18246 Tasting Notes
I’ve been getting a little more involved with helping our social media team do some different content creation and last week one of the things I we worked on was a “dupe” of Starbuck’s Berry Lemonade Refresher. It was very simple – just mix one of these RTDs with some lemonade and popping boba.
Best part was, after filming, getting to drink everything afterwards. Definitely a super refreshing blue raspberry taste and, unsurprisingly since this is also very true of the loose leaf tea, the new Magic Potion RTD goes very well with lemonade.
Anyway, here’s the TikTok video: https://www.tiktok.com/@davidstea/video/7381581035898817798?lang=en
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.
Enjoyed this powder whisked up and paired with some super sweet, ripe, and melt-in-your-mouth fresh mango. I’ve been on such a mango kick the last two weeks (specifically Altaufo mangoes), and only in the last few days has that fruit fixation started to bleed over into my tea selections, too. I adore both the loose leaf and powdered versions of Paragon’s Mango Hojicha – when I visited Vancouver this past Summer I was skeptical the pairing of such a juicy tropical fruit would work with the roast, but both of these teas have ended up being some of my favourites I brought home with me from that trip. The darker, deep notes of roasted grains, coffee and nuts really emphasize the sweetness of the mango, and the almost pine-like undertones act as a sort of bridge with the woodiness which keeps the whole combo from feeling too disconnected!!
Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8cdZDsuOmW/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMRyBsw08Ag
Made a cup of this to drink in the morning and really enjoyed how smooth and well balanced everything was. In general I really like the honey and graham sort of taste of the rooibos that Bird & Blend usually uses to blend with, and those flavours in particular seemed very complimentary to the lightly sweet notes of cocoa that were the primary flavour here. The finish was very rosy, but in quite a natural feeling way and the chocolate and rose combination was just very ethereal and romantic feeling overall.
There’s also ashwagandha in this blend, and I very much appreciated that it didn’t get too funky/earthy but that I was absolutely feeling those adaptogenic qualities by the time I’d finished my mug. So much more relaxed!!
Made a mug of this last night, and really just got swept up in it. The smell of the steeped tea coming off the mug was so mouth watering a delicious. Very, very caramel forward but also sort of creamy too. At times I felt like it was really reminding me of butterscotch pudding. There was a little bit of a disconnect with the taste since it was quite bright, fruity and apple forward. However, this tea is intended to a caramel apple sort of profile so it is accurate – it’s just that the apple doesn’t come through in the smell so the very prominent taste was moderately jarring in those first few sips. As it cooled I found the caramel became more prominent with a richer, buttery finish. Overall, I thought this was very well executed!
Last but not least of the new RTD line is… Cream of Earl Grey!
I think that, of all the flavours, this is the one I imagine people might be the most apprehensive about. To be honest, I was apprehensive with the development too. I don’t know a ton of people who drink Earl Grey (or Earl Grey variants, like this one) cold and the idea of carbonating it definitely takes it a step further.
However, I am here to say that this flavour is a total surprise and delight. It’s so funny because during most of the development tastings the room was pretty split between people who love and hate this loose leaf tea, and the things we all had in common was that we adored this flavour. It’s very well balanced. You can taste the black tea, and the aromatic citrusy pop of the bergamot, and definitely the vanilla and cream. In fact, time and time again we all agreed that this was basically the love child of an Earl Grey and a cream soda. Pretty literally a tea pop.
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8Kk6xfug2z/?img_index=1
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.
One of our brand new RTDs!!!
I mean, is anyone surprised we turned Magic Potion into a sparkling iced tea? From the moment we released this tea years and years ago it’s been a best selling and fan favourite iced tea and tea pop. With all the many years of development work, this was always a no-brainer for us. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it out right, though…
I like this RTD much more than the loose leaf.
