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“As you know, I have been shopping tea yesterday. And this one caught my eyes on the storefront. I knew I am on the right place. I took by 100 g in and decided to go shopping. So many opinions. So...” Read full tasting note
Probably from wholesaler Ettli:
https://www.honest-rare.de/ettli-kaffee-kraeutertee-gin-tonic/
Absolutely same (word by word!) ingredients as DAVIDsTEA:Apple (apple, citric acid), Lemongrass, Licorice root, Green tea, Blackberry leaf, Natural (juniper, lemon) flavouring, Orange peel, Ginger, Cinnamon, Coriander, Juniper berries, Turmeric, Lemon verbena, Lemon peel, Rose pepper, Cardamom.
Company description not available.
As you know, I have been shopping tea yesterday. And this one caught my eyes on the storefront. I knew I am on the right place. I took by 100 g in and decided to go shopping. So many opinions. So many interesting teas. Interesting in name, by their smell, it was just too hard to choose! In the end I bought 4 different loose leaf teas.
I have added this tea under tea store name, but I think it’s from wholesaler Ettli; who claims they have produced it in Germany. But ingredients are, word by word (!), same as DAVIDsTEA Gin & Tonic! So, did they bought a wholesale amount and sell it as their blend? Does they made absolutely same tea by accident? Many questions about this tea.
But I expect you don’t care much about the origins. It’s just a bit confusing to me and I just want to know… and I feel sorry for DAVIDsTEA team if they have blended it and did R&D for this tea… and then someone came and just copied the blend. Maybe I am totally wrong.
Oh, the tea. Well, yes, it smells after gin & tonic for sure. The piney juniper, the refreshing zingy lemon, a little bitter tonic flavour — quinine flavour is well done. And overall it’s refreshing. Having it cold, I think I could hardly make out this tea and original mix drink. So well done! But the story behind…
I hope Ros will chime in and let us know!
Agreed, this is a mystery!
I suppose it’s possible it’s a coincidence, but unfortunately it’s also not terribly uncommon for companies to either buy tea from someone else & relabel it as their own or to intentionally copy or try to reverse engineer blends.
In the case of relabeling, there are many large wholesale companies that sell their tea intentionally with this model in mind (ex. Metroplitan Tea Company) and it’s all considered “above board” in the industry. Definitely different from what is potentially occurring here, or what I’ve seen with other companies that don’t know their tea is being relabeled.
I guess another option is that this company has done R&D work with a supplier to recreate our blend and, as DT is definitely much less known outside of North America, one of the two parties has recreated the DT blend without the other knowing. either a supplier creating a dupe and passing it as new or the company requesting a recreation without the supplier understanding they’re copying something.
Too many variables, and people can still also come up with the same ideas independently. We weren’t the first to do a G&T blend and definitely has no illusions we’d be the last.
I don’t think it’s a conincidence for one single reason — ingredients list are word by word same as DT tea. That just sound too unusual to me, especially when the list is quite long.
But thanks for your input here. It’s definitely interesting :)