DAVIDsTEA

Today has sorta turned out to be a subconsciously “green tea” type of day; how odd, I almost never have “green tea days”.

Anyway, I started the day by opening up the package for the seventh day of Christmas tea exchange; which was so cool and cleverly thought out! I decided to pass on trying it though because I’m already heavily out of order and I figured that I would rather wait until I had milk to add to it; I’m like ceylon teas, but often find they’re better with a bit of milk.

So, I made this instead because I thought it’d be a good tea to take on the go with me for my day of errands/interview. I made it like normal, and it taste pretty much like normal except slightly more green and vegetal tasting than it usually is. This is practically a herbal, which is why I think I like it despite it being green – so more green tea taste isn’t really that heavily welcomed. Like I said, it was only slightly though.

Among all the errands like stopping at the bank, I managed to make it to Tea Desire where I picked out three new rooibos teas to try out! I’d like to hopefully try at least one of them today, but I also have a ton of other blends in mind to juggle/get through. I think after this tea, I’m gonna spend the rest of the day and all of tomorrow just trying new things.

I also stopped at DAVIDsTEA and picked up a couple of tea tins (mostly black ones for my Butiki blends), and 30g of Fantasy Island – purely because of VariaTEA’s tasting notes on it. She loves it and we seem to have similar enough taste in tea; plus it was a flavoured black I haven’t tried yet. I also got a new 12 oz. timolino – so now I have two! My first one is black, but this second one is like this almost white colour but with maybe just the smallest touch of mint green. It’s super pretty!

And then, to kill time before my interview I stopped at the local foods store on a whim, and wound up finding my favourite bagged black tea; Saskatoon Berry from Riverblend Plantation! I had all but resigned that the only way I’d ever get more was if I went back to the art museum in Regina! Woot! So, I just got a small 5 Bag “sample pack” of it to top off what I have at home. Now that I know where it’s sold I don’t need to buy in huge quantity. They had a few other teas there too, but none of them looked super intriguing or worth buying.

And, I think my interview went well. The manager who interviewed me was very point blank about the fact he was interviewing multiple people today, but I’m choosing to think that’s because of my manager experience and the fact I hopefully didn’t come across as naive. Only hiccup might have been that he asked me to tell him a joke, and the first one to come to mind and the one I said was rather inappropriate. He laughed at it though – a lot.

How do you know you’re at a gay picnic? All the weiners taste like shit.

And now I’m packing for my trip (clothes, not tea; the tea is already packed…)

My day started off so poorly, but somehow it managed to end in the best way possible! Catching Fire was SO FREAKING AMAZING (not gonna lie, I cried so much: I get way too emotional watching movies – and OH the sexy that is Sam Claflin had my heart racing the whole movie…)

Actually, earlier in the day right before leaving to go to the movies I got another parcel in the mail! This one was from LovelyLotus and I’m very excited to try out the teas in it: especially Coconut Grove. I’m kinda peeved though – Tre ended up trying that one before I got the chance (I’ll elaborate later in the note, though). Also, I wasn’t able to find the extra tea you threw in so I added it to Steepster myself, but if you know how it’s listed (and happen to see this) it would be awesome if you could point me towards it! I’m quite curious to try that one too…

After adding all that into my cupboard I went off to the movies with Robyn! Like I said earlier, the movie was SO AMAZEBALLS! Everything was perfect and everything hurt. I cried so much, I laughed so much, and I’m so excited to see how everything else unfolds (I have read the books though – I know how shit goes down, just excited to see it on the big screen). Debating rereading the series now…

I brought this tea with in a Timolino. I can’t resist David’s “challenge” on the tin to sneak this into the theatre (although I wasn’t too sneaky about it – I pretty much openly carried it in and I definitely openly drank it). Actually, this is the second time I’ve drank this AT the movies. First time was watching Mortal Instruments, coincidentally also with Robyn (but in Regina).

