DAVIDsTEA x Tea Horse

I found this tea lacking in complexity. Based on other reviews, I’m going to try it again before adding a score.

I get generic fruity and sweet notes with very soft oaty flavours if I concentrate on it. I was hoping for more toasted rice and maple. The black tea is doing most of the work here, but is not as potent as I hoped. Will try again soon before I write a better review. Just documenting this so I can look back on it next time.

I received this tea from Kaylee — a big thanks!
Well, reading the notes made a big expectations; but sadly not fully delivered. Drank yesterday morning, so maybe I won’t recall everything correctly.

I got a wonderful base tea, with nice toasted/roasted rice flavour and not-so-sweet maple syrup. Sadly, I didn’t get any blueberry.
The roasted note was something I have been afraid of. Many teas were just dominating with this note and often it’s just too much. But here it was on pleasant level, and as I said again, the maple syrup was just right addition.

Sadly, I don’t got any left to try it in different ways, for instance as a latte. Maybe one day…

I’ve been really eager to try this one, and it lives up to expectations. The flavor is so interesting! I can’t even tell what I’m tasting, but it’s desserty without being too heavy or sweet. I really enjoyed this sweetened with milk. The resteep tasted shockingly good (for a resteep). It was almost chocolatey and so desserty and fun. I can’t wait to have more! The next time I had this, it tasted so marshmallowy and delicious. I really love this tea.

Yay, it’s BACK! DavidsTea has restocked Manoomin Maple, which means I can finally dip more into the tiny stash I’ve been hoarding for a year. I really didn’t expect to like this one, both because black teas are always risky for me and because I’m not big on blueberries. But it turned out to be really wonderful, and by the time I figured that out it was already out of stock. Happy it’s back, have already placed my order before it disappears again.
So I’m continuing my Canadian food theme today, pairing this tea with a different vegan lox. This particular lox turns out to be phenomenal, by the way – Living Tree Foods’ Slammin’ Lox. It’s not exactly in wide distribution outside of British Columbia and literally one online grocer, unfortunately, but for anyone who doesn’t eat fish and can get their hands on it, I highly recommend it. This blend, as an oat milk latte, actually paired really well with a bagel/cream cheese/lox. I think that’s because the maple isn’t super sweet, and the maltiness of the black base plus the roastiness of the wild rice gives it some heft that works well with a savory meal. Also this lox isn’t as strongly smoky as the one I had yesterday. So the smoke/sweet flavor contrast wasn’t as jarring between the lox and the tea.

Truly bummed I didn’t get more of this one before it sold out! This might be one of the best DavidsTeas I’ve ever had, right up there with Gold Rush, which I still long for. I was really craving a maple blend today for some reason, so I decided to use some of my precious remaining leaf for a nice midday Sunday cuppa. It’s a nice creamy maple with a touch of sweet blueberry (no tartness) and roasty undertones. That creamy maple flavor really lingers beautifully after the sip. The mouthfeel is great too, thick and silky, almost like what you get from marshmallow root, with just a touch of dryness at the end of the sip. If anyone happens to have some they’re not excited about, I’d love to swap for it!

Don’t particularly love the malt flavoring

I am so sad this is no longer available, I recently got this in a swap and I’m in love! It’s like a warm slice of cream pie but its a mix of roasty toasty coconut, cranberry, and blueberry.

Decided to dig this out of the back of the cupboard and have another cup since I realized people have been getting excited about it’s return. It’s a strange tea. I got whiffs of rootbeer in the bag, which makes no sense! Once steeped it seemed okay. The maple notes started to come out and I was noticing the coconut thinking about turning as there was a slight hint of soapiness. As it cooled it changed to more of a chocolate milk sort of taste, which I wasn’t expecting. If I sip too frequently the flavors start to register as flat, but if I sip sparingly I get the chocolate milk notes. It’s an intriguing tea, but I’m not as hyped about it as others and I feel like I’m missing out on something. Oh well. :/

Had a cup of this earlier, resteeped and am drinking the second cup now. I feel like the first cup was dominated by flavorings, like blueberry and maple. This second cup is more genmaicha like. The rice really shines through with a nice roasty flavor. It has a sweetness to it that lasts into the finish where a light maple and blueberry come out. I’m really enjoying this cup. I wonder what would happen if I did a first steep, a second right away and combined the two. Would I get more of the rice balancing with the maple and blueberry? I’ll need to explore this further!

