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“I’ve been eyeing this one since last year? Or a couple years back when a group of interesting Christmas teas dropped, but the pandemic had closed down the DAVIDsTEA shops in my area. I’m very, very...” Read full tasting note
“This one surprised me but really enjoyed it. I found it very crisp and refreshing” Read full tasting note
“DAVIDsTEA Advent Calendar 2021 – Day 24 After Santa’s Secret came early, I had no idea what to expect for today. And I don’t have a horse in that race, as I don’t love Santa’s Secret anyway. But...” Read full tasting note
“(DavidsTea 195) Can’t figure out the difference between this and White Chocolate Chai, unless it’s stevia? And snowflake sprinkles? Too much syrupy sweetness here, but the flavouring aside from the...” Read full tasting note
How it tastes
A rich blend with spicy notes followed by sweet white chocolate ganache flavour over a black tea base.
Oh what fun it is to sip white chocolate chai. Sink into the warmth of the holidays with a mug of bold black tea, decadent white chocolate curls & soul-warming spices. Think cinnamon, cardamom, clove & red peppercorns that look just like merry jingles bells. And to top it all off, we added a pinch of cute snowflake sprinkles. It’s a blend designed to jingle your tastebuds.
What makes it great
• Features cute snowflake sprinkles & festive red peppercorns.
• If you like white chocolate or chai, you’ll love this blend.
• With warming cardamom, cloves and cinnamon, it tastes even better as a latte.
Ingredients
Black tea, Ginger, Cinnamon, Cocoa nibs, White chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, chocolate liquor, whey powder, lactose, soy lecithin, vanilla), Pink peppercorns, Cardamom, Natural white chocolate flavouring, Snowflake candies (sugar, rice flour, vegetable oil (palm, palm kernel), corn starch, gum Arabic, cellulose gum, titanium dioxide, confectioner’s glaze, carrageenan, soy lecithin, artificial flavour), Cloves, Cocoa powder, Stevia extract.
DavidsTea is a Canadian specialty tea and tea accessory retailer based in Montreal, Quebec. It is the largest Canadian-based specialty tea boutique in the country, with its first store having opened in 2008.
I’ve been eyeing this one since last year? Or a couple years back when a group of interesting Christmas teas dropped, but the pandemic had closed down the DAVIDsTEA shops in my area.
I’m very, very slow to buy anything online, so I finally picked up this and a few others at the downtown shop during my monthly Tea Book Crawl through my favourite used book shops. I lament that Silver Bell Oolong is online-only, because that one definitely stood out the most to me, but I’ll settle for this and Winter Earl Grey.
The smell of this is white chocolate, while the first sip is a sweet mix of ginger-cinnamon-cardamom. It’s followed by a waxy, faintly oily chocolate/coconut oilesque flavour, which is pleasant at first, but quickly gets overwhelmingly sweet in the aftertaste.
I’ve become kinda hypersensitive to sweet things, and stupidly I missed the stevia extract on the ingredients list? It’s enough that it kinda bothers me, but isn’t so high that I think it’d be a general problem for anyone else. It highlights the chocolate, in that sorta silky mouthfeel of white-chocolate ganache way. It IS a very waxy, pointedly white-chocolate flavour first (obviously the intent), and you have to search a little for what the cocoa nibs bring.
It’s a very mild, pleasant chai, enough to be warming, not zingy. I have a feeling it’d be overwhelmed by milk.
We’ll see if the sprinkles and other additives will be a mess to clean out of my filter.
DAVIDsTEA Advent Calendar 2021 – Day 24
After Santa’s Secret came early, I had no idea what to expect for today. And I don’t have a horse in that race, as I don’t love Santa’s Secret anyway. But this has a cute name and cute snowflake sprinkles, so sure why not. It does sound like just a white chocolate chai though…
Well it’s not bad. Although as the stevia taste creeps up more and more at the end of the sip, it is sort of bad lol. Otherwise it’s a mild chai with a lot of sweetness, and I can taste the cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger. It’s slightly creamy from the melted white chocolate.
It would be fine if it wasn’t for the stevia, but it’s too much and it builds up in a really unpleasant way. :(
Flavors: Artificial, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Creamy, Ginger, Spices, Stevia, Sweet, White Chocolate
Stevia, glitter, and blue seem to be the bane of this year’s advents. You’d think that blenders would know that this year has been difficult enough.
I am so grateful that Fortnum didn’t have any stevia!
Yes, at least Fortnum could be relied on to not be gimmicky lol! Even if there was a lot of repetition.
Day 3 of my DIY 24 Days of DAVIDsTea!
I remember this one from when it was called White Chocolate Chai, but now it has some red peppercorns and snowflake sprinkles for a more festive flair.
