Krabby's Tea Time

Spice! Black tea! Excessive sugar!

These things are checking off my boxes. 

A quick look through this mix lets you see that you don’t need any sweetener for this mix at all. There is a healthy amount of white & cane sugar in here. It smells like French toast a bit; but moreso like cinnamon toast crunch cereal. 

Oh David’s Tea. One more green tea is a final shot across the bow of my tea-review ship as it limos across the finish line.

The calendar has been weird this year - heavy on the spice with mixed results. And my favourites have often been a surprise (Hey North African Mint & Nepal Black, I'm going to buy you!)

Nothing has been more unexpected than the green tea blends. Maintaining my green tea vitriol has been nothing short of exhausting and hypocritical this year!

While I did slag the sencha, the blends have been a pleasant surprise, and Moment of Zen was no exception. 

WHO AM I? WHAT MASS TEA HYSTERIA IS THIS?

Long story short: I liked this tea. Green tea becomes immensely palatable to me when scented with jasmine, and blackberry flavouring. We’ve got cornflower blossoms too, the superficial tea ornament of the 2013 calendar. The grassy, dull flavour I usually associate with green tea is gone, and I really enjoyed this blend. 7/10 

That's all I've got. Three years of dragging out silly anecdotes has made the well run dry! Enjoy this ghostbuster gif.

sip back and relax

Whatever life throws our way, we can always find comfort in a great cup of tea. Especially when it’s scented with dreamy, night-blooming jasmine. Itsdelicate, floral aroma is as relaxing as it gets – like aromatherapy in a cup. First created during China’s Song Dynasty, jasmine tea has been improving moods, relieving stress and just making people happy for over 1000 years. In this oh-so soothing blend, we mix jasmine green tea with sweet blackberries and pretty cornflower blossoms. It’s the perfect little escape

Ingredients:  Green tea scented with jasmine, blackberries, mallow blossoms, cornflower blossoms, natural blackberry flavouring.

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toastess with the mostess

Something about cardamom just puts us in a festive frame of mind. We love its rich, fragrant taste any way we can get it. One of our faves? The buttery, cardamom-scented Christmas breads popular in Sweden and Finland. And cardamom toast is great,it only stands to reason that cardamom French toast would be out of this world. With black tea, cardamom, cane sugar and cinnamon, this rich, sweet blend tastes just like the decadent breakfast of our dreams. Only this is one brunch item you’ll be wanting all day long.

Ingredients:  Black tea, cinnamon, lemon peel, coriander seeds, cardamom, coconut sugar, cane sugar, natural and artificial flavouring.

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baby, it’s cold outside

Got a blizzard on the way? Score! There’s no better excuse to cozy up inside with a great cup of tea. And this all natural chocolate-mint tisane is the perfect way to warm up on a chilly winter day. With peppermint, cacao nibs and dark chocolate drops, it’s sweet, creamy and oh-so comforting. The best part? Cute little snowflake-shaped sprinkles that add a touch of sweetness. Bring it on, winter!

Ingredients:  Peppermint leaves, cocoa beans, cocoa husk, chocolate drops (sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, cocoa powder, sunflower lecithin), white chocolate pieces (sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, sunflower lecithin), sugar sprinkles (sugar, rice flour, cano ...... (It literally just trails off again)

I love how David’s Tea will makes puns and allusions without actually referencing TRADEMARKED PHRASES™ aka “Welcome to the dark side....*crickets*” 

 In my mind, this is Darth Vader tea. I get the feeling they were going for this:

But in reality they just ended up with a tea like this:

This is going to be a short review because I’ve come to the conclusion that while David’s keeps trying different black tea + cocoa/chocolate nib combos, it just doesn’t work.

STOP TRYING TO MAKE FETCH HAPPEN, DAVID’S.

dark side of the brew

What is it about dark chocolate? Its taste is sinfully decadent, but studies say it might actually be good for you. But wait – it gets better. Now you don’t even have to wait until dessert to get your fix. With this black tea blend, you can treat yourself anytime, anywhere. With cocoa shells, blueberries and big chunks of luscious dark chocolate, it’s a deliciously rich taste of our favourite indulgence. Welcome to the dark side…

Hello, my name is Kristen and my (second) favourite* tea* is actually just granola with artificial baked good flavouring. This is what I serve non tea drinkers as my way of proclaiming "hey, tea isn't all tannins and astringency!" It's magic and pink (go team beetroot!) and smells like cake and I won’t judge you if you nibble on the nutty trail mix before you start steeping.

Look at that gorgeous, electric pink cup, hanging out in a Christmas tree.

