DAVIDsTEA

Day 1 Davids Tea Advent Calendar
It’s been a while since I have had any Davids blends in the house. They closed the shops near me and I’ve not ordered from them in the last year. I am so excited about this start to Advent. This is my second tasting of this (the first was on Dec 1). I absolutely would purchase this again. It is very much like the cranberry ginger ale of my childhood memories.

This is a decadent tea; the caramel note is very spot-on, and I love the noticable hint of saltiness in the aftertaste. It has a very buttery and creamy taste and mouthfeel, and leaves a strong coating sensation. It’s also very sweet. I’m sure a latte would make this even richer and creamier, but honestly, it doesn’t need it. Dessert in a cup. Should I feel guilty I’ve been having this for breakfast recently?

Oh…. this is a matcha made with the caramel lovers in mind! I received it as a sample from a new acquaintance and I just made a cup. It’s so good but caution: it’s already sweetened from the box so gauge added sugar or sweetener accordingly. I hate that it’s discontinued because this is a great starter matcha imo.

Day 2 of Around the World Advent Calendar 2023 features this tea.

Notes from box: Sip this creamy black tea and imagine a Parisian stroll alongside romantic tea shops with the smell of fresh rose petals in the air.

My notes: My first impression upon opening is that the rose petals are quite dry, curled and whitish like a poorly preserved corsage from 1992…that is to say, not at all as vibrant as pictured on the box. The tea brews a thin caramel liquid that, in my opinion, does not stand up to cream, so I drank it unadulterated. In the mouth, there is a balanced mix of butter and rose. I enjoyed my first few sips, but quickly found that the cream flavoring is decidedly unnatural and not to my liking. (I wish this tea maker had experimented with using nuts or small bits of confectionery to achieve the creaminess instead.) The smell became somewhat medicinal and soapy due to the flavoring. I did not finish my cup.

Day 1 of Around the World Advent Calendar 2023 features this tea.

Notes from box: Breathe in the high altitude of Nepalese mountains with this white tea’s crisp and light floral aroma grown in the Shangri-La Tea Estate.

My notes: Very mildly buttery in the mouth with hints of dry grass upon swallowing. Light wildflower and meadow grass aroma with very little floral on the palate. Very subtle, like a light bamboo-fiber cardigan that goes with everything in your closet. Would be good with many types of food. Enjoyable but not memorable.

Homemade Advent Calendar from Arby: Day 1

IT’S ADVENT SEASONNN! My life is severely overbooked and the obligation to drink + review too many teas will stress me out, so I’m keeping it conservative this year: I did the Steepster homemade calendar swap and got the 52Teas 12 Days of Christmas box. (Aaand then I was #teafluenced by CameronB to pick up the adorable Tea Thoughts stationery advent, so that will be arriving soon.) But I love reading advent reviews and seeing what everyone’s up to, so I’m excited!

Anyway, day 1! Arby’s teas aren’t numbered, so I decided to pick randomly. (Although I did let myself choose a second blend when the first pick was caffeine-free… morning tea requires caffeine!) So now I’m starting with this very seasonally appropriate green blend.

The taste is a bit weak compared to the citrusy sweet scent of the blend, but it’s not bad. I’m not really picking up fruitcake vibes — more like a creamy citrus? — but it’s pleasant enough. Interesting that the coconut doesn’t really come through in taste, though it does provide that sort of creamy backbone. Then there’s a slight zing from the cranberries, though I wouldn’t mind those being a bit stronger!

I love pineapple and coconut together, and thought this blend might make a lovely cold cup. Unfortunately, it smells and tastes awful to me. It’s the worst tea I’ve had in recent memory. I can’t give it another go or try different things with it, I can’t even open the packet again. Just posting this so I don’t accidentally try it again, because I will almost certainly forget about the reaction I had.

Just a quickie review for this new matcha that launched as a store exclusive a few weeks ago! Basically, this is Blueberry Matcha but with a generous addition of butterfly pea flower to give it a lovely teal blue sort of colouration. Delicious iced or, in my opinion, even more so as an iced latte.