For prep. I used 1 tbsp. of leaf in my timolino steeped in near boiling water for about 4 minutes. It smelled heavenly: nice and buttery, just like it should be. At the theater, I actually downed half a large bag of buttered popcorn before breaking out the tea – and I can say having had both the tea and actual theater popcorn in close proximity (also having worked in a movie theater for over a year and eating a lot of/becoming very knowledgeable about popcorn) the taste is pretty close to bang on. Maybe it’s in part due to my over exposure to actual popcorn, but I think the tea form is actually better.

The blend I have is pre reblend where they included a butt ton of maple flavour – so it’s nice and buttery popcorn and very light buttery green apple tasting. It’s a GREAT flavoured green and one of few I keep stocked. I’m really hesitant to try the new maple version, though. Change is not always good…

On the bus ride home I was really shocked! I didn’t expect it at all, but Tre (my roommate) got on the bus at the same stop as I did, right after. Apparently he had gone to see Catching Fire too, and I’d just had zero idea. What was more shocking, he had a DAVIDsTEA bag with him too. I’d run into him on the bus after he’d gone Christmas shopping for me. I’m actually still laughing a little trying to imagine him in the store actually buying tea.

He said he tried a sample of Gingerbread and really liked it, and I pointed out that I have a 100g tin at home that I’ve been telling him he needs to try but he’s been refusing to because “it smells spicy”. Yeah…

Anyway, he said he might as well give me my present now since it wasn’t a secret. I think, considering he typically pays zero attention to what I’m saying in regard to tea, he did a pretty good job buying for me… He got me two coloured tins: the blue oolong one and the red rooibos one. If he listened he would have known I’m super specific about the tins I use: blends that are actually from DAVIDsTEA go in silver tins (if they’re blends I plan on restocking) with the DAVIDsTEA labels and the little coloured sticker tab that catagorizes them. Blends from any other tea store that I plan on restocking are labelled by hand and go in coloured tins associated with their tea type based on the DAVIDsTEA colour system. I’m sure they’ll get filled though – I have a large Butiki order on the way which includes rooibos and oolong blends and I’m sure there’ll be at least one of each I’ll want to permanently stock.

The other thing he bought me was 50g of Choconut Oolong: that means I now have about 190g of choconut oolong. Thankfully, unlike many others, I really like it. Hopefully I like it enough to drink 190g of it. It’s funny, he said he remembered me talking about how yummy it was (so it’s thoughtful he bought me some because of that) but somehow he doesn’t remember me specifically having him smell it like six times and each time having him proclaim it to be “the worst tea he’s ever smelled”. And, he doesn’t remember my saying that Robyn was coming over to specifically have it – or talking on and on about my excitement for “Nutella” tea, or my telling him about getting 100g for free after doing a random act of kindness and giving a to go tea to a homeless man outside the mall… Yeah, it’s a tea that gets talked about a lot at home.

So, I guess if anyone wants to try a bit I have some to spare?

Then when we got home I gave him his Christmas gift early (a Doctor Who calendar) and offered to make him tea. This is where the Coconut Grove from LovelyLotus comes in. Of course he asked for that one – and I haven’t had the chance to personally try it. But, I had said he could have anything so I made some for him anyway… He was patient enough with me to listen to me rant about the steeping parameters and to actually follow them. I think he felt my pain about not being the first in the house to try it. Dear God did it smell amazing… Can’t wait to try it tomorrow. Maybe in the morning for breakfast.

Anyway, this is a long tasting note and I stopped talking about Movie Night a while ago, so I think I’m going to end here…

Work today was very slow, but on the plus side the guy who works in the kiosk next to mine is VERY nice to look at – so that gave me something to do today…

Earlier today I purchased a timolino, which means if I give myself enough time before work I can make two different teas to take with me: one in the timolino and one in my crappy metal waterbottle which gets scalding hot if you pour boiling water in it, and then cools down very quickly because it’s not meant to hold heat… And, I did have time before work so I made two teas!

