DAVIDsTEA

Sipdown (128)!

Back to a hot cup for this sipdown. This definitely was the dregs of the back; there was lots and lots of blackberry leaf and little bits but not a whole lot of actual pieces of apple. So not so surprisingly, this was very sweet with more vanilla than the last hot cup. It had a thicker mouthfeel too; I wonder why that was.

It still maintained a lot of green apple flavour though; it kind of reminded me of really sugary applesauce. It’s a bit too sweet for my liking, honestly – and I have pretty sweet tastes typically.

Anyway; now that I’m out of this one I’m probably gonna be done with it. I think I’m ready to move on to a different apple tea now; something more subtle and natural. Maybe Butiki’s Applesauce and Potato Pancakes?

Yeah… Definitely craving that one now.

Gonna do three tasting notes (to cancel out the three teas I had today) from my queue, and then it’ll be bedtime for me. I work in the morning – so need to get to sleep early. Bleh. So, tasting note 1/3…

This one is/was a cold brew. I’d tried a hot cup, though it was OK but I wanted to play around a little bit with this, and apple is one of those flavours that kinda invites itself to cold brewing/iced tea so that seemed like the logical next way to try this.

I forgot I was cold brewing this, actually, so it wound up with a 24(ish) hour cold brew. That may have been too long because this turned out like really, really sweet/cloying apple juice paired with really sweet/cloying vanilla. And just very artificial in general. It was drinkable, but not the most enjoying tea in the world. And now I’m kinda frustrated because I’m not sure whether this was bad because of the extended brew time or whether it’s just not meant to be iced/cold in general. I mean, I guess “Cider” is typically hot right?

There’s enough leaf left for one cup – so I’ll probably revert back to drinking it hot when I sip this down.

Digging into more of the fall teas!

I think this is probably the one I was/am least excited about, except for maybe Maple Sugar. It just feels so redundant at this point; why do you need another apple heavy blend DT? You have so many. Seriously, just pick two or three and stick with them. I’d much rather the seasonal slot go to a favourite from last year or something a little more unique.

Steeped up, this was ok. It was definitely very sweet green apple candy with just the faintest tartness to it. Just enough to remind you it’s green apple and not red. There was also lots of vanilla which was a touch weird with with green apple (how dare you if you get your apples mixed up!) but worked out ok. On the whole I’d say it was more candy like/artificial. But in the aftertaste there was this sort of “crisp” apple realness to it just like you’d bitten into a very ripe Granny Smith. That was a nice little touch/aspect.

On the whole I think I’ll enjoy my sample, but this one will definitely not be a repurchase for me.

New Teaware!

That now makes for eight non-tea things here in my Steepster cupboard. Honestly, I’m getting a little sick of doing the split numbers for sipdowns (tea without teaware/tea with teaware) so I might just take all the teaware out of my cupboard.

It just bugs “my OCD” to have teaware accounted for in my cupboard and not separate it from the tea blends (ex. my cupboard reads 149 at this moment, but eight of those things aren’t tea so the number isn’t true) but I like having that represented when you browse my cupboard. Just reviewing the stuff I own seems like not enough. Oh well, regardless I’ve over complicating something that doesn’t need to be made difficult.

But anyway, this is my first Nordic Mug. I haven’t gotten one previously because, while I typically really like the designs, I don’t so much like the size. 12 oz. is sort of the perfect size for me; it lets me drink something and really drink it, but it also allows me to have several cups in a day or even at the same time. But I guess what is good about this size of mug is that it’ll be better for sipdowns.

I got the Raccoon one, and I’ve decided to name my raccoon Randall. It was a toss up between that and Resteep, but Resteep felt disingenuous given that’s something I’m not in the practice of doing. Rooibos was also under consideration – but I think Randall is maybe cuter?

The design on this one is really cute; I especially like the inside of it. That burgundy colour is beautiful! And it’ll be nice because it wont show the staining as much like my white teaware often does since I drink so much black tea. It’s also a lot sturdier than my perfect mugs seem to feel (especially my glass one). Not sure why that is, especially given that the perfect mugs have a flat bottom. But this one just feels more secure. Sadly the lid doesn’t fit quite right, so I’ll be mostly using it as a saucer I suppose.

But overall I’ve really enjoyed using this one since getting it, even if there are a few cons.

I was having some rather unpleasant cramping over the weekend so I made myself a large mug of this tea at one point, and I think it helped a fair bit with the discomfort. As far as taste goes, it was mellow and herbal leaning but with a soft bit of fruitiness. Raspberry, yes, but mostly a nice fresh apple flavour. Perfectly smooth and comforting.

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.