We’ve reviewed this twice before (2013, 2014) and a cursory search of the blog tells me that I mention this tea the most in other reviews (second only to GENMAICHA as the polar opposite of my tea-love scale). That’s really my scale of tea ratings. “Is this as good as Forever Nuts or as terrible as Genmaicha?”

So yeah. Read the other reviews. It’s basically a magnetic fridge poetry kit of words like “pink. magic. cake. delightful. almond. nutty. sweet. OMG”. I was pleased as punch to get this on Friday and spent more time than I’m willing to admit to get a good shot of it thrust into my Christmas tree. Because that is the standard forever nuts requires. It is the best, and it demands the best in return. 10/10.

*Confession: I think that Sleigh Ride has officially passed Forever Nuts as my favourite-favourite tea. The addition of hibiscus, the tartness paired with the sweetness and the forced scarcity has made it slightly more precious to me. It’s not to say that I don’t absolutely love Forever Nuts. It’s more like when you look back at photos of yourself from 1997 when you sported white eyeliner and silver taffeta pants. Only in hindsight do you realize that you were being just a bit silly. 

** Who are we kidding. It’s liquid cake. Tea purists may scoff, but again I ask you. HAVE YOU TASTED IT?!

for almond lovers

It looks all normal when it’s loose. But steep it and you’ll see that it’s nuts. Within seconds, this tempting jumble of almond slices and chunks, apple bits and cinnamon bark starts turning a crazy shade of pink. Why? Because it contains a hint of beetroot. That’s what gives this rich almond tea its earthy depth and its all-natural signature colour. Deliciously nutty, decidedly addictive. Caffeine-free.

Ingredients:  Apple, almonds, cinnamon, beetroot, artificial flavouring.

Mulled Wine! I think this is our first oolong of the calendar? Yes?

I’m just going to call it now and declare 2015: Year of The Cinnamon N’ Spice Tea. Because damn, David’s has a theme they’re going to stick through it to the bitter, spicy end.

Before we get into the tea itself, let’s take a quick detour into wine. I’m not a wine drinker. Even though I knew it probably wasn’t true, I still desperately hoped that wine would taste like what I imagined Gummi Berry Juice would taste like. Then like the Disney Gummi Bears of yore, I would get hopped up on the juice and hop around on my bouncy butt all night long.

Spoiler: Wine doesn’t taste like magical cartoon juice. When I first took a swig at a party almost decades ago, I thought someone was playing a trick on me. This was the exalted beverage? Pffffffft. (I tend proceeded to get tanked at the tender age of 17 on Baileys, as that was all I could pilfer from my parent’s liquor cupboard and well, that was a fresh hell all unto itself)

SO Mulled Wine tea! Huh. What’s that like?

I didn’t hold up much hope on the first sniff - Cinnamon, clove and overwhelming artificial clove. I’m discovering more and more that while I like these flavours in apple cider, it’s very much a season thing. I don’t crave them, I don’t want to drink eighty billion cups of it. Initially my nose wrinkled and I steeped away.

Initially I wasn’t won over. When this tea steeps up, it pretty well reeks of orange and cinnamon. We’ve been there. We’ve done that in this calendar already.

I let it cool for about 15 minutes and once I got past the initial orange hit, I found myself enjoying it. The ginger pops up, the orange doesn’t come through much in the taste, just the smell. I think David’s was smart to pair this with an oolong as these flavours with a straight black tea would just becoming bitter/gross/sad. Oolongs lend themselves well to sweeter blends and I’d say the ratio of tea to ‘random fruity detritus’ in this blend is about 50/50. This blend could easily pass for a distant cousin of Forever Nuts that just arrived back from boarding school in the Swiss Alps and took up smoking clove cigarettes over the holidays.

(We’re near the end of the calendar. The quality of my tangents, quips and astute observations about TEA are getting slim. Ahem.)

You know we’re hitting the home stretch on Krabby’s when the tea descriptions are combined, omitted completely or so utterly out of order. Day 17 is the hump; if we get over that, then we’ve done more than last year! 

dew the right thing

In Vietnam, melons are a sign of good luck. In Chinese medicine, they’re said to help cool the body down. Around here, we think they’re just about the tastiest fruit around – especially when you pair them with fresh, delicate white tea. With fruity hints of pineapple and mango, this melon-packed blend is refreshing, juicy and naturally sweet. The best part? This tea was named by our customers! Is there anything they can’t dew?

Ingredients:  Apple, white tea, pineapple (pineapple, sugar), melon (melon, sucrose, citric acid, natural melon flavouring), mango (mango, sugar), rose petals, natural watermelon flavouring.

