With two resident tea fanatics, we couldn’t share this box with just one of our reviewers! Both Deb & Valerie wrote this review – Deb is more of a David’s newbie, and Valerie is a decade+ fanatic!
DAVIDsTEA Tea Tasting Club is a new tea subscription from a Canadian brand known for their blends and shops. Sign up and receive 4 seasonal boxes per year delivered right to your mailbox. This subscription is $140 for the entire year and will have a value of around $220, plus shipping is free. NOTE: Those who signed up before April 10, 2021 will continue to have an annual subscription while new subscribers will have an Endless subscription and you can skip, pause, or cancel your subscription at any time.
Valerie: David’s Tea is one of Canada’s most well-known tea houses, with a huge catalog of every kind of tea. From black tea, to mate, to traditional matcha, I have been a loyal customer for over a decade and a half. Their teas are sourced from all over the world and many are given a unique twist or taste. My cupboards at home are full of their colourful tins, steepers, and their beautiful mugs! So when I read they were doing a quarterly subscription, I knew this was the perfect tea subscription for me. The box is $35 CAD quarterly.
Valerie: The box is the traditional David’s Tea teal, and inside are colourful packets of tea. The interior of the box includes a guide to steeping for all of their tea types, including ideal temperature and steeping time.
Debbie: The items were simply placed in the box, no special fanfare or extraneous wrapping. The box itself had all kinds of notes on steeping on the inside, even a crossword puzzle was printed inside the bottom of the box!
The first two boxes came with an in-depth booklet, but in an effort to become more environmentally friendly, that info can be found online.
Everything in my box!
Silver Perfect Infuser ($9 for similar) I think this tea infuser may have been made especially for this box. It has an overlay that says “DAVIDsTEA” and the mesh is very fine to hopefully keep small particles from ending up in the cup.
The water comes up through the bottom of the strainer as well as the sides.
It’s supposed to fit on most mugs and holds enough tea for one serving. I thought it was rather nifty — I placed on my mug, added the dry tea, and then covered with boiling water or whatever temp water was called for.
Here it is in use.
It worked well and then I just lifted it up and out and dumped the contents into the compost bin. If you like to steep multiple times then you could place it on a saucer for later.
Official Tea Tasting Club Tea Tin I received one of these tins in the very first box and now I have a matching set!
I have several other tins too and I will either dump loose leaf tea that came in a flimsy bag into the container, or mix several versions of those little spoonful’s of tea together to come up with a custom flavor, like mixing all of my chai teas or maybe a couple of Earl Greys.
It has a powdery feeling on the outside, like chalkboard paint. I love the color, it makes me smile. I want a car that is this color.
David’s Tea Filters ($5) I love that they included a box of drawstring tea bags, this has become my preferred method for steeping tea.
Instructions are on the back of the box.
Just scoop tea into the bag, pull the string to close the top, then place in a mug. I place these in my compost bin after using.
David’s Tea Pomegrateful ($0.60) and David’s Tea S’mores Chai ($0.60) I received two tea bag samples to try, one with a white tea base, the other pu’erh.
We received eight bags of tea — four herbals and four black.
David’s Tea Blueberry Pancakes ($4.49) Here we have a blend that smells and tastes just like a stack of blueberry pancakes, including maple syrup!
Each bag has the ingredients and steeping time, water temperature required, caffeine level, and country of origin. The packs can be closed over and over again to keep the contents fresh.
This blend has butterfly pea petals, which gives it a cool color (you can see it in the earlier picture of the strainer). It also has stevia, apple pieces, raisins, hibiscus, and artificial blueberry and maple flavoring. It has a slight aftereffect from the stevia and so I added sugar, which helps, and by the time it’s cooled off I can’t tell it’s there. This is a rather overly fruity tea and that is almost always thanks to those artificial flavorings, it’s hard to make a tea truly fruity otherwise.
David’s Tea Candy Apple ($4.49) Oh my stars, when I opened this up I immediately caught a whiff of acetone, like someone had poured nail polish remover in the bag. The fumes burned my eyes and went into my lungs, causing me to cough. I don’t know if a chemical got into the mix, or something is rotting in here, or if it’s the flavoring and it needs to be aired out, but I don’t feel confidant drinking this tea.
Here’s what it looks like, but I am so disappointed.
Valerie’s tasting notes: Deb texted me about this tea, so I had to open mine and nearly fell over from the strong scent of acetone! I left mine open and came back to it hours later to find the acetone scent had dissipated and I could actually smell the tea, but I was also too nervous to give it a taste. David’s Tea said that this scent isn’t anything to worry about, so my theory is that it’s just a result of the dried apple fermenting or something, but it was definitely not a nice smell!
