DAVIDsTEA

A sample from Miss B! I remember reading loads of reviews of this tea back in the summer, and based on those it was probably one of the recent David’s Teas that I was most interested to try. The flavour concept seems reasonably unique, too. I used 1.5 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it approximately 4 minutes in boiling water. I spared myself the painful debating this time, at least. The liquor is really pale – clear and sort of yellowy, except that there’s a slight oily scrim on the surface. The scent is sweet and very reminiscent of melted sugar while it’s still clear (well before it starts to caramelise). I suppose that gives it at a decent hard candy vibe, so I’m encouraged so far.

To taste, this really is as candy-like as I imagined. It has that sweet, clear-boiled sweet flavour that’s basically sugar and glucose syrup. There’s a mild fruitiness underlying – it starts off tasting very much like strawberry, but there’s a definite sour cherry-like tang at the end of the sip. It’s by no means strong fruitiness – the “hard candy” aspect is front and centre at all times. I can see why people are comparing this one to Jolly Rancher, and it does come across a little like that – for some reason I want to say that it reminds me of the watermelon ones most of all, although there’s no melon flavour to make me think that. There’s a slight wateriness in the aftertaste, so maybe that’s what’s doing it.

I quite like this one. It’s like liquid lollipop. It reminds me most of all of those huge red candy rock dummies you can get at the seaside, or at the fairground. I don’t find it too cloying or over-sweet, maybe because it’s not that strong a flavour. It’s the right side of the line for me. I’m glad I got chance to try this one!

A sample from Miss B! I debated over this sample for a bit, because I’m aware that this tea was marketed at least for the purpose of serving iced. I didn’t really have enough leaf to make a pitcher of iced or cold brewed. I figured it would turn out pretty weak if I decided to risk it. So hot, then. But how much leaf? The whole sample (about 2 tsp) or half of it? This decision was made all the more tortuous by fact that I recently picked up a David’s Tea box set, which contains one of their measuring “teaspoons”. It became obvious pretty quickly that the David’s “teaspoon” is a lot bigger than my normal measuring teaspoon from Bluebird – nearly twice the size, in fact. Interesting. In the end, I went with 1 tsp of leaf from my normal measuring spoon, with the reassurance that I can always add the extra tsp of leaf if things don’t look to be working out. I gave it approximately 4 minutes in boiling water. No additions.

The first thing I have to say is that it smells great. Even if nothing else, the scent is just amazing – fresh, ripe, sweet, juicy peach. Thankfully, the actual flavour is equally wonderful. I had feared from the strength of the scent that it would be a little on the artificial side, but it’s not at all. It’s just like biting into a peach on a warm summer day. Perfect. It’s hard to describe any more accurately – think of a peach and that’s this tea. It’s pretty sweet (maybe just a touch sweeter than it needs to be), but not to the extent that it bothers me. I’m just enjoying this one for its sheer peachiness, and it’s welcome reminder of summer at the beginning of winter.

Definitely a favourite! It is very much a dessert tea, so perfect for kids or tea lovers with a sweet tooth. It was one of my first purchases, and I instantly loved it. I love the hints of calendula, which aren’t completely masked my the sweet, chocolaty, banana goodness that is the rest of the tea. Although delicious, this tea isn’t particularly fancy or refined, so maybe don’t use it to try to impress your mother-in-law :). As well, though the tea is delicious, the after-taste isn’t overly pleasant.

This tea is one of my favourites. It’s sweet and rich, and is a perfect seasonal treat, so stock up! The one downside is that it is very heavy, so per cup is slightly expensive. The salesperson who sold it to me indicated that there was no tea leaves in it, so one could eat it over cereal or oatmeal as one would have granola. I haven’t yet tried it, but if someone has I would love to know how it turned out. Happy steeping!

Dry leaf: Sweet molasses, maple and freshly baked cookies.

Liqueur: Red-brown, gingerbread is very prominent. Smells like a warm dessert.

Flavour: Sweet and full-flavored molasses balanced with a mild ginger. True to a sweet gingerbread cookie.

Sipdown (886)!

Finishing off the last half of my advent calendar sample of this tea – it’s nice to clear some of those samples out of my cupboard…

This cup is nice – it’s cozy, sweet, a little darker. Definitely has a rich chocolate note, and I like the bodied and slight earthiness that come from the pu’erh base. It’s got a pretty slick and oily mouthfeel from the multitude of melted chocolate in the blend, and I haven’t added any milk to mask that. My honest feeling though is that, as nice as the flavour is, this is a really simple and sort of basic feeling blend. With so many other strong chocolate profiles on the tea wall, it’s hard to see why this one has stuck around so long…

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.