I said it in my tasting note for Queen of Tarts, but all of these RTDs are made by cold brewing ingredients used in the loose leaf versions of the teas. Though we generally tried to match the loose leaf blends as closely as possible in taste, we did make one change with this one that I think is pretty significant – we removed the stevia. The final drink is still very moderately sweetened with organic cane sugar, but the overall drink actually isn’t too sweet at all. As y’all here on Steepster know, I drink a ton of RTDs from other companies and I guess maybe now I can share that at least part of the reason for that is that I’ve been doing lots of analysis the last few years – and one of the things I’ve been paying a lot of attention to is the sweetness level of different iced teas. I think we got such a goods middle ground with this one! In fact, most of the times I’ve sampled it with different people during development one of the first (if not the first) comments I’ve gotten is a delightfully surprised version of “Oh, it’s not too sweet”!
But I guess maybe I’m getting ahead of myself because I’m assuming people will know the LLT this was based on, and maybe that’s not the case!? Basically, the flavour is a juicy blue raspberry – we compare it a lot to, like Icee’s or other blue raspberry slushies but essentially it’s kind of that retro 2000s nostalgic sort of blue raspberry. Ironically, the flavour is technically currant and kiwi but the combination of those two fruits just tastes so eerily like blue raspberry that most people can’t taste anything else.
And I guess the other really cool part of this blend is its colour! The LLT steeps blue from the butterfly pea flower, but this RTD is more of a deep purple since it has the same butterfly pea flower in it but is partially “pre-colour changed” from the ascorbic acid in the formulation. You can still further colour change it with the addition of lemon juice or lemonade though, just like the loose tea – and it tastes really great with the lemonade addition too!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8Kk6xfug2z/?img_index=1
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.
Welp, secret’s out! This past week DAVIDsTEA finally launched our line of RTDs. I’ve been working on the RTD project for a long, long time. In fact, in total this line of teas has taken more than five years of hard work, research, and meticulous trial in order to get to our finalized line of three teas…
The whole line is based off our best selling and fan favourite iced teas and, in addition to being sparkling, are cold brewed using ingredients from our actual loose leaf teas – no tea extracts. We’re steeping real, whole tea leaves and botanicals.
Of the three flavours we launched, this is honestly my favourite one. It’s also the only one of the three that’s not sweetened. In fact, there are ZERO grams of sugar per can. That does not, however, mean it’s skimping on flavour. If you know the loose leaf tea then you know this tea packs one heck of a tart punch of ripe berry and hibiscus. We really honored that with the development, and I think the RTD does an incredible job and mirroring those traits. It’s juicy, it’s bright, it’s so refreshing. You can really taste the blackberry, and it just makes a very good on the go option when you want no fuss iced tea.
I am just SO PROUD of this development!
Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8Kk6xfug2z/?img_index=1
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.
Reached for this blend last night to wind down with. It’s been a little while since I last steeped it up, and it was a nice evening option. Sweet but not cloying, though I suppose you might disagree with that statement if you’re sensitive to licorice type flavours because the predominant notes of this mug with floral honey and black licorice (from the fenugreek). I, of course, quite love black licorice so this more aromatic and floral leaning licorice-y profile was really up my alley…
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’ve reviewed the RTDs from Ooya before, but since then they’ve actually released a bunch of new flavours so I figured I’d just pick up one each of their entire product line and do another taste through – starting with this one, which I believe is limited edition for summer.
My favourite part of Ooya my first time tasting their drinks was how natural and minimally sweet they were, all while really embracing the flavour of the guayusa they use as the base. You can really taste the “rain forest” flavour, with its lush grassiness and slight earthy minerality. I’ve relieved to see that continues to be true! I definitely thought the passionfruit in this was stronger than the mango, but the overall tropical profile really compliments the guayusa without masking it. It’s quite fresh, and just a bit playful. Really serves up summer vibes. I could totally picture myself cracking a can of this in place of a beer and enjoying it on a terrace on a hot and humid afternoon!
We’ll see if this holds true as I revisit the other flavours and try some of the other seasonal ones, but this might be a new favourite from Ooya!
I don’t remember what tea it was, but I feel like I pretty recently pointed out in a tasting note how much I like the combination of turmeric and pineapple – and that’s kind of the main thing with this blend aside from the earthy, grassier notes of the mate itself. It’s fresh and a bit sweet from the tropical fruits, but also spicy in the finish with a crisp, clean earthiness. Both from the turmeric and ginger, but also the carrot! Just so well balanced!