This one went in the crappy metal waterbottle because I’ve had it cold before and I know it’s not too bad cold. I made two seperate cups and poured them together for this: I’ve tried resteeping leaves for this in the past, but it’s basically a herbal and just doesn’t resteep too well. Both cups used about 2 tsp. of leaf and were made in boiling water. I actually decided to make this based off the discussion going on with Cavocorax’s tasting note. Really put me in the mood to have this again…

Work was actually slow enough that I was able to make tasting notes while drinking, so I’m just going to jot note the things I wrote down while drinking it today:

- Temp. was medium warm (hotter than lukewarm) at time of consumption
- Strong buttery/apple notes which, together, made me think of light fluffy apple pastry like strudels
- Lightly tart/tangy (gives off a “green apple” vibe)
- No bitterness or astringency
- Nutty notes, especially in the aftertaste
- The nutty notes enhanced both apple and butter flavour
- This is a great autumn tea!

I’ve literally spent the whole day doing nothing. Well, maybe not literally – but I certainly haven’t done anything of importance. Basically, I painted my nails (this really pretty colour that reminds me of red wine) and applied a few more places online (although, I admittedly don’t have high hopes). Also, I watched four episodes of Supernatural.

So, I figured why not reward my laziness with a nice hot cup of this tea, and a bowl of frozen yogurt with sprinkles. As far as the frozen yogurt goes, I’m regretting the sprinkles. For whatever reason they taste really soapy, even though they usually taste fine. Tea wise, it’s a bittersweet cup.

I’m finding drinking this one painfully nostalgic – it’s reminding me of working at the theatre, and the time I snuck a mug of this into the movies with me. Basically, it’s reminding me how much I miss all my friends and former co-workers. It is a really good cup though; very smooth and buttery.

Personally, I find that with this tea you can trick yourself into forgetting about the apple if you focus more so on the butteriness of the tea, but as soon as you consciously start thinking about the apples in the blend all you taste is apples. It’s like the gif with the dancing ballerina: depending on how you look at it she’s either spinning left or right and with enough concentration you can actively switch your perception of how she’s spinning.

Still, I think after this cup it might be time to set this one aside for a while. Sometimes being really nostalgic can be a negative thing.

One of the first DAVIDsTEA’s that I purchased. I was hesitant to get it because I’m not really a fan of most green teas, but this one smelled really good and I loved the “novelty” of it (buttered popcorn, eh?) because I worked at a movie theatre for over a year. I must say, I wasn’t disappointed.

I steeped this a little bit longer than the max. recommended steeping time. The smell was exactly like buttered popcorn – not the theatre kind that I’m used to working with (that kind is really overloaded with salt), but the good, home-popped stuff. Tasting it, I definitely tasted the apple a bit more than I thought I would, but it didn’t taste bad at all and there was still a really strong buttery note to it.

The tea tasted better hot than cold – I’ll have to remember next time to either put it in a thermal mug so it doesn’t cool down as fast or drink it a bit faster.

ADDING IN: My mom tried some without reading the ingredients list before hand, she said it tasted like “something butter, popcorn perhaps?” Didn’t taste any apple in it.

Also, I took the “challenge” on the tin maybe a bit too seriously, and I brought some with me into the theatre when I went to watch Mortal Instruments, this time in a thermal mug. Tea was phenomenal. Movie was mediocre.

Omg i just bought this tea yesterday and i wish it was something i discovered years ago. I really hope they bring this tea back every fall, im definitely going to be stocking up just in case.
I am so glad the girl at davids tea offered me a sample of this tea or else i would have never discovered this tasty treat.

This smells incredible. Steeped for 5 minutes per the instructions. I ended up adding a spoonful of sugar because it was tasteless otherwise. That really brought out the banana chocolate flavor. Yummy.

Last tea from the staff meeting tea tasting.

Another one that I feel like didn’t impact me a whole lot because I’ve not only had this one fairly recently (a few months ago, I suppose) but I had a LOT of exposure to it back when it was originally on the tea wall. And I’ve never really liked this one; you can go back and see my tasting notes from five/six years ago LONG before I worked at DAVIDsTEA and see that my distaste for this tea has been really well documented. So this wasn’t something I was necessarily stoked to revisit. I do see why people enjoy it; and it went over pretty well at the staff meeting with the staff who had never had the chance to experience it before.

