscus notes and flavours prevent this from turning into a saccharine nightmare.

I think Roswell Strange is on to something when comparing this to a mixture of rainbow cereals from different brands. Major Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms vibes. Also, Unicorn Vomit is a better name, albeit probably not super PR (I would buy that though).

This is the other tea that I had iced at our coworker goodbye party yesterday…

We made a pitcher of it, and while both pitchers wound up completely finished this was probably the one that went the slowest – what can I say, we were a group of bougy foodies who gravitated more towards the Negroni.

I like this one a lot iced though, so I am glad we made it. It’s fruity, but definitely on the sweeter and creamier side because of that thick vanilla flavouring. I found it refreshing, but not quite as much as the Negroni – probably because the sweetness of this tea tends to “hang” in your mouth a little bit more. I only drank one cup of this, whereas I had almost a pitcher of Negroni, and I don’t think I could have done much more of it because it’s so rich – but I deeply enjoyed the one cup that I did have and was happy to have it included.

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.

Sneaky little tea that quietly launched at the end of the week; not really part of a collection of anything but just a late summer addition to the herbal selection…

I enjoy this tea a lot but I disagree with several of the different marketing points for it. To start, I guess this could technically be a “berries and cream” but, really, it’s more of a “blueberry vanilla” and, yes, I think there’s a difference between the two. There’s just a subtle difference in the connotation of the word choice – berries and cream to me say something either light and airy with a creaminess or either more fresh fruits and decadent, creamy/custard-y ice cream. However, this isn’t a “light” tea – and while it’s creamy it’s very vanilla and authentic vanilla. It also isn’t a “fresh” blueberry flavours – it’s more like a deep, sweet and cooked/reduced down blueberry compote with caramelized sugars and real vanilla bean. It sticks to your mouth and feels thick on the palate. It’s delightful and, while everyone knows I have a soft spot for blueberry teas in general, it feels like the name “Berries & Cream” almost kind of dumbs down this borderline sophisticated approach to a blueberry and vanilla tea.

Of course – I’m often stubbornly opinionated, so maybe I’m wrong here and I just don’t want to admit it, but I really do feel like that subtle connotation exists…

The other thing that bothers me is that on the DT website, the description for the blend says it’s “tropical” and, well, it’s not. It’s very true that there’s a lot of candied pineapple in the blend but that doesn’t mean it tastes anything at all like pineapple. Those candied pineapple cubes more act as a general sweetness and carrier of flavour, in this case vanilla. I think, if you served this blindly to someone, you would be hard pressed to get “tropical” as a descriptor…

Some other cool things about this tea in my own opinion? The ingredients list is very simple: candied pineapple, blueberry, elderberry, natural vanilla flavourings, vanilla pieces. No apple or other typical fillers – we’re just getting right down to business. It keeps the flavour profile direct, and makes the visual of the tea really stand out even though it’s so simple.

Cool blend – great hot or iced (have yet to try it as a latte), would recommend.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CCi3NGBApQJ/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrH8mZ7u36k

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.

Cold Steep!

I was intrigued by this tea as cereal milk used to one of my favorite things. I would run home from school and get a bowl of frosted flakes, special K ,pops and pour in more milk than necessary. It was like I was having cereal with milk. I would wait for the flavor to infused with the milk and get thicker then I would quickly finish off the cereal and slowly spoon the cereal milk. It is weird thinking back to those days. I still cannot believe I ate that much sugary cereal or drank that much milk. The idea of those cereals or even milk is disgusting to me now so I have not had it in a long time. This tea transported me back to the old days and now I remember why I changed :)

I tried it hot and it was watery to me. I could taste the cereal but it was weird. I experimented with hot brewing and making it iced, still it was watery. I then decided to cold brew it and I forgot about it for a few days. I tried it without any milk and it was good. I decided to add some oat milk and it was just like cereal milk. The disgustingly sweet and thick milk. I cannot drink more than half a cup of this as it is too sweet! I wish I could make the decision on the sweetness I prefer.

This is the last of this tea and while it brought back memories, it was nauseatingly sweet .

Cold Brew!

From the Great Steepster Freeze of 2020 – a veerrrryyyyy long cold brew.

This is one of the teas that I had right before realizing that Steepster was stuck and, as such, I didn’t take many notes for myself because I expected to be able to write the tasting note more quickly. Because of that, I don’t really remember much of the nuance of this cold brew – only that I was surprised how much I liked it, that the very extended cold steeping time seemed to really bring out a tangy quality to the peach/persimmon in the blend, and that it did still have that floral/honey type of quality…

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.

The last of the new teas from this year’s cocktail collection!

If Bahama Mama is my favourite of the new teas, and Negroni my second than by process of elimination this is my least favourite – but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it at all.

