DAVIDsTEA

I tried this early this morning after a mini, anxiety-inducing power outage at 4 am. As soon as the power returned at 745, I turned on the kettle and grabbed this sachet because I needed something sweet and indulgent.

It is nice, a bit of strawberry and a hint of cocoa… I liked it. Would I buy it again? Probably not but I am glad I tried it.

I really like this one, I wasn’t sure I would because of my love hate relationship with spiced teas like Hot Cinnamon Spice by Harney and Sons. This however is a nice slightly orangey spiced light oolong. I loved the cardamom too. I already can’t sleep do I’m drinking tea till I drop.

Grabbed a sample of this from a previous TTB. It’s decently rich and hearty. I had it sweetened with milk, and it was pretty satisfying, though not as nice as some other versions.

This matcha is delicious! It genuinely tastes like sugar cookies. I don’t know how they do it! I prepared this with cold milk and fake sugar, as always, and I feel like that preparation complemented the flavor profile a lot. I only had the advent sample of this, but I will definitely buy a bigger bag. This is exactly my sort of thing.

I ordered this when it was on special in order to bring up my total so I could get free shipping. I found the brilliant pink package a little offputting, and when I opened it I wasn’t too excited about the aroma, either. However, I’m happy to say that it tastes just great! Not too sweet, not too much hibiscus, just a nice tart berry flavour.

Steep:
8 tsp
2 qt
takeya flash chill iced tea maker

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: chemical, sweet strawberry pineapple
Steeped Tea Smell: peach, strawberry
Flavor: tart, hibiscus, lemon, peach
Aftertaste: stevia
Liquor:translucent red / pink

a good iced tea

Rating: 3/4 leaves

Steep:
6 bags
2 qt
takeya flash chill iced tea maker

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: lemon cleaning product
Steeped Tea Smell: lemon, like the powdered instant lemon iced tea
Flavor: real lemon, weak on the black tea
Body: Medium
Liquor: cloudy light orange brown

Comments: next time more teabags

Rating: 2/4 leaves

This combination isn’t really working for me. Perhaps it’s the ginseng? The blend just has its own herbal sweetness that I don’t like. I wish it were balanced differently because these spices just end up pretty herbal and boring. It’s not a hearty, spicy chai.

Hi everyone! It’s been a while, I know. School was really crazy last semester and I didn’t have much time for tea. Right now I’m indulging in some swapped teas and such lately because I’m procrastinating with sipdowns.

I’m so excited about this tea, I always saw it online and I never grabbed it because I was worried it was too similar to pumpkin chai which isn’t my favorite. However, I tried this blend this morning and I am very happy o say that’s not at all what it tastes like. It tastes like a slightly spiced creme brulee which is super nice in this rainy weather in NY today. I definitely will be grabbing more when it comes back around this winter!

I would describe this as being more glimmery than glittery, but it was fun nonetheless. I had this with almond milk, which was quite complementary to the flavor profile. The flavor was mild, but a little creamy and nice. It was desserty, and I’ll admit I was more wowed by the glitter than I expected. I’m not sure it’s great enough to buy it again, but now I sort of wish more of my matchas sparkled.

I unfortunately find this one to be lacking flavor. The color is beautiful, but the flavor is quite light. When I overleaf, there’s more flavor, but it’s still mostly empty. I get some fruitiness and starchiness, but not one particular fruit.

Just noting that this was a sipdown yesterday, just in time for me to be able to make my own tea again. Will have to restock caffeinated DavidsTea teabags with my next order!

So apparently the last time I wrote a note for this tea was ALSO celebrating the dashboard being back! This is practically a tradition now!

I’m in that halfway place now where I’m healing and somewhat mobile, but still should stay off my ankle so it can fully heal. Which I’m trying to be ok with – as much as I am eager to be able to do things for myself and around the home, I’m trying to be ok with not always being able to. So in that spirit, I’m still having my partner make most of my tea. DavidsTea’s salted caramel oolong has been in heavy rotation because it’s one of the few teabags we have at all and specifically one of the few that isn’t made with plastic, so there’s no need to fuss with tearing it open and putting it in a metal strainer. This is a solid sweater-weather tea: sweet, cozy, caffeinated but not in a keep-you-up-all-night way. Juuuust on the edge of possibly too sweet, but not quite there; it straddles that line very well.

Yay, the dashboard is back! Huzzah and hurray!

Have I really never written a tasting note for this tea before? I liked it so much that I bought an extra box of sachets before even finishing the first one.