It’s just not my cup of tea.

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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

Another anniversary tea.

This is actually one that I personally didn’t buy at all – in fact, one of only two of the anniversary blends (there’s eight in total) that I decided to skip on. My mom, however, did buy it so I stole a cup worth of it to make into a mini cold brew.

This is one of the original twenty teas I first had – and not just from DT but, like, in general. However unlike the majority of those twenty teas that I hold it really high regard and which have a HUGE nostalgia factor, this is one that I just never really liked. Like, ever. I’ve kind of waffled back and forth between whether or not I find it really bitter and astringent as a cuppa but one thing I’ve sort of always maintained is that it’s very artificial tasting to me.

Revisiting it now cold brewed, I’m really not finding that it tastes bitter or astringent even a little bit – but to be fair, my tastes have changed A LOT in the last four years as, I’m sure, has my tolerance for bitterness and astringency. This is also cold brewed, and I can’t remember if that’s something that I ever tried with this blend and that I can’t be bothered to go look up right now. I do still think it tastes really badly of artificial cake flavouring though, and the chocolate flavour is pretty mediocre quality. It’s also way sweeter than I remember it being.

Bottom line – I don’t HATE it but I don’t enjoy it either. The nicest thing I can probably say is that it tasted like the liquid version of a just slightly better than average quality chocolate bar…

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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

Revisited this one the other night on shift…

It’s been probably close to three years since I had it. I went through a lot of it back then because I’d blindly purchased 100g before I’d tried it – this was back during that time when I definitely didn’t know any better. Turns out I hated it, so getting through that 100g was a nightmare.

I drank this as an iced latte the other night when I had it which is definitely a totally new style of preparation compared to any other way I had tried it previously. I’m pretty sure, back then, I didn’t even know that “Iced Latte” was a thing you could do with tea.

Let’s be real though, this is chocolate cake flavoured because that’s essentially all that Red Velvet is: chocolate cake dyed red. It’s the most dumb cake flavour there is because people get so incredibly hyped about it when it’s just “cool looking chocolate” that even typically costs more money because it’s cool/trendy or whatever. The only thing that even remotely makes red velvet unique/different in my opinion is the cream cheese frosting it’s often paired with – and this tea doesn’t make much of an effort to replicate that. So that’s part of why I disliked this one so greatly three years back – the other part being that it tasted very artificial/chemical to me.

However, that said, as an iced latte I didn’t mind it that much if I only thought of it as a “chocolate” flavour. I mean, it wasn’t some big moment of “Oh no! What have I been missing!? This tea is changing my life!” but more of a “Well, I guess this isn’t quite as bad as I’ve mentally painted it to be”. Not nearly as artificial, for one thing. Really though, it’s basically just simple, creamy chocolate.

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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

This review is for the Red Velvet Cake infused Milk Chocolate Bar sold by DAVIDsTEA.

https://www.davidstea.com/ca_en/chocolate-bar-3

This evening I split one of these chocolate bars with my mother and sister during a Gong Fu session with Camellia Sinensis’ Lu Yu Shan Wu. One of the things I talked about in my Tea Sommelier course for the “Science of Taste” module was tea and chocolate pairings and I was excited to put that knowledge to the test. The one caveat was that I basically hated the actual tea this chocolate bar was based on. However, some Steepster users told me it was essentially just a nice milk chocolate bar so I tried it anyway.

And you know what? It basically was just milk chocolate with some tea leaf in it (I still don’t get why DAVIDsTEA does that – no one wants to bite into some tea leaf). My mother was very impressed with the quality of the milk chocolate, though less so with the price tag associated. If one was so inclined to enjoy DAVIDsTEA’s Red Velvet Cake blend $6 would buy you a lot more loose leaf than you’re getting in the chocolate itself.

