Ho Ho Hojicha

Sipdown! I fully ordered the whole sampler last year just to get this blend and another store exclusive blend. I thought I had previously written a tasting note about this but apparently not. It’s been long enough that I forgot what it was actually supposed to taste like. For some reason, I decided that the red and white sprinkles meant that I should expect the tea to be minty. It is not! I totally made that up! The dry leaf doesn’t smell minty, the brewed tea doesn’t smell or taste minty, it’s not designed to be minty, I fully made it up because of the sprinkle color and then wondered why it didn’t taste like the flavor profile I wrongly imagined for it! Here’s what it actually tastes like: creamy chocolate, a hint of vanilla, on a mildly roasty hojicha base. Which is really tasty! I wish they would sell it online individually.

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.