DAVIDsTEA

Sipdown!

I cold-brewed the rest of this and it seems like it’s lost the candy like quality I was enjoying in the hot tea. Now it tastes much more like mango, and I’m actually tasting what I think is the passionfruit. It also has a lingering sweet taste that I can’t quite place, perhaps the blackberry leaf? I’m not too familiar with that flavor. Overall, not bad but I prefered it hot

Accidentally let this one get cold. All I can think of while drinking it are those gummy peach rings! It tastes so much like them to me. It’s a very sweet, candy-like fruity tea. I know those aren’t for everyone but I’m liking this tea!

(DavidsTea 2022: 105)
2022 Sipdown 111/365!

Mastress Alita’s Sipdown Challenge April 2022: Tea paired to the weather

This is actually the last of a packet of this tea that Roswell Strange sent me, and I believe I enjoyed that more than the packets I later purchased. However, I find Country Lemonade to be a bit pithy and bitter, with a hit of stevia that I don’t really care for. Consequently, I sweetened an iced pitcher of this and fed it to my husband, who thought it was “fine”. I prefer blends like La La Lemon, which made a really nice Nestea taste-alike!

ETA: Whoops, forgot to mention why I chose this for the weather prompt. Well, it’s because I brewed this up on the most beautiful summery April Sunday! Mid-high 20s (celsisus), and it was lovely.

Cold Brew Sipdown (2638)!

A bit of a bittersweet sipdown as I feel this was a little bit of an underrated tea release from during the pandemic and I’m almost certain we’re totally out of it at the office now, so I’ll probably never get to have it again…

I really love how balanced everything is. You’d expect a hibiscus lemonade could potentially be incredibly tart and sour or really syrupy and sweet, but this blend was bright and fresh tasting without being very heavy or intense feeling. Just clean citrusy lemon balanced by a bit of naturally sweet and berry-like hibiscus with an almost earthy undertone from the beets. Maybe a hint of papaya, too. Really summery and round feeling on the palate despite those zestier elements.

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.

Last Summer tea tasting note! This is not really a case of saving either the best or the worst for last, at least as far as my own preferences ago. I just wanted to drink it again before writing the tasting note so that it was more in my recent memory…

I would probably rank this blend somewhere in the middle out of all the new teas, as far as my own preferences ago. I think it’s pretty classic and pretty straight forward tasting without a lot of other frills – just a solid combination of lively flavour that treads the line of tart and sweet really well. Lots of hibiscus and lots of lemon, and I wouldn’t really expect otherwise. It’s on a green tea base which doesn’t really matter a whole lot aside from the caffeine and body that it adds, but occasionally you get a little hint of grassy green flavour in the finish as the hibiscus and lemon subside and the use of green tea over other types, like black, does help keep the flavour direction more bright and refreshing.

I think the most interesting thing about this tea is the inclusion of beet and, like, a not inconsequential amount of it. It does a couple things but probably the most immediately noticeable is that is adds a beautiful colour to the dry leaf of the tea and also deeps the dark red hue of the tea once steeped. Aside from that, there’s a hint of earthiness which I personally feel adds to the much more natural leaning taste of this blend. However, beet is also naturally sweet as well so it’s kind of a nice way to add a different dimension of clean sweetness to the cup.

Overall, it’s a nice blend hot but I think iced (and maybe in a pitcher) is sort of the best way to enjoy this tea. It’s really refreshing and despite having a strong taste it doesn’t feel as heavy and syrupy as a lot of the other hibiscus dominant teas that we carry.

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!

Wasn’t sure what this would be like cold, but I’m enjoying it a pretty solid amount. It is a very sweet cold brew and I would say the predominant notes are candied pistachios but it does have that macaron kind of baked nuttiness and melt in your mouth sweetness along with notes of rose, grenadine, and white chocolate too. Tastes a little more like eating a bunch of different flavoured macarons right after one another than just having a pistachio macaron.

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.

