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A wonderfully soothing, comforting blend that is easy on the stomach. I’ve been having stomach problems the last week, and The Skinny has been a staple in my tea rotation because of that. It’s an earthy, citrusy, rich blend with a lovely smoothness. There’s a lot of complexity to this blend – a lot of layers to the flavour that all complement each other perfectly. I can barely taste the ginger (a very good thing) and the citrus isn’t too strong either. There is a flavour that I can’t really place that is likely the eleuthero root (a type of ginseng), but it isn’t unpleasant. This is a beautiful morning cup for those with sensitive stomachs and something I will continue to keep a healthy stash of at home.

This was the tea I was most intrigued by in the Cocktail Collection. It’s truly a sour apple tea, and that’s a flavour I had never experienced in tea before. As an iced tea it’s quite nice, but there’s something off about the flavour, and I think that sour apple is a flavour that should really be reserved for candy. It’s very refreshing, with a full-bodied apple flavour and a very pleasant sourness (thank you for leaving hibiscus out of this one!), but not something that I could see myself drinking very often. Definitely a cool novelty tea though!

What follows is some personal musings on DAVIDsTEA from a business standpoint, the tea review ends here if that’s all you care about!

Lately it feels as though DAVIDsTEA has really been pounding out the new releases, and while I love having new teas to try, it also feels as though the quality of their releases has gone down. I’ve heard rumours that the new CEO, Joel Silver, is planning on bringing out fewer releases (about one per month versus one almost every two weeks), and I’m looking forward to where he brings this company. I don’t think that their previous model of fast expansion and constant new releases sat well with consumers; I believe it gave off a sense of greed for a company that had historically built a very personal relationship with its customers.

I’ve seen many people complain of changing business practices and sales tactics within the company, and to that I say it is a business, and they do need to make money. In the beginning, loose tea was a very niche product, and as its popularity has grown, it’s harder to make the sales. People rarely need to buy high-priced items such as a steeper or a travel mug, and those initial sales are easily the most profitable for the company. The vast majority of people who shop at DAVIDsTEA are not tea addicted, and I’ve found that many people who are total tea addicts have moved onto different companies after initially falling in love with loose leaf tea through DAVIDsTEA. They are no longer trying to break into the market, they’re now trying to grow and expand with the market, and that requires a totally different approach. Being an exciting new novelty is one thing, but creating an enduring, prosperous business is completely different. While I am not saying that DAVIDsTEA will be going out of business any time soon, I do believe they need to change their approach as more and more people are turning away from the company.

It’s hard to go wrong with peppermint leaves, and DAVIDsTEA’s Peppermint Amour is definitely doing peppermint right. It’s a very nostalgic blend for me to drink; my mother drinks a cup of peppermint tea almost daily, and she has definitely passed her love for this classic herb onto me. It also does wonders for stomach aches and cramps, making this a must-have tea for me.

However, all that praise aside, I don’t find this peppermint tea to be all that different from the kind you can get from Tetley or other grocery store brands, so DAVIDsTEA’s offering is not the only good option for a classic peppermint herbal. I do find Peppermint Amour to be a little more potent than other peppermint teas I have tried, but it’s really not enough for me to drastically prefer one brand over another.

There’s not a lot going on in this tea, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The tea is smooth to a fault, with sweet honey and mineral notes. The colour of the liquor completely surprised me, even knowing it’s a white pu’erh. I thought I’d drink this one alongside DAVIDsTEA’s Royal White Peony, another straight white tea, just so I could taste the differences between a traditional white tea and a white pu’erh (I don’t drink straight whites frequently so I forgot what mouthfeel was like), but that was completely unnecessary. This is completely unlike anything else I’ve tried. It’s so smooth and refreshing that I may just have to pick up more.

I may have oversteeped this one a tad, but I like it a lot nonetheless. I think if I had steeped it a little less long I’d be tasting more light vegetal notes. I’m tasting edamame and hay, with a very smooth finish. I do taste some more dusty (?) notes on the back of my tongue, maybe I left this tea in my cupboard too long (but I doubt it). I’m going to try rinsing the leaves before preparing this one next time.

I typically gravitate towards jasmine green teas, but I always keep a little bit of Dragonwell on hand for when I want something a little grassier and nuttier. I’m not surprised that I like this one due to it being a Chinese tea. DAVIDsTEA’s Dragonwell is extraordinarily easy to drink and less delicate in steeping times and temperatures than other green teas I’ve tried, making it an easy favourite.

I taste a crisp but mellow green tea flavour that’s fairly smooth for a green tea. There’s a significant nuttiness to the tea, accompanied by a little woodiness. This tea has a beautiful depth of flavour that I would not expect from a straight green tea. A staple in my tea cupboard.

This tea is buttery, smooth, lemony, and light. I can hardly taste the oolong tea base, which is a good thing for me because oolong is among my least favourite types of tea. This tea is extremely easy-to-drink and inoffensive, making it easy to see why DAVIDsTEA decided to bring it back as a TOTM. This is a blend I regularly fall back on when I’m not sure of what to drink; you truly can’t go wrong with this one.

I’m honestly shocked at this tea’s popularity when compared to DAVIDsTEA’s other blends. The yogurt bits throw me off when combined with hibiscus, similar to Blueberry Muffin from their Fall 2016 collection. Hibiscus makes up most of the flavour, the strawberry barely comes through and there’s a tartness to the tea that could be the rhubarb, but I still think all I can taste is freaking hibiscus.

This tea is basically a watered-down hibiscus herbal blend. Very light creaminess from the yogurt, but I don’t understand the appeal of “creamy” flavours in tart herbal teas.

This strongly reminds me of DAVIDsTEA’s Lemon Pound Cake tea, it has very similar vanilla notes with a slight lemon flavour. I find that the vanilla notes are most predominant, followed by a light citrus, and finally the pineapple. I’m very glad that I cannot taste the pineapple in this blend. It’s a lovely light dessert tea!

I really wish I could taste more lemon than ginger in this tea, but unfortunately the ginger is way too overpowering. I’ve found I’m extremely sensitive to ginger in my blends which will make my rating of this blend extremely biased. This is definitely a tea that would appeal more for someone looking for an earthier citrus blend. The yaupon is very interesting though and I’d love to see DAVIDsTEA continue to experiment with these new and innovative leaves in such a mainstream market!