Before I even touch on the tasting notes though, I just have to get it out of my system than I hate the name of this tea. I get that it’s supposed to feel kind of beach-y because that’s what a Playa is, but I come from a more rural region where “playa” is not part of most people’s normal lexicon – and if it is it’s as slang for a player/gangster. So when I read this name, all I can see is “Gangster Peach”…

As for the tea itself, it is pretty peachy but way more of a floral peach than I think most people will be accustomed to expect from DT, since usually DT peach flavours are quite juicy and sweet. This is still somewhat sweet, but more from the honey notes of the persimmon. Has some tang to it still, though. What I think, instead, is the more forward flavour is the papaya and the persimmon. That especially makes sense with the former; this was developed to be a peach and persimmon tea.

If you’re not familiar with persimmon, it tastes kind of sweet and honey-like with a floral quality to it as well – and I think that those flavours very much come through in this tea. I like the taste of actual persimmons so I thought I would really enjoy them in this tea, especially because I do find it so accurate, but there’s something about the heavy way the flavour hangs in my mouth and the combination of all the floral elements I’m getting from both them and the peach that I feel just ever so slightly off. I really go back and forth on whether I enjoy the profile, and I think where I’ve landed is that yes, I do like it, but in smaller quantities at a time before those florals can really build and accumulate on my palate. Aside from that, the other flavours I get are papaya and lemongrass. Both of which I still find complimentary to the blend.

I did bring a small amount of this one home for myself, but not as much as the other two because I suspect I will want to really distance out my cups of it.

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.

Hitting that midafternoon slump, unfortunately, so I decided to brew myself up a mug of something vibrant, sweet and juicy to help perk myself back up again – unfortunately I underleafed the mug so the tea is just too thin tasting for what I wanted. However, the sweet candied pineapple note is still good!

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.

I’m usually a lot better about adding tasting notes for new tea releases quickly, but this last week at DT has been, uhh… We’ll go with emotionally taxing.

A few people have reached out to ask if I’ve been affected by everything and I will just quicky say that, no, I have not been affected. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the announced restructure and store closings that I’ve discussed at length with family, friends, and coworkers all throughout the week – and to be quite honest I don’t have the emotional bandwidth left right now to discuss them at length again here. Maybe in the future…

As for this tea, it’s my personal favourite from the cocktail collection – but it didn’t start off that way! I’ve never had the cocktail that this tea is named for so I wont be able to speak to accuracy to the drink – but I know that it’s quite sweet and fruity and so is this tea. It’s on a black tea base, and it’s nice to see another fruity black tea in the line up even if it is just seasonal. I wish there were more core fruity blacks (other than my beloved Blueberry Jam) but I’m really happy with the seasonal ones from this year so far!

The flavour profile here is a mix of red fruits/pomegranate, passion fruit, and pineapple with a dash of citrus thrown into the mix too – it’s a little busy in my opinion, but it somehow all works. You certainly can’t taste all of the fruits super distinctly though and so you more get this homogeneous “tropical fruit” kind of flavour that maybe leans a little bit more pineapple and a little bit more pomegranate.

The reason I didn’t like it at first was because I didn’t find the flavour memorable. It wasn’t unpleasant in any way, but apart from a pretty visual (hooray for the return of gooseberries) I thought that the flavour was kind of safely commercial and generic – plus is has that kind of interestingly weird “bubble gum-y fruit” thing that occasionally pops up in DT blends, like Mulled Wine. Commercial isn’t bad (it’s what drives the business) but it’s not always exciting. At this point, I had only ever had this tea iced. However, I tried it hot a little while back and I’m not sure exactly what the change was but something about making it that way made the profile much more appealing to me! I had a similar experience years back with Apero Spritz – it was fine as an iced tea, but so much better to me as a hot tea. It’s weird because with both of those teas they’re kind of more marketed to be served iced but I land on the other side…

Just goes to show why it’s important to at least play around a little bit with your preparation method before totally writing off a tea! I have a full tin of it now and it’s something I’ve been drinking pretty regularly up until the launch.

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.

Yes, I drank this today as a cold brew too! I found an untouched 50g packet of this in the back of a kitchen cupboard and have no memory of purchasing it. Smells amazing though. The flavours in this cup are banana runts and bubblegum, with a strong dash of Squirt or some other type of grapefruit flavoured soda pop. The general consensus around the house is it would likely take to gin well.

another sipdown Still too sweet and weird for me at the end of the day.

this was ok until i got to the end of the cup…then it was just a weird cloyingly sweet mess of poo. But i liked the initial brew haha

The main flavor here is definitely the grapefruit. The tea wasn’t spectacular hot, but cold, it was pretty tasty. I’ve had grapefruit teas I prefer, but grapefruit is slightly rare to find in tea flavors, so I’ve enjoyed having this one. I don’t taste any black tea (there was almost none in the blend) or banana. The grapefruit flavor could have been a little stronger still. I cold brewed the resteep overnight, and it tastes just as good as the first steep, BUT this time I’m tasting some banana! How nice.

Iced Tea/Cold Brew Sipdown (262)

I made this in my iced tea press yesterday afternoon and then didn’t end up drinking it. My sister threw it in the fridge and it sat there until I grabbed it tonight.

My tastebuds must have been having a day off because this tasted like an overly sweet caramel popcorn…with candied mango. I was not a fan but also I think something went wrong.