Truly, though, it’s the same flavour as blueberry matcha. Basically we took the interest/feedback from Blue Magic Matcha that the colour was great but the mixed berry and ginger flavour wasn’t exactly what people wanted and then created this tea. Same cool colour, simplified direction.

(…and, if you’re sad it’s store exclusive, I would just recommend keeping an eye out on the website in the next few months…)

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 been working through my package of this for the last couple of months, and really enjoy it in the evenings. I have a lot of GI issues and rather than just avoid the foods I know cause me issues, I’ve been chasing those meals with this tea to help soothe the tummy instead, heh.

I’m a big fan of Greek Mountain Tea, though I’ve only had it straight and not in a blend. When I had it before, it was big, fluffy flowers rather than sifted like in this blend, and the flavor I got was really fruity, a sort of floral honey and apple with a bit of citrus, hay, and mint in the background. I’m not getting any of those notes in this blend, aside from citrus and mint, but considering the amount of peppermint and lemon myrtle in this blend, I suppose that makes sense. It’s really minty but lacks that strong menthol aftertaste of most mint teas… instead it leans closer to tulsi in flavor, in that the mint is a little peppery and citrusy and some pleasant basil notes.

I prefer the flavor of Greek Mountain Tea more on its own, but I also like the extra flavor notes in this minty tea that would be lacking from drinking plain peppermint. It’s nice, and it really is great against nighttime acid reflux.

First review on this site! I received this tea in a gift with a number of other David’s Tea samples. It’s not my favourite, but was enjoyable. Has some nice fruity tastes, but also a decent amount of almond comes through. I normally drink my tea black though, and did find I needed a little something to sweeten it up/

I’ve been really enjoying this! Nice, roasty hojicha with those cozy woody and nutty notes, with a nice caramel sweetness. The caramel is really popping for me, leaning almost into a maple flavor with the fruitiness of the apple. This will be missed when I finish off the bag. Shame flavored hojicha blends are so uncommon, I haven’t had many but seem to really like the ones I have stumbled upon.

I’ve been sipping through a pouch of this has my morning tea for a bit. I see some of the reviews say it’s “all Pumpkin Spice, no Earl Grey” but my batch (or maybe just my tastebuds) are having the complete opposite. The bergamot is coming off very strongly for me, and I don’t taste any of the desserty pumpkin pie/cream/vanilla flavoring that is apparently in this. The only other note I’m picking up on aside from the strong bergamot is the cardamom; I suspect the slight citrusy notes of cardamom are being amplified by the citrusy bergamot, but the other spices, like the pumpkin flavoring, are drowned out in my cup. So what I’m left with isn’t Pumpkin Earl Grey, or even Pumpkin Spice Earl Grey, but rather Cardamom Earl Grey.

I will say I do like the flavor combo of the cardamom and bergamot and think I would really like a Chai Earl Grey if the flavor balance was more even between the berg’ and the spices. But when something has “pumpkin” in the title and I get none of that, I still feel a bit disappointed.

TTB tea! I enjoyed this more than I expected! It tastes nutty, and the chocolate is less artificial than usual for DavidsTea. With soy milk and sweetener, this was a pretty nice desserty tea. I especially enjoy the nutty flavor! The resteep was nice too.

TTB tea! This ended up a bit murky and herbaceous for me. The herbs combined to taste too savory. Maybe a shorter steep would be better, but I didn’t love it. I wish there had been more chamomile and smaller amounts of other ingredients.

This tea has willow bark in it, which according to WebMD (and many other sources) contains the chemical Salicin. Salicin is similar to aspirin. That being said, it really has no flavor except mint. It has nana mint in it, which apparently has medicinal properties too. I really just can’t get into this tea because of its lack of flavor and aroma! It also leaves an odd taste or sensation on my tongue; could it be the Salicin? I’m generally not sensitive to aspirin, but then, I also don’t take very much. AT LEAST IT DOESN’T HAVE STEVIA IN IT! Wouldn’t drink this again.