#adventageddon Day Twenty – 2/6

Finishing my mug of this tea currently; it’s technically my last advent tea for the day. I’m just reviewing them out of order, as I often do with most of my tasting notes. It’s not bad – definitely chocolate-y. However it’s weirdly thin feeling in terms of mouthfeel and it’s making me more want just an actual hot chocolate over this “tea version” of one – preferably with lots of marshmallows. Though the little notes of earthy pu’erh are a nice addition.

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.

Way, way more oily mouthfeel that I remember this tea having and a VERY strong reminded that, despite a nice chocolate note, exactly why it’s been so dreadfully long since I last made a full mug of this 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 and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

Made this one as a latte for myself earlier in the week; however because I know from experience that the chocolate flavours can feel a little one dimensional and flat I added in some maple agave to “spice it up” a little bit and add some layers to flavour.

That additional flavour was really beneficial; sure it made the profile sweeter and this is already a sweet tea, but it also made this feel full of life and actually almost made it seem like a completely new tea. Plus, chocolate was definitely still the dominant flavour so it’s not like the maple was over taking it or anything like that.

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.

I’m kind of “meh” about this tea normally, but all last week DAVIDsTEA stores across Canada were featuring a specialty latte that used this as the base – Candy Cane Hot Chocolate!

Essentially, the drink was a Hot Chocolate tea concentrate with peppermint agave brewed into it, and then hot frothed milk of your choice topped with crushed candy canes. I mean, I couldn’t not try that! It actually sounded SO GOOD! But, all Autumn/Winter I’ve definitely been such a sucker for mint chocolate teas in general so I think I was especially on board with the hype train for this one.

It was pretty good! I mean, it was really chocolate-y and I’d argue not actually all that minty except for the candy cane “crust” sitting on top of the foam in the mug but I don’t mind that sort of intense chocolate flavour in tea so long as it’s balanced with some kind of differentiating flavour so that it’s not just solid chocolate and I got this in this from the earthy undertones of the Pu’erh, the creaminess of the milk, and the occasional sweet burst of candy cane as I sipped that top layer of foam and candy!

I don’t know if we’ll be doing more ‘Specialty’ drinks in the future to highlight the different teas we carry, but I think it could be a really fun thing for the company even if it is a little more labour intensive for the staff working in drink station. A “Let It Snow” latte with eggnog could be really fun, for example, because the tea is inspired by eggnog anyway!

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.

Hot latte…

I know some people don’t like what DT brings back seasonal teas/‘retired’ teas and would prefer to see more new things. However, I’ve always kind of liked seeing old teas return: it keeps that hope alive that your old favourite that was discontinued or only seasonal will make a new appearance and you can stock up again or stop hoarding the last bit of leaf you’ve had for months and months now…

Now, not gonna lie – this isn’t exactly one of those teas I’d have loved to see back. I mean, it’s not the worst thing they could have brought back. But I’d have been SO MUCH MORE excited to see Cranberry Pear, Orange Blossom, Southern Belle, Root Beer Float, Big Apple, Gold Rush, Banana Oolong, Tropicalia, Bamboozled, Redberry Tonic, or Coconut Grove make a return. And yes, maybe I did type out that whole list because I’m trying to not very subtly convince the DT overlords that I’m sure probably, at the very least, skim the DT reviews on Steepster into bringing some of those back. I’d probably sell a kidney if Southern Belle or Cranberry Pear became permanent parts of the collection again.

Anyway; I of course had to revisit this one just to see what I thought of it now. I have to say that as a latte, it wasn’t bad but I found it rather plain. Mostly it just tasted like milk chocolate to me. I think some people will really love the simplicity of the flavour and that’s probably a big part of WHY it was chosen to return. But as someone that’s not the world’s biggest fan of chocolate or chocolate teas in general it just doesn’t really excite me too much.

Friendly reminder that I’m not numerically rating DAVIDsTEA blends at the moment as I currently work for DAVIDsTEA so the current rating of this tea is my original rating from a year ago when this was first released.

Sipdown (122)!

Is it ironic that I finished off a blend called “Hot Chocolate” as a cold brew? It was actually better cold though; the intense sweetness was less cloying because the extended brew time really gave the earthy pu’erh a fighting chance when it came to having those flavour notes represented in the overall brew.