I find myself really longing for comfort teas at the moment, so I pulled this one today and hoped for the best. Somehow I got a bit of maple syrup smell off it, but I think that was my brain forgetting what caramel is supposed to smell like. It did taste like caramel. This hit the spot for cozy and familiar and I was happy to have it.

Another sipdown and counting this as a limited edition or seasonal tea for ashmanra’s sipdown challenge. My sense of smell wasn’t doing too great on Friday, so I opted for teas that I already know I don’t super love. Even before covid messed with my smell, I remember finding myself struggling to enjoy this one. I got a watermelon blend from 52teas around the same time and found that to be juicier and more on-point flavor-wise by comparison. I also remember that this is better iced, though, so I brewed this up and waited for it to cool. Weirdly, I think having a weakened sense of smell helped me pinpoint why I didn’t love this tea to begin with by making me more sensitive to the sensations it produced. It leaves a very strong menthol sensation in the mouth that lingers long after the sip, along with an overly thick and sweet watermelon flavor. The overall effect is both very candylike and skews too heavily mintward. However! The bottom-of-the-bag steeps are different – more of a proper watermelon juice flavor and not as heavy on the menthol. So maybe if I had mixed the bag up I would have enjoyed this more.

Sample from a TTB. I taste some cinnamon, but it’s a pretty average chai. It’s still enjoyable despite being nothing special. Ha this is a tea to share with guests since they’ll be getting a good cup of tea, but then I’m not giving away any of the good stuff. It’s hearty enough with some sugar and milk, really not a bad choice.

For most of this cup, this really didn’t taste like anything. I mix it with cold milk, so maybe that isn’t the best preparation. Or perhaps I should have used less milk (these advent samples seem to each do best with a slightly different amount of milk). During my last few sips, I was really searching for the flavor, and I tasted a bit of…something. Mild spices, I guess. It tastes pleasant, but it should be several times stronger. Maybe I get a bit of orange too, it’s just a bit frustrating to have to search for the flavor like this. I didn’t even taste the matcha.

Normally I would cold brew this tea since that’s what it’s designed for, but this time around I was feeling something hot and tropical and this was the first tea I came across while searching through my stash for something that fit the bill… So hot it was!

There’s nothing wrong with making DT’s cold brew teas hot, but I definitely forgot to account for the fact that these teas are meant to steep fast/strong in cold water so they steep even faster and stronger in hot water. So, wow. This was potent. Really, really intense dragonfruit to the point of being a little cloying and a bit perfume-y. I ultimately waited for the mug to cool down and that seemed to balance it a bit better. But, noted for next time – go lighter on the leaf and/or steep time if you’re gonna brew hot.

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.

Cold Brew!

Made this as a late night brew about a week ago. I really needed something cold to drink that wasn’t just water, and my usual daily cold brew was still going in the fridge/not ready to drink yet. It’s just so hard to beat the convenience of popping one of these sachets into a tumbler and waiting the ten minutes to have something flavourful and refreshing to drink. Sweet, juicy dragonfruit and strawberry in this case.

Peach Passionfruit is still my favourite cold brew flavour that DT has put out, but this is probably the runner up.

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.

Our most recent cold brew flavour!

This year we brought back the same three cold brews we offered last year with one new addition, this white tea based dragonfruit blend! Like all the other cold brews, it was specifically formulated to be made in room temperature or cold water and it steeps quite quickly. You can always leave it in your fridge overnight for a more potent flavour, but it produces a pretty solid cup even after just five or ten minutes of steeping.

This is our first ever white tea based cold brew, and I quite like it! White tea is so delicate already that making one into a cold brew format was trickier than most people would probably think – and then of course we took another delicate flavour, dragonfruit, and added that on top. Though I do feel like this is maybe the lightest tasting of the four cold brews I wouldn’t personally call it weak – I think the dragonfruit flavour is that very commercial ‘bordering on fruit punch’ type instead of the super weak taste of natural dragonfruit. Think, like, the Starbucks Dragonfruit Refresher. It’s dragonfruit, but like, “juiced up”. There’s also a hint of strawberry to this to just give it some added dimension and juiciness but it’s not as distinctly strawberry as, say, the Strawberry Kiwi cold brew.

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.

This not only tastes good, it has relaxing properties. I’ve almost fallen asleep while drinking it a couple of times!

Sipdown 40

Really sipping through my work stash of teas. This was fine. Milk oolong and jasmine, balanced pretty evenly. The milk flavor wasn’t my favorite- a bit too intense.

Aah, my last cup… Well, slapdash gongfu sesh of the remnants.

This’ a really nice Comfort Oolong. I definitely should get more. Also kinda makes me miss the Sticky Rice Oolong.