DavidsTea (Queen St. W) Edit

This is my favorite and first ever tea shop. Got hooked onto tea drinking at this spot, even if it means commuting an hour and a half to get here. Friendly staff and great service, and you get to sit outside in the summer. The only down side is that it’s kinda small but it can’t be helped. Oh yeah, and it’s got free wifi too

I love this location of Davids! The staff are always wonderfully friendly, and helpful, without being pushy. Whenever I bring my friends who are new to the world of tea, the staff always help the find something that’s exactly what they’re looking for. Queen West is one of my favourite parts of Toronto, so I love the atmosphere- this location is perfect for me!

I’m always treated well by friendly people when I go into the Queen W Davids. It’s one of the shops in town that allows you to sit and drink your tea, even if the security system beeping at Le Chateau can be a bit draining.

I’d give them three stars because of their infrastructure: good teas, good tea accessories, decent atmosphere.

But I find the sales strategy at David’s Tea a bit pushy. Every time I go I ask for one specific type of tea, rather than just giving me the one I asked for, they always come back to me with suggestions of similar teas. I don’t want to be “sold” to when I’m already buying something. It’s sneaky sales technique.

Honestly I am in love with this place. Great tea, great service, it’s just such a warm and friendly place. Exactly what you are looking for in a tea shop.

Fantastic people and fantastic store!

David’s tea hands down revolutionizes the idea of tea!
Great store culture and atmosphere. The staff is always goes out of their way and are really chill. Always fun learning about, and selecting from the 100+ teas. Delicious selections of premium tea and amazing seasonal collections!
Prepare to be hooked!

I love DavidsTea, I visit as many as I can as often as I can. So when our planned travels today brought us close to a DavidsTea, of course I had to stop in!

I wish I hadn’t. The workers were snobby and seemed to be looking down on me the whole time. I stood at the counter for a good fifteen minutes while they helped other people, many of them arriving after me, and chatted with each other about the customers “sticking their gross noses” in every can. The girl who eventually helped us forgot one of the teas we asked for, which we luckily noticed before leaving the shop, as it was a seasonal tea and a gift for my mother in Tennessee. We were made to feel very unwelcome and we almost felt like we were intruding when we sat at a table to enjoy our tea.

I love DavidsTea, and while I will continue to buy and use their products, I will not return to that store. Next time I’m in the area, I’ll simply walk up to the Annex store, and I suggest you do so as well. Or I’ll just wait until I can get to my home store, the DavidsTea in Sherway Gardens, where the employees are always friendly, helpful, and more than willing to help you find the perfect tea, rather than sneering when you ask for a recommendation.

If this had been my introduction to the wonderful world of DavidsTea, I never would have returned.

I used to write a customer service rating blog, and David’s Tea was one of the few positive ones (good customer service is such a rarity these days!). To save me writing it all out again, here’s my review, written in January, 2009, completely unedited. And I’ve been going back ever since!

We recently discovered a new shop on Queen Street, David’s Tea. It’s a cute little shop (inexplicably attached to Le Château) at 336 Queen West that specializes in loose leaf teas. According to their website, they have over 100 different teas (side note: we’re determined to try them all – we’re at nine so far).

I first saw it driving by, and decided to visit the next time I went by that stretch. A little while later on a journey across Queen we stopped in.

My first experience there was a good one. We were there just before Christmas and the store was packed. But despite the large amount of people in the small amount of space, the staff were always right there making sure we had help if it was needed. That visit was a “just looking” one, and when we told them that, they left us alone – none of that hovering that can tend to deter me from wanting to continue to look around, not to mention ever returning. We poked around at the various items while sipping our sample of the tea of the day, and then went on with our day.

We went back on Boxing Day, as Kristen had decided she wanted to pick up a pot and a starter kit. Unfortunately, they were sold out of the starter kits. The person helping us was very eager to help, but almost in an annoying way. He ended up making us a custom kit, but only with a lot of him asking us questions and us repeatedly answering “whatever it was in the starter kit – that’s what we came here to get”. Since we were disappointed that they didn’t have what we came for, I decided this soured our experience and I decided not to “count” this visit.

We finally went back again this past Friday night and I got the experience I was expecting based on our first time in the shop, which is where this review really starts!

We went to the shop to buy a birthday gift of a pot and a few teas (as well as our own pot and some new teas to add to our list). The girl that ended up helping us was extremely knowledgeable. She could answer any questions we had without missing a beat – from tea pots to kettles to teas. We had her bring down about five different teas for us to “sample” (aka smell) and could tell us what was in every one of them. And it’s not like we were asking for your run of the mill teas – we wanted ones with this or that specific ingredient, and we also wanted to see specific teas off the shelf. She got a tin down for the “I want something with black current” as easily as the “can I smell the Apple Turnover one?” I find it amazing that someone can name off all of the ingredients of five different teas picked out randomly from a selection of over 100!

Overall customer service rating at David’s Tea (Queen St., Toronto): 10/10
I could not ever ask for a better experience – knowledgeable and attentive sales staff are an extreme rarity these days! Couple that with being just the right amount friendly (read “not fake”) and a “cool” environment, and you get a perfect score!