The answer is…it depends on the tea! Because some of our blends have big chunks of fruit, chocolate and other great stuff, they don’t always stay fresh as long as our traditional straight teas. Whatever the tea, we always try to use organic products as often as possible, and strive to avoid artificial preservatives and sulphites as much as we can. It’s great for the tea, but not for its shelf life.

To make sure you’re always getting the best cup of tea possible, we recommend you follow these guidelines:

• Flavoured blends: consume within 6 months from date of purchase
• Straight camellia sinensis teas: consume within 12 months from date of purchase
• All teas and infusions: store in a cool, dark place and keep well sealed

The fact is, we don’t know for sure. There are a ton of interesting factors that can change the amount of caffeine in your cup: water temperature, steeping time, even the region of growth! Although it’s virtually impossible to measure the exact amount of caffeine in every cup, we have tested all of our teas to come up with a rating system. As a general rule, our straight teas have a medium amount of caffeine. Our blended teas can vary from low to medium depending on the blend, and how much tea is actually in there.

We sometimes get questions about whether we carry decaffeinated teas. “Decaffeinated” refers to various processes that remove caffeine from tea leaves. Right now, DAVIDsTEA doesn’t offer any decaffeinated teas. However, we have a huge selection of teas that are naturally caffeine-free.

Here are our caffeine categories – you can find the caffeine rating for each tea on its web page.

Caffeine-free <1 mg/cup
Almost all of our herbals and rooibos teas naturally do not contain caffeine.

Low caffeine 1-35 mg/cup
These white, green, oolong or black blends fall somewhere under 35 mg of caffeine per cup. Tea leaves are not the predominant ingredient in these blends.

Medium caffeine 35-80 mg/cup
These teas contain between 35 and 80 mg of caffeine per cup. In the world of tea, our medium selection still means that you won't be getting the high caffeine content of a cup of coffee.

Stimulants
Because of their unique combination of stimulants (including caffeine) and their various effects, our stimulant blends (yerba maté, guayusa, guarana) hold their own category. These stimulants are difficult to compare with the caffeine found in tea, so it’s hard to determine the exact stimulant level in relation to tea or coffee. That said, these teas all definitely have a kick – let’s just say we wouldn’t recommend them before bed.

You can find them all in store on our tea wall or for sale online.

We have, give or take, over 120 different teas that make up our permanent collection. But we always have something new at DAVIDsTEA. Each month we introduce and feature a Tea of the Month. Plus we have 4-6 Seasonal Teas each season (Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer) as well as Holiday teas.

You can find them all in store on our tea wall or for sale online.

There are a few reasons why certain teas become unavailable. If one of your favorites was discontinued, it could be because it is on back order, because it was a seasonal tea (like Luscious Watermelon, Chocolate Chili Chai, Santa’s Secret and Pumpkin Chai) or just because it wasn’t a big hit.

If a tea has been discontinued, our staff can suggest similarly delicious teas that are part of our current collection, or you can wait until the season returns when your favorite seasonal tea might reappear!

We love that you love our teas! We never want to discontinue personal favourites, we always enjoy hearing feedback, and we’ll do our best to accommodate your needs. If the demand is high enough we’ll go to great lengths to find a discontinued tea and put it back in our stores.

The answer is…maybe! We can’t be sure. Many of our seasonal teas contain ingredients that come in limited supply or are only available at certain times of the year. We do our best to bring back our most popular seasonal teas each year.

Steeping time determines a tea’s strength. So really, it’s up to you. But be aware, over-steeping some teas containing leaves from the Camellia Sinensis plant can cause them to turn bitter. At DAVIDsTEA we give specific steeping instructions on each tea label to ensure the best possible flavour for each tea. You can also check out the steeping instructions on the bottom right corner of each tea’s web page to make sure you’re brewing the best possible cup.

Steeping time is not the only factor in brewing the perfect cup. The amount of tea and the temperature of water are also specific to each tea. These instructions can also be found on each tea label or each tea’s web page.

Each cup of tea usually requires about 2-2.5g of tea. That’s about a teaspoon or a teaspoon and a half. To ensure you get the perfect cup every time, try our DAVIDsTEA Perfect Spoon. It’s an easy and stylish way to be sure you don’t go under or overboard. We sell our teas online in 50g, 100g, and 250g quantities.