I finished this off in record time, which implies I enjoy it. It’s definitely an easy-drinker, especially for a vanilla lover. Next time I’m running low on dessert teas it will be a strong contender for re-order.

The vanilla flavouring in this is… powerful. Aroma-wise, I’m reminded of cookie dough (when I accidentally spill the bottle of $$$$ vanilla extract) – particularly that bittersweet alcoholic sheen that vanilla extract uses to punch you in the face when you least expect it. The addition of maple sugar, coconut, blueberry, and nutty manoomin means this plunges right into cozy fall sweater (and scarf) dessert tea territory. Just to be extra mind-bending, the lingering aftertaste is tart-sweet cranberry sauce. So, it’s fall in a cup.

For this initial tasting, I was too much of a coward to drink it without first diluting it with milk (vanilla and violent both start with “vee”, and did I mention it’s punchy?); I don’t know if I’d want it any other way either.

Rating TBD at the end of pouch consumption. For now, I think this tea is a cool collab and a complimentary addition to David’s Tea’s shelves.

EDIT: I did a second steep and drank it plain. It was pretty good too; still very sweet, with malt and a more diluted citric berry component.

really, really love this tea!!! it’s so beautiful. i’d never tried a black tea with rice before (i’ve had a few green teas with rice) but this was just beautiful. it looks lovely when steeped. it’s very sweet and very aromatic (filled with berries!) and a pleasure to drink. i’m sad i only bought 50 grams. <3

Sipdown!

This tea was only ever just okay for me. I don’t think the wild rice came through for me at all; it was mostly blueberry-coconut-maple. Not bad but not as interesting as I had hoped.

(DavidsTea 2022: already recorded)

Had another cup of this, still not totally sure what I think of it. Definitely falls into the spectrum of enjoyment, but probably won’t be a favourite. I do like the mapley goodness, but I’m still trying to get a better sense of the contribution of the toasted rice here. Probably requires some more mindful drinking, which is something I’m very short on lately.

(DavidsTea 2022: 108)

Really interested to try this tea – roasted rice and maple? Yes! So I had to brew it up as soon as I could when I received it today.

Interestingly, the packet smells rather strongly alcoholic – almost like… kahlua?? That’s the best I can come up with, maybe it’s the vanilla? I’m not sure. It’s not offputting, just strong and noticeable, though doesn’t translate to the brewed tea.

Unfortunately, children got in the way and I didn’t get around to trying the tea until it was cool. I wasn’t wowed, but I’m also not really sure what I think of it, or whether I like it. It’s somewhat mapley, and pleasant enough, but I think the contribution of the rice was lost on me in that cup. Definitely need to try it again, maybe tomorrow?

Pot of tea!

I love the combination of rich black tea and cozy manoomin, aka wild rice. It’s toasty and comforting, but with enough body to not feel out of place as a breakfast tea. The maple seamlessly interlocks with the more aromatic notes of true-vanilla to create an overall profile that is decadent without being excessive or cloying. It’s really something special!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C3iZp5luyi0/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnylB5ylyw4

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 Holiday Episode – “Steep”

Once again, no spoilers for my three top teas of the year, but…

Well, this is probably cheating but I had a hell of a hard time only picking three teas this year, to this collab blend that I drank during the recording is absolutely my secret fourth favourite tea – I just couldn’t not call it out. It’s one of my favourite teas to drink when I just want something comforting, reliable in its flavor, just a little bit sweet, and very classic feeling. The roasted grain notes of the manoomin, hint of maple, slightly boozy aromatic vanilla, and body of the black tea are wonderfully balanced and I find it to be such such a unique blend.

Definitely a highlight of 2022 for me!

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.

The DT booth at the festival had several large carafes of tea that we were sampling. One was Cold 911 and the other was Manoomin Maple, so I definitely snuck a few samples of Manoomin Maple to sip on throughout the day while I shopped and hung out with people. I love this tea so much, and the warm toasty rice and hint of fruity maple is such a comforting hug of flavour. I can’t say enough how proud I am of this tea and collaboration, and it just makes my heart so happy to have gotten to share it with even more people yesterday!

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.

Confession… I have been putting this tasting note off.

I’ve been hesitant to do the tasting note for it not because I dislike the tea or don’t want to talk about it, but because I like the tea a lot and there’s simply just so much to say about it. Like, to the point where it’s intimidating. Where do I start!?