Ignoring straight teas and tisanes for a moment…

When I think of tea blends they usually (broadly speaking) fall into one of two different big buckets. The first is flavour recreations – AKA teas that are supposed to taste like or make you think of real life foods or drinks. These are the Strawberry Lemonades or Blueberry Jams of the tea world. The others are more ethereal. Sure, they might have flavour callouts but usually they’re more about conveying an idea or a feeling or the taste is a mix of flavours that compliment but aren’t generally a recognized or called out pairing. Pretty much every single tea from August Uncommon is an excellent example of this, but without DT specifically I would say things like Buddha’s Blend or Sleigh Ride would be solid examples…

I’m getting into that because I think it’s a really important distinction for this tea in particular which, naming wise, would appear to be more of that first bucket. Transparently, I like this tea but I do not like the name of it because I think it sets up people with an expectation for what this should taste like that might not actually be met – and that is, of course, a shame. There were a ton of other names we considered and I definitely preferred a handful of them to what was landed on. I’m not gonna get into, like, the minutia of why this one was picked though. Both for confidentiality reasons but also ’cause, like, naming a tea is HARD. Much, much harder than people would assume, and there are sooooo many factors that go into it…

So with that said, what does this tea taste like!? To start, I think it does taste like pistachio and it does have the kind of sweet pastry notes of a macaron. It’s just also, like, a lot more than that. The pistachio in particular is sweeter and reminds me more of candied pistachios that a salted/roasted or raw one, and it’s not creamy like Pistachio Ice Cream either. It reminds me a lot of Dammann Frere’s Cardadet Fraise Pistache herbal blend, which is my favourite fruit based tea they carry…

So what do I mean when I say this is more than just pistachio/pastry? Well, anyone who’s read the ingredient list will be able to clearly see there’s a lot going on with this tea. It’s also got hints of sweet floral rose, tart cranberry and other red berry jams, and an undertone of maple. Just this smash cut of fruity, nutty, and other decadent flavours.

So, going back to my original paragraph about the difference between flavour recreations and more ethereal tea blends… What does this tea taste like?

Well, it’s kind of the whole Parisian macaron shop rolled up into one. It’s walking in to the bakery at ten in the morning on a Saturday and being hit with the sweet intertwined aromas of the rows of fresh pastries in a literal rainbow of colours and flavours. It’s walking the streets of Paris and feeling the fresh air on your face as you nibble on that first macaron because it’s a beautiful day and why should you wait to enjoy something sweet and delicious on a perfect morning like this? And it’s the abstract feeling of dreaming about the same macarons days, weeks, months later and somehow both tasting the memory of each flavour individually and simultaneously all at once.

But that’s a lot to convey in a tea name.

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.

(DavidsTea 2022: 104)

I think this is my favourite of the new bunch of teas (and the last one I tried). I often describe guava as a strawberry-banana flavour, and this tea is absolutely bang on, plus a bit of extra tang. Interestingly (and I only just realized this now while reading the ingredients), this blend is one of the only ones without an artificial sweetener in the mix. It’s naturally a bit sweet just from the fruit included, and I’m really glad that sweetener wasn’t added, as it wasn’t needed.

Regretting my last-year purchase of multiple pouches of Guava Cadabra, because I like this one WAY more.

I wouldnt say this tastes like Cardamom French toast. Not even much if a cardamom flavor although I do see the cardamom, its closed up and wont impart much flavor. I live for french toast though, its my breakfast fave, this is just a nicely spiced tea, yummy as a latte. Didn’t like it with put the frothed milk and sweetener. I like it though

I’ve barely drank this tea since it first launched two years ago, so I figured I’d make a cup and revisit it. It’s not that I was negatively remembering the taste of the blend, but it was definitely much nicer than I’d expected. Very distinct notes of toasted coconut alongside the flavor of cozy popped brown rice. Also a bit creamy from the white chocolate, and with a subtle citrusy top note from the lemongrass.

The lemongrass stuck out just a little bit as being out of place, but the toasted rice and coconut combo is a winner for sure!

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.

Last new one for today – almost caught up on the Summer teas now!

This is probably the closest that DT has done yet to doing a twisted Genmaicha. Over the process of working on this tea we just found that Genmaicha as the tea base added the perfect amount of body to the blend while still having a light enough overall feeling that it supported the original vision/idea of creating a very whipped, creamy coconut meringue or coconut marshmallow type of profile. Plus, it was an added bonus that the slight toasty flavour from the rice gave a fun nod to the flavour of toasted coconut without actually having to use toasted coconut in the tea…

So, knowing all of that it should make sense that the overall flavour of this tea is definitely a sweeter leaning creamy coconut with a mix of white chocolate and marshmallow type of notes. Not something heavy and intense like some of the other marshmallow sort of blends we had last year like Toasted Marshmallow or Unicorn Dream because even though gooey marshmallow can be delicious so can fluffy marshmallows and the gentle sweetness of coconut. You don’t taste the green tea a whole lot because it is really more just for a bit of body, but the rice is there in the undertones as is a hint of lemon from the lemongrass.