I can still do without the stevia, but I otherwise enjoy the sweet, creaminess of the white chocolate and the warming spices. It’s a pretty comforting cup of tea, especially where chai is concerned. Although I will say that I didn’t find this particular cup to be as flavourful as I would have liked/expected.
For what it’s worth, I liked being able to revisit WCC 2.0, but I wouldn’t say it’s worth the stevia induced headache going forward…
Behind on tasting notes again, but alas…
This is a new holiday blend for the year, and it’s exclusive to only Super Steepers. There have been a few Frequent Steeper only teas this year so far (Forever Frosty, and Hazelnut Chocolate) but this is the first only for Super Steepers…
Y’all know I don’t love Chai so it’s safe to say this isn’t my jam. I do really love the name of it though – and that’s not a humble brag, because I didn’t have anything to do with the naming of this blend. I just think it’s really cute, and I’m also all for more Chai throughout the year instead of it all being bunched into a few months. Of course, that’s pretty wishful thinking because so many people still view Autumn as “Chai Season” but a girl can dream, right!?
Anyone who remembers White Chocolate Chai from a few years ago will have a pretty good idea of what this Chai is like – they’re different but very similar. Same more traditional mix of Chai spices (heavier on the ginger and cardamom) mixed with a creamy note from the white chocolate curls. I think this is more spiced that White Chocolate Chai, with more ginger and a peppery undertone from the peppercorns throughout. I haven’t found anyone else who agrees with me about this, but something in the blend also really vaguely reminds me of cola – I think it’s just the citrusy notes of the cardamom mixing with the other spices because cola is basically just citrus and spice. The sweetness of the white chocolate hangs in the mouth after each sip, carried throughout the cup by the stevia…
I guess a quick note on stevia – I get that it’s a really polarizing ingredient even though I don’t personally have an adverseness to the flavour. I also, on a personal level, prefer that teas don’t include stevia or other forms of sweeteners (sugar, sprinkles, blackberry leaf – to name a few) because I think people are capable of sweetening their own tea if they want.
With that said, if you look at the most popular/best selling teas from the last few years most of them do have stevia in them – so clearly there are a large number people who either don’t care or even enjoy/want that level of sweetness. It’s frustrating for sure, but at least for me I have to remember that it’s demand that drives direction and so… if stevia keeps selling, the odds are it’s going to keep being used. This is a big area of conflict for me personally when it comes to tea development, and I’ve debated back and forth saying something about it or not because I know how polarizing stevia is…
But that’s just where I stand on stevia, and how I think about it.
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.
I’m a stevia fan, but I also sweeten my teas a ton automatically so I guess to me personally it doesn’t matter if companies pre-sweeten or not since I always like my teas even sweeter.
What about selling two versions of a blend – one with stevia, one without?
I also think that stevia is one of those ingredients that ages terribly, which could be part of the reason I dislike stevia (though that’s my fault for keeping teas around forever.)
Thank you for your thoughts on stevia. Here is mine/general ramblings..
So I am finding that I generally prefer no stevia put in the tea. I am not allergic and there are teas (DT and not DT) that I like and dislike with stevia. I, like tea-sipper, keep my teas for a long time so there is that. I also I prefer to drink my teas plain(hot, cold-steeped, or as a hot/cold latte).. I rarely put any sweetener in them.
As far as DT is concerned, Goji Green & Magic Potion are two that come to mind that’d I’d probably enjoy if it wasn’t for stevia (or Just Peachy for the blackberry leaf?). But there are other blends I don’t mind it (can’t think of any specific examples). Since 2016 I’ve owned/tried most of the flavors that have come out.
But for 2020 I’ve not tried the majority of the blends that have come out this year because they’ve sold out too quickly or I’m not interested in the profiles. I do have to say that with SO MANY FALL/WINTER/HOLIDAY flavors that DT has put out since Sept(?) the shopping cart I have right now is basically 1 kilo of cranberry pear and maybe half dozen teas 1 bag worth just to try them and stevia helped me knock some off my cart even though I’d probably enjoy the tea (chocolate chip cookie comes to mind).
Anyway, thanks for listening to my ramble. :)
Why, stevia, whyyyyyyy?! This is just stevia city. There’s a savory quality to it, that almost tastes like stuffing. Lots of ginger. Strange.
Dear god haha!
@Courtney LOL!!!
I’m not sure why DT adds stevia to everything! >.< I can just add sugar and so forth at home if I wanted it to be sweeter, lol.
It’s so frustrating! It just doesn’t seem necessary and ruins many perfectly good blends.
I am also really bothered by stevia and have complained to Roswell Strange countless times about it. However, I see her side of the argument too where, for a lot of people, stevia helps create a certain flavor profile without them having to add anything. And some people really aren’t bothered by it. At least DAVIDs has acknowledged people like us who don’t like it by having a stevia free section on their site now.