I guess the best place to start is maybe the beginning? That takes us back over a year ago to what was, for all intents and purposes, just a normal work day except for this small “what if” moment that was sparked while just eating lunch. What if we could make a tea blend that used an indigenous ingredient, in partnership with an indigenous tea company, to benefit indigenous people. It was a big what if and it would rely on A LOT of different things to all line up perfectly. We would need the support of multiple departments and we would to find an indigenous owned tea company to partner with. However, if we were going to do this thing right then it couldn’t just be our tea. It would need to be their tea too – that part was crucial. Since DT has never before worked with another tea company to create something cobranded, it was also a big ask…

But it pays to dream big sometimes, and in this case everything lined up perfectly. Once we had decided as a team that we were all hands in to make the dream of a full circle Indigenous Tea blend happen, everything just started coming together so quickly! We were so, so very fortunate to connect with Denise and Marc of Tea Horse and, after doing so, really spend the time to learn about the wild rice (Manoomin) that they work with. I cannot express enough how absolutely and completely generous they were with their time and their knowledge. They were involved in the development of this tea from the very, very beginning. We actually brainstormed several different flavour directions that we could incorporate the Manoomin into and there were quite a few different rounds of tasting before we really narrowed in on this specific flavour profile, and then even more rounds of tasting after that while we perfected the blend.

I’ll share a small little R&D secret here… This tea actually started off as a Wild Rice Pudding concept, which then morphed into the maple and vanilla leaning creamy blend we landed on! Our final blend ended up being on a black tea base, and incorporates Manoomin but also Canadian maple sugar and different berries from across North America along with some coconut and an aromatic vanilla flavouring. We tried herbal versions, but it was important to Tea Horse to incorporate Camellia Sinensis. I’m gonna paraphrase here, but essentially they explained that part of their own brand is a celebration of different cultures coming together. Even their own company name, Tea Horse, is an homage to – yes – the Tea Horse Road but also First Nations heritage and culture. I just think that’s so beautiful!

So maybe this is the part where I talk about what this tea actually tastes like. For starters, most people probably don’t know what Manoomin tastes like. First things first, this hand harvested wild rice is actually a grain. Yeah, someone definitely messed up when naming it in English back in the day. The flavour of the roasted manoomin that Tea Horse works with is honestly just super cozy with a lot of toasty, nutty flavours. I would describe it as very, very close to a light to medium roast Hojicha or something like Soba Cha/Mugicha. It works really well with the body and malt of the black tea, and of course that roasty coziness is a perfect compliment to a subtle addition of maple sugar (which has a hint of red fruit undertones to it) and the creamy vanilla. It’s not a super sweet/cloying tea at all and I think if I had to make a comparison to any other tea blend that DT has carried it might be something like a cross between a Genmaicha and Vanilla Orchid. The berries don’t really add much to the flavour at all, and truthfully are a little bit more for visual – though they do contribute some natural sweetness.

I love this tea hot and it’s something I can drink a ton of in one go without feeling bogged down – and on a super personal note, my favourite teas tend to be the ones that are low maintenance with their steeping that fit a ton of different moods/situations and I feel like that describes this tea really perfectly. I also know that with the DT store teams this has been a really popular tea for use in iced lattes. Now, I’ve had this with milk and I do think that’s a lovely addition. I have not yet personally tried it iced though, so for now I just have to trust the store recommendation…

This tasting note kind of feels like a novel at this point, but I just love this tea so much and it was just a long but insanely rewarding and fulfilling journey to get here! I’m so, so proud of this tea that we were able to create with Marc and Denise and I feel like it captures their hard work and spirit as much (if not more so, honestly) as it does the work that we put into it. I couldn’t have possibly asked for better people to work on this blend alongside!

If you want to check out Tea Horse, you can find their store here: https://www.teahorse.ca/about-us/

If you want to learn more about Manoomin – including the most INCREDIBLE description of the harvesting process – you can listen to the podcast that DT did with them. It is seriously well worth an hour of your time!

https://www.davidstea.com/ca_en/explore/about/steeping-together-podcast/season-2—-episode-5/

And because I haven’t mentioned it yet, if you do decide that you want to buy this tea then 10% of the proceeds will go directly to the David Suzuki institute for use in their Reconciling Ways of Knowing program, supporting Indigenous communities.

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CcoRisTOuEX/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh5XSgozfTA&ab_channel=TwinFlamesMusic

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.