I’m still not buying more, though.

Second from the Winter Collection.

This is very, very sweet! I mean, you brew it up and you can instantly tell that it’s been presweetened. Personally, I really dislike when companies sweeten my tea for me: as someone who never adds sugar to conventional hot cups of tea (the only time I add sugar is when I’m making tea soda) it’s a big turn off. That said; I can’t taste Stevia at all so the addition of it here isn’t a massive turn off. It’s one of the reasons DT’s Blueberry Jam is one of my favourites – I’ve been apparently blessed with a Stevia immunity. Sorry Stevia haters: It didn’t choose this life, it chose me! I can, to some extent, appreciate why DT added sweetener to this tea hot chocolate is a sweet drink even if I don’t appreciate the act itself. Intentions can be quite different than the result of acting upon them.

Sweetness aside: the chocolate notes are also wicked strong which seems appropriate given what the tea is aiming to be. If you dislike chocolate teas, well, what are you even doing drinking this one? It’s obviously a tea made for chocolate lovers. And I mean lovers: there’s chocolate chips, flakes, and nibs. A trifecta of chocolate! It would take milk so well, right? Right.

Finally, the base: admittedly the Pu’erh base was what initially drew me into the blend. I’ve been trying to really ease in to drinking Pu’erh lately in whatever way I can. Flavoured, straight, blended, whatever. I’m doing my best to be open to it. Mostly, the base is covered up by the general sweetness and creamy, rich chocolate notes. However, there is a mild earthiness which I think only serves to keep this from crossing the line into cloying levels of sugary goodness. Instead of crossing it, it merely hugs it insanely closely. Like, creepy Uncle hugs that last too long and are too tight. That kind of hug.

Overall – I applaud the tea for tasting exactly like what it’s named after. I’d likely drink it again if I was really in the mood for something chocolate/sweet but there’s not a chance this will be finding a permanent spot in my cupboard. It’s too different from my normal tastes/tea drinking habits.

Had a mug of this one earlier in the day. Today’s cup was just all bubblegum save for a cinnamon note in the finish, but in full honesty I sort of picked it out this morning because I wanted something with that bubblegum note and I was banking on the fact that would come out in this cup.

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.

Geek Steep S2E6 – Critical Role: The Mighty Nein

As I said in my other pairing note for this episode of Geek Steep, I did keep watching after that initial first episode – which means that I’ve gotten the chance to try a lot of different pairings. Ultimately, for me it turns out that the vessel I’m drinking out of is more important than the tea I’m drinking – and depending on the ongoing plotline, currently setting of the campaign, or who the episode is focusing on character wise there can be A LOT of different pairing directions that all make sense. Hell, even a difference like more RP driven episodes versus combat heavy episodes can really affect how I want to pair…

With that said, my favourite pairing so far as been this tea! I like the alcohol inspiration direction – it just feels right for a D&D blend if you’re not leaning heavily into the fantasy element and picking a fandom blend. This one is great though because it has lively fruity and bright top notes but also heavier and more dense oolong and grounding spices. Like, it’s just a good trifecta in the sense that at least one of those elements will probably tie in with something happening in an episode at any given time.

That said, since recording this episode I’ve discovered a company called Black Lotus Tea that makes Critical Role character themed tea blends – so now I mostly stick to my go to “Dungeon Master” mug and a critical role tea most of the time.

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.

M is for… Mulled Wine!

This was my last “M Tea” during a very packed day of M blends. I just had so many to choose from and they were also REALLY diverse that I ended up going way too hard…

I’ve learned from my less than stellar cold brew experience though, and I’m back to drinking this tea as a hot brew only. It’s once again sweet and bubblegum like with those juicy orange and mulling spice (clove/cinnamon) undertones. Weird, but familiar and tasty – and a welcome switch from the cold brew I didn’t love.

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 Brew!

I moved this tea into my sipdown/focus area with the plan of quickly burning through it as a cold brew, but I think I need to rethink that and focus on having it as a hot tea only because the cold brew was… weird.

This tea does normally taste fairly bubblegum-y from the combination of the sweet orange and spices, but as a cold brew I was getting the normal sweet and tasty bubblegum notes but also a strong flavour of clove and the woodier and floral notes of the oolong. All of these are flavours I enjoy a lot, but combined and so strong/clear tasting? It was a bit much for my brain to take – very cacophonous flavour combo. Those notes simply just aren’t that amplified when I have it hot…

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.

