DAVIDsTEA

Cold Brew!

This time around I steeped up the sachet version instead of the loose leaf, and I doubled up on the sachets to make the flavour a bit more bold and punchy. It resulted in a bit less of a distinct kiwi note (though still present), but the strawberry was rich juicy perfection!

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 is the last of the three new cold brews from this summer!

I ended up not writing a tasting note for this one initially because it’s the only one of the three that I didn’t have in my own personal tea stash, so I wanted to wait until I could retaste it from our office – just to have the taste fresh in my mind.

I have to say that of the three cold brews this year, this is probably my least favourite. It’s not even because of the green tea, which might be most people’s first though knowing my history with green tea. The base doesn’t really come out much at all in this brew though, so my main thing is just that I love another one of the Spring/Summer teas so much more and that’s Strawberry Kiwi Capri. It’s not a cold brew, but it still launched as part of our seasonal assortment and there’s no denying that there’s definitely some flavour overlap…

Big differences, in my opinion, is that I find this cold brew a lot more intensely sweet and tart strawberry. There’s still kiwi in it, but it’s just a bolder tea overall in terms of flavour and I prefer less tartness personally. I think fans of blends like Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait might appreciate some of the snap to the top notes of this cold brew because there’s definitely some similarity in style – but it’s just not personally my preference.

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 enjoy plain rooibos sweetened cold, and this one does the job. I never bought any from DavidsTEA because I always gravitate toward more exciting flavors, but I’m happy to find some in a recent TTB. Actually, I like this one best with milk and sugar. The resteep is good too. It’s not the most amazing, clear rooibos ever, but it’s good enough.

(DavidsTea 2022: 119)

2022 Sipdown 134/365!

Drank a cup of this just to say I had, before giving the rest to a friend and her husband to enjoy. It actually wasn’t bad at all, and was one of the better coffee teas that I’ve had. Perhaps it didn’t contain chicory and some other flavourings that I find thoroughly not coffee-like? I think I may have actually been able to get through it with milk and sweetener, but it has found a better home.

(DavidsTea 2022: 118)

Definitely need to remember not to leave the leaves in the pitcher when icing this one! It gets too minty and I don’t like it. It’s not my favourite to begin with, but the melon and mint are better balanced with a shorter infusion (10 min, maybe).

I love this matcha it has a nice berry flavor that is not artificial. I love this matcha as an iced latte. It is also delicious mixed with lemonade and fresh strawberries. Nice creamy texture.

Sipdown!

A friend if mine reached out a few months ago to see if I can put together another tea box for her. Obviously I said yes! Work has been crazy and I finally had time today to get a package together for her. This tea box was a great way to get eyes on my collection to see which ones I could just drink/remove from my collection.

This tea is delicious, gives me a bit of a smoky taste and I love it. Bit of a darker amber color, mellow and smooth body.

Once I get my stash down, I’ll probs get more of this in the future.

Cold Brew!

Tossed two sachets of this into a large water bottle and gave it a real good shake every now and then over the course of 5-10 minutes. Result was a really nice pure lemon flavour with a hint of black tea. Refreshing, and flavourful enough to please without reminding me too much of an overly sweet and cloying RTD.

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!

Doubled up on the sachets for a fairly strong late night cold brew. Definitely that very classic (pun not intended) RTD style lemon flavour I’d expect from something like a Brisk or Nestea but marginally less sweet. More crisp, too. Almost tastes like it has real lemon in it, as if you were drinking a refreshing lemon water that might be served at a more upscale restaurant.

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!

It was a little tricky to sneak teas into the day during Adventageddon, but I actually ended up drinking this tea in particular quite a bit. I had it cold brewed in a Nordic Mug of ice cold water three nights in a row because it was fast and simple to make and the straight forward, sweet lemon flavour was scratching some type of craving that even I couldn’t totally put my finger on.

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!

This is another one of the new cold brew teas from this summer! Honestly, this is the kind of profile that I was surprised that DT hadn’t explored in this format before. I’m really happy with final taste we landed on though! It’s incredibly smooth for a black tea without any astringency or bitterness at all, but still with solid body from the black tea. The taste of the lemon is very classic and traditionanal “RTD style” lemon that you might get from something like a Pure Leaf or Brisk lemon tea, but I think with a little more clarity to the lemon notes. A little sweet and very simple and straight forward.