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light and brisk

Japanese monks were writing about tea in the 9th century, but the world had to wait until 1740 for Sencha, when a tea merchant named Nagatani perfected a new process of steaming, rolling and heat-drying green tea. The result? An emerald-green tea that’s refreshing and smooth. No wonder it’s Japan’s most popular drink.

Ingredients:  Steamed Japanese green tea from Mount Fuji, Japan.

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warm yourself up

Maybe you spent the day on the slopes. Maybe it was a frantic afternoon of holiday shopping. Or maybe you’re coming in from an epic snowball fight. No matter what you did on this chilly day, there’s no better way to warm up than with a great cup of tea. And it doesn’t get more comforting than this mulled wine-inspired all natural oolong, with orange zest, cinnamon, cloves and ginger. Whether you’re sipping it at the ski chalet, in front of a roaring fire or just between errands, it’s the perfect way to warm up your winter.

Day Sixteen: Japanese Green Sencha (Kristen sings the song of her tea-ple)

A caveat, dear reader. For the next two reviews, we’re about to enter the long dark night of the tea-soul. We have one tea with questionable flavour that encountered some user error, and one tea that made me want to crawl under my desk and never emerge. Dark Times. 

Honey, I Dew. Ugh. Melon. A+ pun work, David’s.

Ok - a preface. I don’t like melon flavours. Or pineapple. And to see the both of them together with a white tea made me shrug and hope for the best.

I took a test bite of the crystallized pineapple/melon pieces for posterity. Not. Good. I thought “white tea? delicate flavours? I probably won’t drink this again, let’s use the full tin.” Mistake number one, dear reader.

Mistake number two was that I left this steeping for about ten minutes when I got distracted at work. “Oh, I’ll just make a new cup with my ... leftovers....oh.... wait.”

So I soldiered on. 

It was a bitter, melon-y cup. The first sniff is artificial melon. The first sip is a bitter pill to swallow. It was like bad Buckley’s Cough Syrup. I’ve yet to have a melon/tropical tea from David’s featuring these flavours that I -do- like, so I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this. 

The pun is about the only thing this tea has going for it, and I don’t care to acquire more to try it again.  I’m giving this one pity point because I over steeped it. 1/10

Alpine Punch! Another repeat from 2013 but this is a welcome return.

It’s ticking all of those Kristen boxes - rooibos, almond, a hint of spice. 

I like this tea. With a hint of honey, you’ve got yourself a delightful winter mug. It’s basically the Jan Brady of David’s nutty teas. It’s never going to be as cool as Marsha (Forever Nuts), and only tends to be featured at the winter season. It’s easy to forget, but so desperately wants your attention. (That’s my reasoning behind why the name includes “PUNCH”) 

Classic Middle Tea-Child syndrome!

I don’t get the apple/black pepper mentioned in the description, but I’m getting a heavy hit of coconut cream, rooibos and ginger. If look at my review from 2013, the mix this year looks much better. (Also can I give David’s Tea a HIGH FIVE that I don’t need a STEAK KNIFE AND PLIERS to open the tins?!)

I noticed more vibrant leaves, bigger coconut chunks (also WTF are ‘coconut rasps?!) I mentioned back then that I couldn’t taste apple or spice, but I’m thinking they’ve tweaked the blend a bit in the interim? Because I definitely get a bit of ginger/cardamom now. Too much coconut mixed with cream can easily sway you into this bizarre sunscreen-y smell tea (looking at you, cocomint cream), but it paired with the spice and rooibos, it works!

I’ve only been skiing once*, but Alpine Punch makes me want to join Ned Flanders on the slopes. I’m going to bump it up to 8/10 this year. You’ve earned that extra .5 point for improved coconut chunkiness. 

*The year is 1998. I’m ‘not quite recovered’ from pneumonia/bronchitis and spend five days on a French Class trip to St Donat in Quebec on a ski trip, having never skied before in my life. I’m mostly delirious on painkillers, anti biotics and can’t breathe/smell/speak that well and spent most of my time falling down a mountain. I’ve never skied again. 

Well, here we are at the halfway mark and GASP - Abby and I have doled out the same amount of regulation points! (I’m still leaving my Sleigh Ride score at 11).  I’m feeling pretty good about the calendar this year - Nepal Black and North African Mint are my VIPs and I’ll definitely be purchasing those.

6/10 still for flavor. See more insightful past review here, with gifs and explanations. DT really loves including this tea...

-3/10 to me for oversteeping it by using too-hot water and wincing as I drank it.