Had this one last week – I’m trying to do a daily tea and comic book post over on the instagram account for the podcast I’m starting w/ my friend Marika. Instead of a Free Comic Book Day this year, it’s an entire summer long even with 4-5 new comics each week so it’s been pretty easy to maintain daily posts…

This was a nice cup of tea – it’s one of those ones that if you stop actively paying attention when you drink it the flavour sort of reads “bubblegum” instead of Mulled Wine but with more attentiveness you get sweet orange, and the mix of spices. I enjoy how much clove is in this tea as a whole – more spiced teas should use clove. Why does DT shy away from that spice so much!?

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CDo_4eEgf9P/

This comic was cute – not my normal thing, but for a short (and free) read I was really impressed! I also like that each week includes a comic that’s clearly more intended for a young audience/children – that’s a fun bit of inclusivity and intro to the comic book world.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwgy-snK_YY

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.

Hut cuppa from earlier in the week; definitely did that sort of orange-y bubble gum flavour kinda thing that this tea is want to do. However, had a mouthfeel that was almost more… dusty!? I hate using that word because it sounds really unappealing, but it’s definitely what I was getting – just a sort of almost powdery/dustyness. Kinda weird.

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 think we offered this tea, from a few Christmas collections ago, as an online exclusive this year? I got some of it at work recently though, and it’s been a long while since I last had it so I decided to brew up a mug and reacquaint myself. I remember this having a weirdly bubblegum-y sort of taste, and true to my memory it actually DOES taste kind of like bubblegum. Along with clove, cinnamon, and oranges – but definitely some major bubblegum notes. Does it remind me of mulled wine? Not especially but I’m REALLY enjoying the flavour. I sipped a large nordic mug of it while making omelettes, and it was a really great cooking companion type of tea. Also good for cold winter evenings.

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 is a queued tasting note.

So I was at my mom’s the other night for supper and she mentioned that she’d brought home some of her teas from work and I should check and see if any of them were ones I wanted to try/hadn’t tried. None of them were new to me, but there were a whole bunch of older seasonal blends I hadn’t tried in a long time.

So I finished off the last of her Mulled Wine with some added in Grand Marnier because a tea named Mulled Wine deserves to be at least a little bit boozey. This tastes like cloves, sweet boozey oranges, and bubblegum. Pretty just like I remember it tasting. The revisit was nice.

Cold Brew Sipdown (120)!

Cold, this taste basically just like the hot cup, but with the disappointing addition of a sort of soapy/sudsy flavour. I may pick up another 20g or so (not a big restock), and if I do I’ll definitely be sticking with a hot form a prep. I don’t think this is well suited for cold methods.

I only picked up two of the Winter Teas from DAVIDsTEA as initially there were only two that interested me: this one and Hot Chocolate. I’m kind of starting to regret not grabbing Cardamom French Toast since all of the reviews have been so positive. My mom got the entire collection though, so maybe I’ll steal a cup from her. She seems to like it enough to stock up, anyway…

There’s something so appealing about the smell of this blend though: it reminds me of Sangria quite a lot but without that licorice root sweetness. The intensity of the fruity flavours and juiciness of the citrus though! That carries over well, but with a bubblegum like sweetness. My first taste was hot: and it was really wonderful!

I’ve been having a stressful time with my laptop the last few days – I keep getting hard disk/drive failure warnings every ten minutes or so and my laptop is definitely showing signs that it is indeed failing. It’ll unexpectedly crash, things are taking ages to load, and so many other concerning things. I literally just replaced the hard drive about a year and a half ago after it suddenly, and without warning, just failed. One night I shut Aurthour (my laptop) down for the night and the next morning he wouldn’t boot up. I’m terrified that will happen again. However, at least this time I’ve gotten a heads up and been able to back up all of my important files (which I hadn’t last time – I lost SO MUCH information). I’m hoping I can get into a repair shop by the end of the week and will be able to repair the hard drive before it fails so I don’t have to rely on a backup. Aurthour just has to hold out that long…

Anyway, all of that is just to say that when I brewed up this cup I was sitting frantic on my bed desperately backing up files. Had I not had such a fruity, sweet cuppa to sip on my nerves would have been absolutely fried and I would have been in a much greater state of panic. Instead I managed to divert the energy that would have been spent stressing out on focusing on the flavour notes: bubble gum, orange, ginger, clove, apple. Sweet, effervescent flavour grounded with soft spices. Yum yum.