Something that I had midweek (last week) – I was drinking it while making supper because I was feeling really crampy/bloated and this tea is very comforting to me during that special time of the month, plus the subtle but juicy raspberry notes were really fitting all the right chords and helping me achieve a little bit of zen while chopping veggies…

All of that changed, however, when one of my roommates came home in a bit of a rage. She’d had a very frustrating day at work dealing with a particularly awful manager and just needed a bit of a rant. That’s fine – I can listen to a good rant! However, it all went chaotic when she just started angrily saying “All he does all day is eat ass!!” over and over…

So this is really the story about how I had to explain, without laughing since that was NOT what she needed at the moment, to my roommate that there is a VERY different connotation to the phrase “eating ass” versus “kissing ass”. So yeah, that’s the story. I found it amusing – and the tea was good too!

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.

Suggested by a coworker as a sort of “palate cleanser” tea to drink, because of the light and crisp apple and raspberry notes, after a particularly heavy and aggressive cup of tea that I’d drank immediately before. It was a good suggestion.

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.

Hot w/ honey – the taste is delightfully mellow but has sweet and juicy notes of apples and raspberries. This tea always reminds me of summers at my Grandma’s house – probably just because so many of them as a kid were spent helping in her garden and picking/eating fresh fruits, especially raspberries. I find this blend hydrating and it always a great go to when I want a softer fruity option.

This is another retiring tea – and it’s one of the ones that I’m really sad about. Not only does this taste amazingly light, refreshing and natural but there’s really nothing else that comes close to it on the tea wall in terms of “Women’s Wellness” blends. I know that Seaberry Spa does also have raspberry leaf but no where near the same amount – and I also know that for some pregnant women caffeine can be a concern. Also; this is my go to tea for menstrual cramps! So I’m sad because this tastes great and serves an awesome functional purpose…

I will top up my tin, for sure.

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.

Evening cuppa.

I wanted something light, fruity, and caffeine free and this ticks off all those boxes. It’s delightfully fresh feeling, with a sweet, mild apple top notes and body notes more reflective of the raspberry/raspberry leaf in the blend. Just a wee bit of tartness from the rosehip.

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.

Made this one in a tea press with a little lemon honey to take to work.

We ended up getting pretty busy during the day and I really didn’t have time to drink my tea at all. Then, after the store closed it was a Merch Flip to put out all the super cute new llama stuff that came out today. So, I didn’t really get a chance to enjoy this until that Merch Flip – and by then it was definitely cold. However, I don’t think it being cold made it any less tasty. Instead, it just made it more reminiscent of a raspberry/lemon infused apple juice sort of flavour because it was an especially apple note heavy cuppa.

Hydrating, though! And honestly, that late in the day and moving around all that stock I think iced/chilled/cold was really the way to go anyway for 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.

So, I had a very weird Steepster related dream last night…

Basically, I dreamed that Steepster had been acquired by Chapters/Coles/Indigo; and that during this acquisition they rolled out some mighty weird changes. For example, not only could you have a ‘Tea Cupboard’ but also there was a tab titled ‘Book Shelf’ that listed all the books you owned. The discussion board was basically taken over with different book studies, when you wrote a tasting note you had an option to list what book you were reading at the time of drinking the tea, and tasting logs were called ’Author’s Notes’. Perhaps the most weird thing, though, was that you could earn Scene Points (like what you get at the movies…) for writing tasting notes; one point per tasting note and then large deposits of point for reaching certain milestones such as 100, 500, 1000, 2500, and 5000 notes. It was all very strange.

ANYWAY – this tea was delightful. It was light and refreshing with mild, natural notes of freshly picked raspberry and crisp, red apples. Not much else to say about it, other than perhaps pondering if drinking it right before bed resulted in this weird dream of mine!?

Also, if someone wants to give me Scene points for writing tasting notes I wouldn’t be upset with that – for the record.

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.

So I’ve been to a couple different DAVIDsTEA locations now since starting to work there, and one thing I always try to do is ask the employees about which teas are their best sellers that are unique to their store – and what I mean by that is that every store kind of all have the best selling teas; Just Peachy, Forever Nuts, Cream of Earl Grey, ME to WE, Buddha’s Blend, etc. I mean, generally speaking, anything that comes in the Rainbow Tins/boxes of Sachets is a company wide best seller – those are the ones that sell well, so those are the ones that can justifiably be prepackged.

However, each store also has a handful of teas that don’t come in those prepackaged options that they just sell a ton of, that other stores don’t – and my theory is that the general reason for that is because those teas are staff favourites, and so because the staff as a whole really likes them they sell a lot more of that tea because they recommend it more. Some of these ‘staff favourites’ at my store would be Chocolate Macaroon, Midsummer Night’s Dream and, as of late, this tea! I mean, in the last few weeks our sales of this tea have nearly doubled because collectively our whole staff kind of just went “Man, this is a DELICIOUS tea!” And I’m not really an exception to that; I’ve found it’s the perfect thing to pull down when I want something light, refreshing and fruity tasting without it being in my face kinds of fruity, or reliant on things like hibiscus for flavour impact. It works hot, it works cold, and the apple/raspberry combo is really satisfying.