I know that won’t be for everyone, but I don’t think you can argue that when you think of the standard iced tea available on grocery store shelves that a lemon black tea is almost always what pops into your head first. Like, we called this one Classic Lemon for a reason. It’s a staple flavour that is enjoyed by a whole lot of people across North America; and when it’s good it’s really good.

To me the obvious question about this tea is how it compares to Southern Lemon, which is another newly released tea from DT is also just a lemon black tea. Aside from the fact this tea is specifically intended for cold brewing while Southern Lemon was not developed with that style of steeping in mind, I would say that Classic Lemon is definitely the sweeter of the two. There’s no sweetener at all in Southern Lemon but there is a VERY LIGHT amount of stevia in this blend. Additionally, this blend is very round and “polished” tasting while Southern Lemon does have some faint astringency/texture to the mouthfeel and more body from the black tea and the lemon notes in that blend are a bit more like a lemon oil with more aroma compounds. So, they have some distinctions, for sure!

Personally, I do like Southern Lemon more just because I don’t mind that it’s unsweet and I’m at a point where I usually prefer at least a little astringency in my teas. However, I think the mood I would be when I would pull out this tea versus Southern Lemon would probably be really different, and so I’ve actually got both in my cupboard right now so that I can have that option situationally.

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CeW8dVruGun/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuxdtgSd5qo&ab_channel=SUSTO-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.

Cold Brew!

I’m just currently finishing off a cold brew of this tea. Instead of using the sachets I dipped into my small reserve of the loose leaf version of this cold brew. I actually treated this the way I normally make my daily cold brew and I made it in my fridge in a 24 oz jar for a steep time of about eight hours (overnight).

So, y’know, since this is intended to be steeped in about ten minutes you can imagine how potent and intense a nine hour cold brew is! Very sweet, juicy, tart and tangy to a point where I actually thinned it out just a smidge. But the tropical punch type flavour is just popping off. I mean, it’s an EXPLOSION of passionfruit flavour with a nice peach candy finish.

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!

This was a very late night brew that I ended up steeping because I wanted something really quick and flavourful but super cold. I think my apartment building must have cranked the heat setting because even with my air conditioning going it was about 26C this evening which is kind of absurd for February. Especially when I usually try to keep my apartment hovering around 20C…

Anyway, this was good! More passionfruit than peach, in a very fun and Snapple-y kind of way. I love the sweet tang of this blend.

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/Tea Pop!

In the past I’ve tried cold brewing these sachets directly into sparkling water and had some success with that, but this time around I wanted a punchier tasting tea pop so I ended up taking a few perfect spoons of the loose leaf format of this cold brew and infusing them in a tiny amount of room temp water into a concentrate.

From there I topped up my mug with sparking water, and it worked pretty well! I do think I swung too hard though with how much tea I used in my concentrate because this was such a very intensely flavoured tea pop. It’s a shame, the amount of bubble was perfect. But I did find myself kind of puckering up at the strength of the tangy passionfruit notes with each steep.

Gotta find my middle ground for these cold brews…

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 tea is really meant to be made cold brewed, but I ended up drinking a hot cuppa a few nights ago because I was really craving this particular combination of sweet peach and juicy passionfruit notes and i couldn’t find another peach passionfruit blend in my stash to make instead. It’s definitely better cold, but it scratched the itch from that flavour craving well enough! Definitely peach forward, but still just enough passionfruit to nail the combo.

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!

I decided to do a “teas I drink in a day” post on IG today, but just with whatever ended up striking my mood throughout my average work afternoon. I saw this in the office kitchen and it seemed perfect. I steeped it up twice as strong (two sachets instead of one) and then topped it off with some ice to keep it extra cold and refreshing. It was delicious with lots of tangy, tropical and sweet notes of the titular peach and passionfruit. Like, if yellow/orange had a taste I feel like this would be pretty dang close to that kind of vibe.

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/Co5i-hJOlqS/ (4th Pic)

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

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!

So right before my LA trip DAVIDsTEA released this year’s cold brew collection! I wanted to wait to review them until I could retaste them, and then of course when we came back from LA I was sick (still kind of am) so I waited a little longer after that…

But here we are!

