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New Halloween teas!

My turnaround time for tasting notes from new tea launches is usually a little bit better than this, but I guess sometimes life is just busy and things take time! The two new teas for this Halloween are joined by a few returning favourites, like Stormy Night, but as always my focus is on the NEW blends because I already have tasting notes for the other teas.

I don’t really know how much there is to say for this year’s collection, honestly. Both teas are themed around different types of gummy candies – in this case gummy bears – and I feel like it’s a really fun return to the childhood roots of Halloween. Y’know, trick or treating as a small child and getting massive pillow cases full little snack sizes of your favourite candies and chocolate bars and, if you were really lucky, occasionally scoring full size candy bars and cans of soda! Normally I don’t love candy in tea, but for a Halloween collection I’m actually really into the idea! I think it’s perfectly on theme and, to be honest, sort of a direct response to a lot of the feedback from last year’s collection which was that it was “too serious” or “too wellness focused” and just not fun enough…

As long time Steepster friends know, I fucking love Halloween! The first year after I moved out of my parent’s house I went FULL BLOWN crazy for Halloween and decked out my front yard with TONS of decorations and was the house on my block that gave away full size candy bars, cans of pop, and handfuls of candy. You came to my house and you left with a bag a few pounds heavier than when you arrived. In the years since, I haven’t been able to go as all out because I’ve lived in condo or apartment buildings & there’s no one trick or treating in them. So this is nostalgic for me, big time.

As far as the taste of the tea goes – it’s really straight forward, honestly. Very sweet and flavourful juicy strawberry with a hint of tartness from the apple and hibiscus that support the flavour profile. Think Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait, minus the rhubarb and the parfait. The flavour will have some VERY SLIGHT variation depending on the gummy bears you get in the cup because they all have their own unique flavour – my favourite ones are the blue ones and the yellow. The yellow has a sort of banana flavour and I’ve dreamed of DT having a strawberry banana tea for ages now so I’ve definitely loaded up yellow bears into a steeped to try and achieve that flavour profile. It kind of works.

I guess the only things left to say are sort of the two main questions I’ve seen since this collection launched: the first is how many gummies are in the tea and the second is whether they clog the steeped/don’t dissolve well.

To answer the first, I think there’s a fairy substantial amount in this blend. Easily enough, if you get a 50g bag, for there to be one in each spoon of tea. I don’t know if this is just luck of the draw with the bag that I have, but I’ve noticed more red gummy bears than any other colour. They should be evenly dispersed throughout the bag though!? I guess that does sometimes happen with bags of candy though where you randomly get more of one colour than the others.

To answer the second, the gummy bears dissolve pretty well – especially if you tack on a couple extra minutes of steep time. However, if you want to be extra cautious I would just advise steeping in a fill your own sachet or washing your steeper of choice immediately after brewing. If they don’t melt entirely and then re-solidify it’s a pretty big pain cleaning them out after.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that this blend uses gummies from Squish!

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.