I bought this about 2 years ago and stopped using it. I just made a cup. There is something in the flavor and aroma that I strongly dislike; it could be the green rooibos or it could be the licorice root. I try to avoid licorice root as chronic use can cause glycyrrhizin to accumulate in the body, according to some sources, and can cause elevated blood pressure and elevated cortisol levels. I’m not a medical researcher so I have no idea if that is true or not, but just disliking it is enough to toss it. I am now careful to not buy ANY tea with licorice root, because, that’s really a cop out in making the tea sweeter instead of using other more expensive ingredients to increase the flavor.

I bought this tea a couple of years ago; I drank some, then stopped. I am going through my teas right now and ejecting those I really didn’t care for to make room for more. o give each tea a fair shot, I make 1-2 cups. I just made this one and it’s sitting next to me. There is an ingredient that I can smell that is making me nauseous, and I really wish I knew what it was so I didn’t ever buy it again. It says it is organic but has natural lemon flavoring. I will assume that what is bothering me is one of the herbs OR the green rooibos. At any rate, out it goes. Ugghh.

Another store exclusive holiday blend that released earlier in the month!

I’ve had the idea for this blend rolling around in my head since even before I worked at DAVIDsTEA, so when I got promoted to a more active role in R&D doing blend conception this was one of the very first concepts I started to work on. Basically, the idea was that this would be a cookies & cream flavoured tea inspired by the idea of leaving milk and cookies for Santa! Eventually I slightly expanded that to be a marriage of sorts between a “cookies and cream” tea and a “praline cookie” tea. So, sweet and nutty with lots of chocolate and cream.

As y’all know I personally adore hojicha so it’s always nice to get to marry my love of this base with a new development project – and the pun in the name was too good to resist. However, my bias aside, I do think this was a really complimentary base for this profile. The hojicha provides a body that I think was needed for this very rich and decadent dessert-y blend, and its natural nuttiness and toasty profile works with the praline sort of vibe of the blend.

Ultimately, though, I still think of this as a cookies and cream forward blend. White chocolate and milk chocolate come through the profile along with a sort of vanilla-ish frosting note. I love the mix of red and white sprinkles because they feel like the perfect marriage of the cookie profile with the iconic imagery of a plate of cookies next to a Christmas tea – decked out in festive sprinkles and probably a little shoddily decorated because a small child was the one to frost them.

Definitely a rich tea, but I think that works for the inspiration. It’s solid on its own, but obviously the whole milk and cookies vibe is practically begging for either just an additional splash of milk (or alternative) or to be made into an indulgent latte. I can just picture grabbing a cup of this in store to drink while doing my Christmas shopping. It’s a whole mood.

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 20

Cold Brew!

This was a a new store exclusive holiday tea last year, and this year it’s exclusive to the advent. Maybe next year it will finally be released in all channels? I can dream, anyway. It actually became one of my “go to” midafternoon iced teas at the office all throughout this past year since we had it on the kitchen tea wall – I very much enjoy this blend made iced or cold brewed…

I’ve been watching a lot of Christmas movies the last couple of days, and it’s been very nice having teas to go along with each of them. Today was my yearly rewatch of Oliver The Other Reindeer, my favourite hidden gem. I say it every year, but the whole thing is available for free on YouTube, and it takes less than an hour to watch it. SO GOOD. I notice something new about it each year, and with the postal strike this holiday season, there was a whole new layer at play. Paired great with my cold brew of DT’s Sparkling Cranberry as well – a bright and playful blend of strawberry, cranberry, and a slightly more ‘adult’ note of prosecco. It fit the tone of the movie really well.

Today’s Avent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DD0PAQWSm53/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ATuB9Oe4fw&ab_channel=OKCharlie-Topic

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.

An afternoon cuppa from a few days ago. Really was just looking for something bright and fruity, and the sweet and slightly tart notes of cranberry mixed with strawberry really fit that very well. The prosecco undertones just add an effervescence to this blend, and the overall cup was just really juicy and cheerful feeling.

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.