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.

Iced Tea.

This is my favourite iced tea at the moment for when you want something natural tasting, slightly fruity, and really refreshing! It’s just very light bodied, with really realistic apple skins and raspberry notes and very, VERY hydrating. I literally have no complaints.

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.

Iced from last night!

I asked a coworker to make me something iced that would be really refreshing, but told her I didn’t care what it was. She decided on an iced Mighty Aphrodite and I have to say that in regard to hitting the spot it was a bullseye.

The soft, delicate taste of both the raspberry and the apple were really, really hydrating and with nothing more than just the natural sweetness of the fruit it was all I could have asked for out of an iced tea. Not even kidding, that first sip almost made me tear up a little. I was feeling so out of sorts from being sick, and it just made me feel… clear.

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.

Sipdown (113)!

Well, finally finished this one off! Not that it was bad or anything; far from it, really. It’s just so super light so the 30g I bought of it really, really went a long way. This time around, this was a cold brew and it was a bit more raspberry heavy (maybe the raspberry thingers sunk down?) which made it extra tasty.

Also, non tea related – the day I had this was the day things started getting really bad at Dollarama. Suddenly, I went from 40H/Week to 26/Week, with zero notice. That’s not really an ok thing to do in my opinion – I rely on having between 35-40 hours a week to comfortably pay my bills and save money up in case of emergencies, and recently I’ve been having lots of dental work done and since Dollarama’s insurance plan didn’t have dental coverage, I’ve been paying for it out of my pocket. And it’s costly!

When I approached my manager, she said it was “only temporary” but I found out later in the week she was hiring even more Keyholders (my position) on top of Bobbi and I, and that’s where both of our hours were going to: the new keyholder! So, we got our hours cut, and this new person (who honestly did seem nice, but who I did NOT want there) was winding up with even more hours than Bobbi and I. Around Christmas, if anything, hours should be going up NOT DOWN, and as the two people who had been at our location the longest (since the branch opened in March) it was just such a slap in the face. Does Seniority not count for anything? I mean, it certainly shouldn’t count for everything but we’d even been there longer than Carole (the manager)…

On top of that, Carole was just being so racist that day too (I mean, she’s always been a little racist but this was it’s own thing). She was complaining about Indian customers “reeking of curry” and making remarks that Islamic customers wearing the full “gown” outfit that just shows the eyes (I can’t remember what it’s called) should “Modernize their look” since they’re “In Canada now”. So that was the day that I started job hunting again, “officially” and seriously, but it was also the day I reported Carole to head office for all the horrible things she does/says: the racism, opening the store on her own (huge security issue), bringing friends into the back office, and letting her Grandson open with her.

I’m just done with that bullshit.

Happy Belated Birthday Luke…

Really happy I had yesterday off from work – and not just because of the cluster headaches. November third is just a rough day to me, and I was out of it and I needed to distract myself, badly. That’s in part why I binge watched MMFD, and maybe even contributed a lot to the headaches. I just tried not to think about it. It’s hitting me more now though, than it did yesterday.

So I made this one hot; last few times I’ve gone with a cold brewed route and I like this cold brewed, but it’s definitely just as good hot too. This cup was almost surprisingly more apple than anything else; in a really light and fragile way. Even though I’ve been working at sipping this down for a while now (it’s so light; I didn’t realize 20g of it would be so much when I originally picked it up) I will be a bit sad when it’s gone ’cause it is a very gentle, delicate herbal tea.

Fragile, even.

Ok, I’m not really that sure how to rationalize this one as a Halloween themed tea. Can we pretend I dressed up as Aphrodite instead of just having really strong Red/Black eyeshadow game? Does that make it count? Probably not.

Anyway; this was my daily cold brew and it was very nice – raspberry/apple cider but, like, chilled? I tasted something extra in it though that my gut wants to call “starchy” but that’s also completely not the right word. I only tasted it near the end of the brew but it was kind of distracting though. I had fun drinking this one ’cause I was using a Halloween silly straw with a little skull on top, and every time tea flowed through the skull it made a shrieking noise!

Now that’s Halloween themed.

Tre is nesting right now; and being a huge ass about it. Every time he spends the evening out he comes homes and wants to clean the house from top to bottom. I have no problem with that, but the asshole part comes in when he starts doing the following:

- Dumping all my clean clothing from the dryer onto the floor instead of asking me to move it for him

- Pouring all my Halloween candy into bowls without asking if I wanted to separate it by type (which I did) and without taking into consideration that he just occupied the only bowls big enough in the house to do baking in or make popcorn in (both of which I wanted to do)

- Spraying Febreze ALL OVER my steeping tea, take-out and the tealeaves sitting on the dishwasher that I was saving for later to resteep because he’s too much of a thoughtless ass to check if there was important stuff there, thus ruining a whole bunch of tea and expensive food

- Throwing out a whole stack of papers from the kitchen counter which included receipts from the post office with tracking info on them and pay stubs

Seriously you asshole; there’s a point where you’re no longer cleaning and you’re just being an thoughtless douchcanoe. You reached that point half an hour ago. Stop thinking about just yourself and take other people into consideration; and if you really want the house to be cleaner, how about you vocalize that and ask me to help? I wouldn’t mind.