David’s Tea Coffee Pu’erh ($4.49) I rarely drink coffee and when I do it’s usually flavored, like a mocha, iced caramel macchiato, or Frappuccino. This tea captures that coffee house feeling and flavor.
It’s made with pu’erh tea, roasted coffee beans, and flavoring (coffee, vanilla, and almond). Pu’erh has a distinctive musty order/flavor and it’s present but not super strong here. I like the sweet nuttiness of the tea and added sugar and milk but I’m not sure whether to call it a flavored coffee or tea. It would be equally tasty over ice.
Valerie’s tasting notes: I’m not a coffee drinker but I thought this was a nice and mild flavour. Like Deb, I added lots of milk and sugar to bring down the flavour, and I think this is a good pu’erh if you’re new to it because pu’erh can have a musty, earthy flavour that not everyone likes!
David’s Tea Dark Chocolate Orange ($4.94) I’ve never been a fan of chocolate flavors in tea but when paired with orange I think it’s a good combo.
Black tea, cocoa bean, orange peel, chocolate chips, flavoring, cocoa husk, and stevia are in this blend. For me, the black tea falls flat, I can’t tell it’s there, but the orange note is nice. I didn’t care for the stevia, it was noticeable, but if you like a flavorful tea without having to add sugar and milk, then this might be a hit with you.
David’s Tea Honeycomb Chai ($4.94) This is a strongly scented tea, it smells like fall!
The ingredients include apple, licorice, ginger, cinnamon, and honey flavoring. One thing I’ve learned is that some foods cause a reaction in my mouth, and I recently learned licorice is one of them. The effect is like, hmm, maybe I licked the sidewalk? It not only tastes weird, it feels weird. This tea was really strong in that effect, so much so that I couldn’t finish it. If you’re not a fan of stevia or monk fruit and think they have an aftertaste, then you might discover something similar with licorice.
Valerie’s tasting notes: Well, I didn’t feel like I’d licked a sidewalk but as I don’t enjoy licorice as it is, I was a bit nervous when I first sniffed this tea. I was underwhelmed with this tea since honey and chai are normally my jam, but it just felt like the flavours didn’t go well together.
David’s Tea Pumpkin Earl Grey I love a good Earl Grey but I’ve never had one with pumpkin! It’s described as a combo of pumpkin chai and cream of Earl Grey, and is the best of both I suppose.
There’s a black tea base and pieces of pumpkin, carrot, chai spices, and bergamot. The chai spices are especially noticeable and I don’t think it tastes like pumpkin or even Earl Grey but it certainly tastes like autumn in a cup! It isn’t a super strong black tea and I don’t think it needs milk, but a pinch of sugar might do.
David’s Tea Sleepy Lychee ($4.49) I like a tropical tea and this one is caffeine-free and perfect for an evening sip.
It’s made with apple (apple, citric acid), lemongrass, carrot, pineapple, and has stuff like lime tree blossoms, rose petals, and jasmine flavoring. This was not only tropical but also had a perfumed note to it. The citric acid was strong. I wasn’t sure what exactly made it “sleepy” but it turns out lime blossoms may help one to relax.
David’s Tea Wild Grown Rooibos ($3.99) This was the only single ingredient sip in our box and I hesitate to call it tea, since it’s made of rooibos, a bush that grows in South Africa. It is caffeine-free.
Rooibos is often found in herbal blends because it tends to add body, making those concoctions more tea-like. This one is earthy and grassy, warm and nutty, and you can always add it to herbals to give them more heft.
Valerie’s tasting notes: I’m so used to flavoured rooibos that this was my first time trying it plain. It was comforting and mild, and with a bit of milk and sugar it was a nice way to indulge without caffeine.
DAVIDsTEA had some exciting blends for autumn, sure to keep those who love spicy and earthy flavors happy for the next few months. I was sad that I couldn’t try the Candy Apple tea — I just couldn’t bring myself to drink it after opening the bag and inhaling the fumes. Although I rarely drink coffee, I actually really enjoyed Coffee Pu-erh, it was like drinking something from a coffee shop. Blueberry Pancake was another favorite of mine, it smells like breakfast in a cup! I am almost out of the paper filters and need to order more, but in the meantime, I’ve grown to depend on my new infuser, it’s so easy to use! The tea tin was a repeat item for me but I guess that means it’s the beginning of a collection, I can’t complain about that!
What do you think of DAVIDsTEA Tasting Club?
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