However, for what it is I was happy with the experience.

Decided today that I either have to find a way to love this or just get over my reluctance to this tea and finish off what I have left. Which is about 60g. Urgh. Thankfully, Tre drinks this one (he’s actually consumed more than I have) so that helps with getting rid of it.

I’m actually drinking this whilst baking brownies (yum!), playing Pokemon (on my way to the 4th gym), and watching the first episode of season 7 of Supernatural. So much multi tasking! Actually, considering how much I’m multitasking I’m surprised I didn’t over steep this – that’s a problem I usually have even if I’m not multi tasking.

For anyone who plays Pokemon and is currently working their way through X or Y, I found a shiny Carbink last night! Woot! Be jealous of my mad skills at finding shinies. Carbink makes five caught out of a total eight ever found (not counting Red Gyarados, because it’s found in game and basically everyone has one)! I now have a shiny Butterfree, Crobat, Mightyena, Sawk, and Carbink all found without soft resetting or mass breeding eggs. I’ve seen eight though: first one I ever found was a shiny voltorb in Ruby, but I accidentally one hitted it. I’ve also found a shiny Sentret in HeartGold, but I found it at a point in game where I hadn’t even received Pokeballs (it was the first Pokemon I encountered in the wild). And, I soft reset a Togepi egg to find a shiny Togepi, and after about 30 or 40 soft resets I found one – but I’d gotten into the habit of resetting by then and I reset based on muscle memory before I realized what I’d done. Bleck. I also have a shiny Tangela which my brother found in game, but he didn’t like the colours so he gave it to me.

Anyway, back to the tea…

I think this is actually the reddest cup I’ve made of this – and considering it’s supposed to be red I guess that’s a good thing. Taste wise, a little better than usual but nothing really impressing. The chocolate flavour doesn’t taste as artificial as I usually find it, but there’s still a generic sweetness to it that I find off putting. I debated tossing the cup, but I think I’ll finish it just because it’s better than usual. Definitely not a restock though.

I might just end up shooting Tre! He decided to make a cup of one my DAVIDsTEAs for himself and chose Red Velvet Cake. It’s not that I don’t want him using my teas (he has permission to make himself whatever he wants so long as the tea balls aren’t already filled with leaves for things I plan to resteep later), but that he blatantly ignores what the tins say about amounts to use for a cup and what I’ve told him.

So, earlier today he made a cup of DAVIDsTEA’s Hot Lips for himself (the tea I bought specifically with him in mind), but halfway through his cup decided that he didn’t want Hot Lips anymore so he boiled up some more water, filled the mug up to the brim with new hot water (without dumping the old tea) and then, when he thought I wasn’t watching, took out a tablespoon it filled it so it was heaping and then proceeded to try and cram all of the leaves into a tea ball. THEY BARELY FIT. The leaves are gonna have no room to expand :/

If it weren’t one of my least favourite (if not my least favourite) DAVIDsTEAs that I currently have stocked, and if I didn’t have so much of it I would be so much more upset than I am right now!

He also added in about two full tablespoons of sugar to it! So, he has a mug of watered down Hot Lips that was then resteeped with AT LEAST twice the recommended leaf for Red Velvet Cake, and he then added a ton of sugar to it. YUCK.

Anyway, that’s why I’m drinking Red Velvet Cake right now – he was just going to trash the leaves, but it seemed like such a waste especially considering how much extra leaf he used. So, I resteeped the leaves and added a small bit of milk (maybe 1/2 a teaspoon if that). Like I said, Red Velvet is not one of my favourites, but this resteep is actually better than I usually get and almost as good as when I steep this one for the first time. I’m going to attribute that to the fact he used so much leaf for his cup.

I swear though, I better not catch him wasting leaf for any of my favourites! I might have to start hoarding some teas in my closet where he can’t get at them…

Decided to try the Red Velvet Cake I got from DT today. First tea of the day, and I was definitely in a dessert tea sort of mood. Unrelated note, when I bought this one it ended up sitting in Kevin’s car for a couple of hours while we went shopping at Comic Reader’s, Tramps, and then out for Thai food at Tre’s restaurant – basically all of my chocolate chips melted. Hopefully that won’t affect the taste at all.