Roommates are hard sometimes.

But anyway the tea…

This was a cold brew that I made for work. It was more heavy on the apple flavour than the raspberry this time around – but both were present and sweet. Very natural. It reminded me a little bit of those raspberry Arizona Iced Teas that get sold everywhere, but way less sweetened. So, basically, it was good.

Made in my timolino ‘cause I woke up with some pretty crappy cramps and this immediately came to mind. Bonus points, ’cause it’s really tasty too!

It had very juicy notes of raspberry and apples with a milder lemon flavour present in the aftertaste. It reminded me of a very light and gentle cider type drink. I really, really like this one; it’s just a shame that raspberry leaf is a thing that I probably should not be drinking on a really regular basis. Side note; apparently me and my coworker Bobbi are “synced up” so since she had terrible cramps too we had a “bonding moment” of sorts and split the timolino worth of this before our shifts started.

She actually really enjoyed it, and was just so amused that “period tea” is a real thing.

PERIOD TEA!?

So time for some oversharing. Sorry in advance.

Last week, my period was really bad. I was super crampy, stiff and sore and it probably didn’t help I’d just finished that awful week at work with all the extra hours. So when I went to DT I picked some of this one up because apparently “Raspberry Leaf” is a girl’s best friend? Or something to that nature. I mean, I always thought it was diamonds or dogs but hell, I’m ready to embrace raspberry leaf I suppose.

So after my date, this is what I immediately went and brewed up. Dry it’s actually super light and fluffy. Everything a period is not. Taste wise, this was actually really surprisingly delicious. It was gentle, but still really sweet and juicy with very prominent notes of raspberries and apples. I kinda got a “Gala Apple” vibe from the notes, but regardless it was definitely more red apple than green.

And, I don’t know if it’s because of the raspberry leaf – but the next day my cramps and tenderness were significantly less painful then they had been all week prior. So maybe raspberry leaf is a girl’s best friend.

During our office move with found a few boxes of very, very old tea samples. The majority of them were Mango Madness, which we haven’t carried for at least six years. Just to give y’all a sense of exactly how old these were.

Before they could be tossed out I did grab a handful for myself just to revisit for, well, nostalgia’s sake. I brewed one a few nights ago and while it was nostalgic it was almost not super pleasant. Age is a factor there for sure, but more than anything it was just that I’d forgotten how intensely sweet/cloying the finish of this particular tea is. It’s just a super syrupy, saturated mango and orange note. Definitely going with less steep time next time around to hopefully have a softer tasting mug.

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.

Another “announcement” type review just to say that this tea is being retired…

I’m drinking what will most likely be my last ever cup while I write this note; I think I really liked this tea at one point but now I find it rather unpleasant – it’s just not a very good mango flavour, and it’s sweet but in a weird way from the blackberry leaf. I find it sort of discombobulating to drink as nothing really fits together despite all the major players (in terms of flavour) still being fruits. I’ve grown frustrated with this blend and the inconsistent cups of tea that it produces and I’m rather happy it’s getting chopped if I’m talking purely based on personal feelings – I’m surprised we didn’t retire it earlier given there are other mango teas in our assortment, and we’re not lacking in fruity white tea options…

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.

Sipdown (608)!

Finished this one off over the weekend – it’s one that I definitely feel a sense of relief about now that it’s no longer in my cupboard. At one point, I was very excited about this tea but I think I’ve just realized that not only are there nicer mango teas out there but there are even niced Mango teas specifically from DAVIDsTEA out there as well. This was one of the older teas in my cupboard as well…

Plus, this last cup did that thing where tropical fruit flavours sometimes taste like body odour – so that’s no 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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

Morning cuppa.

This is the sort of white tea that I see on our wall, and think to myself “why has is not been retired yet?”. We have a lot of other tropical teas, including more than one other mango tea that we do carry year round so I don’t find it particularly unique? And, at least in the store I worked at, my experience was that is just wasn’t a popular tea…

Today’s cup wasn’t magical either, and in fact I think the last few cups of this that I’ve had have been far from impressive. Just, artificial tasting fruit notes and a weird and forceful mix of mango/orange/pineapple without a lot of nuance or brightness. So, why is it still hanging on? I just don’t quite get 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 regarding the teas, and not the company’s.