First big thing about this year’s Cold Brew collection is that the line up was completely differently formulated so that, instead of the 2 Hour steeping time of previous years, these cold brew teas will brew up very quickly and can be ready to drink using room temperature or cold water within ten minutes time. I am of mixed feelings on this because I personally think one of the best parts of cold brewing is being able to start something in your fridge in the morning before going to work or right before bed and then having the freedom to just forget about it for eight plus hours until you’re ready to strain and drink it. Like, the long form nature of cold brewing is a selling point to me.

On the flip side, the quicker steeping time was customer requested a lot and I don’t want to hold back on doing something that a lot of people are asking for just because I have a different personal opinion. Also I have spent a lot of the last year drinking cold brew formulations from other companies like T2, Twinings, and Fortnum & Mason and I would completely be lying if I said that a part of me hadn’t at least partially fallen in love with the “quick cold brew” method of steeping as well. I don’t really make the 5-10 minute steeping cold brews a lot on a regular basis as part of my normal tea drinking, but I do use them a lot for travel when hot water might not consistently be available or when I’m sick and don’t have time/energy to wait eight hours before getting that refreshing cold cup of tea…

So, I see it now WAY more than I did even just six months ago.

But onto the taste of this cold brew! Honestly, it’s my favourite of the three of them. I didn’t want to develop just another straight peach tea because DT already has a lot of those for people who like that flavour, and we’ve even done the simple peach profile in the past with Southern Peach in the old cold brew formulation. So I thought a nice way to twist it would be the addition of passionfruit! It adds a great kind of tangy acidity to the ripe peach notes, and a lot more initial brightness/lively character to those top notes. It’s super juicy and I think a great balance of sweet and tangy. The tropical edge isn’t too strong, and the two flavours just play off each other really well. Sometimes it reminds me a little bit of Five Alive or some of the other peachy tropical fruit juices of my childhood, and I like that softer nosltalgic summer vacation sort of throwback feeling as well.

There are quite a few of DT’s older cold brew formulations that I like a lot. Berry Burst and Aloha Colada immediately Spring to mind for me. However, this is the first one that I’ve actually been a part of the development for – and I know that makes me biased, but I do think this one gives those two a little bit of competition. At least in terms of my own preferences, anyway!

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.

Tea:
DAVIDsTEA Company Loose Leaf Green Tea ‘japanese sencha tea organic’

Steep:
175°F
2 min
kati loose tea system 12oz

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: floral not vegetal
Steeped Tea Smell: more floral than vegetal
Flavor: floral, vegetal, soapy
Aftertaste:
Liquor: translucent yellow brown orange

Rating: 2/4 leaves

Leaf system:
1=Bleh! not again if it were free
2=Acceptable, if it were free or there were limited other tea options
3=I might purchase this tea from time to time, or select it while out
4=A staple in our cupboard from now on, I will purchase and keep purchasing

YouTube Review https://youtu.be/eQCL55Kv6dQ

TikTok Review https://www.tiktok.com/@circuitswan/video/7099966885520739626

Blog Post https://amazonv.blogspot.com/2022/06/davidstea-company-loose-leaf-green-tea.html

Statement of Sponsorship or Advertisement:
I purchased this product.

Disclaimer:
All my reviews are as unbiased as possible, whether I buy or receive free product. I accept no other compensation other than free product.

Steep:
212°F
3 min
kati loose tea system 12oz

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: coffee and spice?
Steeped Tea Smell: coffee, sweet
Flavor: cinnamon, apple, coffee, black tea toasty
Aftertaste: apple, astringent
Liquor: translucent dark orange brown

Post-Steep Additives: milk
Comments: better, but still meh

Rating: 2/4 leaves

Leaf system:
1=Bleh! not again if it were free
2=Acceptable, if it were free or there were limited other tea options
3=I might purchase this tea from time to time, or select it while out
4=A staple in our cupboard from now on, I will purchase and keep purchasing

YouTube Review https://youtu.be/7PEjHJaZPCA

TikTok Review https://www.tiktok.com/@circuitswan/video/7105260600057417002

Blog Post https://amazonv.blogspot.com/2022/06/davidstea-company-loose-leaf-black-tea.html

Statement of Sponsorship or Advertisement:
I purchased this product.

Disclaimer:
All my reviews are as unbiased as possible, whether I buy or receive free product. I accept no other compensation other than free product.

Sipdown!

Made the last of it into iced tea. Never really got anything particularly kiwi-y from it, just kind of a mild lemonade. It was okay, but nothing special.