The dry leaf is really decadent and sweet smelling – perfect for what I’m craving. It reminds me of Birthday Cake, but with the obvious difference in the tea base, and the addition of chocolate. As it’s steeping it still smells really rich. Unfortunately while I was focused on brewing the perfect cup I forgot about the bagel I had in the toaster; by the time I noticed it my poor cheesy bagel had been burnt to a crisp. I slathered it with some strawberry cream cheese, but I think it’s a lost cause at this point.

First sip, and I’m trying it without anything added. The liquor isn’t really red at all, but more of a light/muddy brown. Perhaps it’s the taste of burnt bagel in my mouth, but I don’t really taste the chocolate at all. It’s not nearly as decadent as the dry leaf smells, which is kinda disappointing.

About half the cup has been consumed now, and I’m adding just a bit of milk and sugar; hopefully that’ll bring out the flavour some more. Few more sips; it’s better with the milk and sugar but still just sort of has a generic sweetness to it. Maybe that’s the artificial flavouring in the tea.

Overall, I’m pretty disappointed. Definitely not what I was expecting, and while it certainly wasn’t a bad cup of tea it was nothing phenomenal either. I’ll give it another chance though – I’ll have to remember to fiddle around with the steeping time (maybe it should have been steeped longer), and I’ll make a cup for Tre later tonight with the leaves from my cup – maybe it’ll taste better re-steeped?

I feel like I finally got this tea tonight. I tried it on multiple occasions before and could not get over the bitterness of the green tea base. The apple notes were always there, but it just seemed like a weird apple note. Tonight, I gave it a much lower brewing temperature and good short steep time (only 2 minutes). What this resulted in was a nice, delicate green tea with strong apple and cinnamon notes. The dreaded astringency I had been battling completely disappeared. Now that I understand this tea a little more, I am far more impressed with it and would even go so far as to say I can seem myself drinking this far more often.

Another entry in the me vs green tea saga. I have tried this sweetened and unsweetened, short steeped and long steeped. I like it but I keep thinking it would be better if I had just steeped it differently. Today I tried the long steep and unsweetened plan with great success. The apple was a lot less front and center (though it was definitely present). I like this tea more every time I drink it. I probably just need to stop thinking about it as my apple tea and start to mentally classify it as a green tea with spice and hints of apple.

Retried this with a bit of sugar. Still not perfect, but much better. A lot more buttery, more muted on the apple. More like the taste I was looking for. This is a nice, classic, apple tea. It isn’t my first choice right now, but I think it is a cup I will keep going back to as the weather starts to chill down. (We are going through a late summer heat wave, after a week of freezing weather. This is really screwing up my fall tea tasting, I feel like I need to go back to my summery staples! The trees are turning fast though, promising that this weather reprieve is not going to last long!)

I tried a couple of sips of this from my bf’s cup tonight. We were both blown away by the smell of the dry leaves. The crisp apple notes smelled so promising! Brewed up I am of a mixed opinion on this one. On one hand, the apple taste does really shine through and create a crisp, flavourful green tea. On the other hand, I taste apple, I taste green tea, I don’t necessarily taste pie? I am going to try this again tomorrow, but I am going to add a bit of sugar and see if that brings me some of the sweeter pie notes I was looking for.

I have been neglecting this tea of late, which is ridiculous because it is one of my fall favourites, but maybe, for now, I have finally had my fill? I brewed a cup up last night and it was alright, it always brews into a good tea, but I just didn’t find myself as in awe over it as I usually am. Maybe it and I just need to take a bit of a break for a little while!

I took this to work again with me today. It is one of the few chai teas that I really love. The sweetness from the squash works so well with the spices and subtle heat of the cinnamon. I could have sweetened my cup this morning just a touch more, but, even a little short on sugar, it was still pretty great!