Personally, the lemongrass is my least favourite part of the blend because I would much rather a super sweet and decadent profile but I have a terrible sweet tooth and I do think that little hint of something bright does help keep this from being too cloying and it adds a little dimension which helps that creamy coconut stand out a little more. Just good balance, ’an all…

I think here on Steepster we all probably know the infamous flavoured Genmaicha blends from 52Teas – they’re always so fun and I’m such a fan of the different flavours that Anne comes up with. It’s always a little weird having worked on something that ends up feeling sort of similar to something another tea company I love carries or has carried – but the R&D process is very rarely linear and what you start with can be just so wildly different by the end. So I hope that any similarities will be seen as my compliments to the incredible impression that Anne’s innovation with Genmaicha has made on 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.

Cold Brew Sipdown (2631)!

Finished off this tea over the weekend! It was really weird because I could have sworn it tasted a bit like coconut, but there’s no coconut or coconut flavouring in the blend. Aside from that unexpected note it was dark and juicy with rich notes of guava jam, tart and tangy hibiscus, and cooked down strawberries. Fruity, but indulgent as much as it was bright.

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.

Iced Tea!

This is one of those teas that launched sort of in the heart of the pandemic. A lot of those teas feel like they were just sort of quickly moved on from and forgotten by most people. It was just a weird time. Honestly, it’s not a bad tea though. Dark, dark juicy strawberries and thick, concentrated guava. Tart, but ultimately very jammy and heavy for an iced tea. Probably one of my lesser favourite of DT’s guavua blends since I tend to like the more bright and overtly tropical flavours of guava.

Still, it stands out in my mind as a more unique take on a tropical blend since I rarely think of tropical flavours as so heavy or cooked down.

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.

Another new Summer blend!

Of all the new Summer releases, this one probably falls somewhere right in the middle for me in terms of my own personal preference. I think to describe it succinctly I would say that it’s somewhere in the ballpark of if Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait and Guava Cadabra (too very thick, juicy and tart fruit blends) had a lovechild. It’s an intense, strong fruity flavour that’s really going to work for anyone who’s a fan of those teas or that style of blend. Think Frozen Raspberry, Hibiscus Splash, or maybe even Just Beet It type of vibes.

We say this thing in the lab all the time though, and it’s that tropical flavours tend to taste either “yellow” or taste “orange”. It’s one of those synesthesia kind of things that’s a bit hard to describe if you just don’t inherently get it. So, one thing I do find really refreshing and different about this tea is that even though it does have strawberry/berry flavour fairly prominently it’s also a tropical tea that doesn’t taste yellow or orange. So it’s nice that it can stick out in that small kind of way.

Personally, I find the hibiscus/tartness a bit much when this is steeped hot so I do recommend it more as an iced or cold brewed tea. But that’s just my own personal preference when it comes to steeping this tea.

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.

Steeped this one up on Thursday! I love the simple, brisk black tea base with that hint of lemon. I definitely feel like this tea delivers on what it’s trying to be: a no frills, straight forward and classic black tea with a light addition of flavour. Though it gives me Southern Sweet Tea vibes (minus all the sugar), I actually much prefer it as a hot cuppa.

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 currently drinking this while I wrap up tasting notes for the night. It’s probably too late at night for a black tea, but I’m too thick into it now to go back on that choice. As a cold brew I find this mostly tastes like very brisk, refreshing straight black tea with hints of malt and florals – definitely reads like Ceylon black tea in its full body but clean neutral taste. There’s a hint of lemon, and I think it only adds to how simply refreshing this tastes, but if you really want the lemon notes I don’t think this is likely how I would recommend steeping the tea.

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 Pop!

Steeped this one up with some agave and then topped up with the sparkling water we have on tap at the office. It’s already such an incredibly classic tasting profile on its own, and with the extra bit of sweetness from the agave and the sparkles I was heavily getting this super RTD-style iced tea taste but with an almost Arnold Palmer sort of twist to it. It tasted super nostalgic and just one of those “epitome of Summer” type of flavours too!

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.

Continuing with some tasting notes for new Summer teas this afternoon!

Something we get requests for a lot is a simple or “classic” lemon black tea, so this was definitely very much intended to be an incredibly simple and mildly flavoured lemon black tea without a lot of frills to it. It’s unsweetened and just has a veeeerrryyy simple ingredient list.

If I could give any tip or “just so you know” advance warning for this blend it would be to make sure you’re not going into drinking it expected something sweet or intensely lemon flavoured. This is not Country Lemonade or most of the other lemonade type of teas we put out every summer. Not even close. It’s really inspired by the type of tea you might use in the Southern parts of the US to make into Southern Sweet Tea: A slightly malty and brisk black tea with a tiiinnyyyy bit of astringency to it and like a squeeze of fresh lemon. Black tea first, lemon second. In fact, you absolutely could use this as the base to make a Southern Sweet Tea! It would be delicious!

Personally I’ve been drinking tea hot quite a bit lately and really enjoying it. It starts off a very mild and almost imperceptible lemon taste that, over the coarse of a full sixteen oz mug, grows and builds on the palate to the point where it becomes a more noticeable lemon – but still gentle. Not pithy or bitter, like when I found La La Lemon always tasted like. I usually drink it unsweet, but sometimes I add a tiny bit of honey. A little sweetener will make the lemon pop a bit more, but it’s just really refreshing to have a classic and simple flavour like this that really leans into that “sweeten to your tastes” preference so many people have.

It’s a blend that I’m fascinated to see the response to, for sure. It’s just soooo different from our usual style of blending tea, but it’s also something people have asked for a lot so I can only cross my fingers and hope that it’s well recieved.

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.

It does taste like
Pomegranate but there is something strange I cant quite put my
Finger on. Not sure what it is but I wasn’t a fan. I’ve tasted it in other teas though…. Not sure what the white tea was doing or if it was even there as a flavor…

Steep:
4tsp
212°F
5min
Adagio IngenuiTEA 16 oz

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: tart (hibiscus), floral, hint fruit
Steeped Tea Smell: sweet, fruity, tangy (fruity lemonade)
Flavor: tart, fruity, sweet (more papya than guava)
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: tart
Liquor: dark translucent red

Resteep:
resteeps well!

Rating: 3/4 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/5n_EEDHZfWg

TikTok Review https://www.tiktok.com/@circuitswan/video/7089482617363385643?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1

Blog Post https://amazonv.blogspot.com/2022/04/davids-tea-loose-leaf-herbal-tisane_22.html

Twitter Thread – https://twitter.com/CircuitSwan/status/1517540218324152320

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.

Iced!

Made this earlier in the week because I wanted something bright and fruity with just a bit of caffeine. As was the intention when developing this tea, it leans in to that kind of nostalgic “juice pouch” (cough, Capri Sun, cough) flavour profile with the ripe strawberry juice notes leading the way. The kiwi is milder, but I love the way it almost adds a “bounciness” to the different layers of flavour, and it’s a great finishing note.

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!

Found myself really craving this one! Definitely a bit more of a strawberry forward brew, but definitely still has both flavours present. Light to medium bodied and flavour intensity. Definitely gives me “Capri Sun All Grown Up” vibes in the best kind of way. So nostalgic!

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.

Last new summer tasting note for the evening!

This is my personal favourite of the new collection of teas and, well, I have been drinking a lot of lately. It’s on a white tea base and though I would personally like there to be a little more white tea I do think we got the balance right in a way that still stays true to the light and delicate feeling of white tea while having distinct flavours that are juicy and not thin/bland. The most disappointing white tea blends (at least in my opinion) are the ones that taste watered down instead of simply delicate… There’s a difference between those two things.

I would say strawberry is definitely the stronger flavour between it and the kiwi. You get more of a strawberry juice (like, well, Capri Sun) taste on the front end of the sip and body that evening transitions into a little more of the cheeky kiwi finishing flavours. It’s not missed in the cup, but just a gradual shift over the coarse of tasting. There is sugar in the blend, but I think there’s definitely a difference between it taste sweet verse tasting sugary/cloying and I feel like we’ve done a good job of avoiding the latter.

My recommendation for steeping this tea would be to stick with a shorter steep time and lower water temp if you want a bit more of a delicate flavour with more of the white tea coming out. However, if you want something juicy and a bit more iceable go with a long steep with hotter water. The tea can take it!

So yeah. Hot. Iced. Cold Brewed. I just can’t seem to get enough of this one…

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CcVmfvku5Fz/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBKPAhSV_y0&ab_channel=DavidDeanBurkhart

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.