50g makes about 25 cups of tea
100g makes about 50 cups of tea
250g makes about 125 cups of tea

The three things that contaminate the freshness of tea are air, sunlight, and moisture. You can get creative and devise your own airtight container if you'd like, but we love to use our Perfect Tins. They're made entirely of recycled materials, they're completely airtight, and they’re completely reusable! Just bring your empty tins back to one of our stores and we'll take $0.50 off when you buy more than 50g of tea. These super stylish tins are normally $2.50, but if you buy 100g of any tea we'll give you one for free. What a steal!

A tea qualifies as “certified organic” when it’s been grown, processed and handled within the parameters of certain established international standards whose requirements include exclusive use of: purified garden soils, approved organic fertilizers & pest controls, processing methods, packaging, labeling, shipping, storage, handling, traceability and re-packing. All organic processes must be certified by an international agency and are strictly monitored. Our organic teas are certified by QAI. At DAVIDsTEA we currently offer a large number of organic teas (the largest of any tea store in Canada!) and have many more that contain mostly organic ingredients.

At the moment, we carry fair trade certified teas, but we are not certified yet. We’re currently in the process of gaining fair trade certification and will notify you as soon as we have it.

Traditionally, tea only comes from the Camellia Sinensis plant. However, at DavidsTea we embrace all hot water infusions. So while our, white, green, oolong, black, and pu’erh teas all come from this wonderful plant, we have other “hot beverages” that come from different plants. Maté comes from the yerba maté plant, a species of holly native to South America. Rooibos is from a South African bush, and our herbal teas are basically made from flowers, seeds, twigs, herbs, spices, you name it – anything other than the leaves of the Camellia Sinensis plant.

Sure, just like apples or roses, there are many “varietals” of the two major tea plant categories. Many growers have developed their own special varietals and reproduce these by cloning. The two major categories are Camellia Sinensis from China, with its smaller, cold tolerant leaf, and Camellia Sinensis Assamica from lower in the Himalayas (Assam, India) with a larger, more cold sensitive leaf.

A tea plant is a Camellia Sinensis plant, and depending on the varietal, clone, climatic conditions and the way the plant is pruned, it can enjoy a lifespan of anywhere from 45 to 1000 years. As you can imagine, the wild plants are a very hardy species. In tea gardens, the usual and useable lifespan varies from 45 - 100 years. Not bad for a plant.

All of our straight teas are exceptional, so yes, we recommend you go for it and try them all! But to get started, choose a tea by type. Black teas are for you if you like stronger profiles. They’re flavourful all on their own. But don’t be shy if you want to satisfy your sweet tooth with a little milk and sugar. If you appreciate a more pungent character, then give Japanese green teas a try. Chinese green teas are for the tea lover who enjoys delicate green vegetables like artichokes and asparagus. White teas offer a very delicate but lingering profile overall, and oolongs are absolutely for everyone. You can’t go wrong with any of them, especially our Tie Kwan Yin.

Traditionally, tea only comes from the camellia sinensis plant. However, at Davids Tea we embrace all hot water infusions. So while our black, green, white, oolong and pu’erh teas all come from this wonderful plant, we have other “hot beverages” that come from more unique sources. Maté comes from the yerba mate plant; a species of holly native to South America. Rooibos is from a South African bush, and herbal teas are basically made from pouring boiling water over flowers, seeds, twigs, you name it – anything other than the leaves of the camellia sinensis plant.

You sure can. It’s called 'multiple steeping' and is known as the “gung fu” method. Gung-fu literally means “many steps” or “much handling.” Multiple steeping can be successful using almost any tea (though it’s not so great for herbals). For tastiest results, keep steepings very short and use about twice the usual amount of tea. The length of the steep will be dependent upon the leaf style of the tea used. The tighter the roll, the longer each steep can be. And be prepared, you don’t just get more tea for your buck, you also get variety. Because with every steep the leaves open up more and more. You could say the flavour evolves with every steep.

To each his own. Although every one of our straight teas stands on its own and steeps a delicious cup, feel free to add whatever you like. Breakfast teas with milk, sugar and little cinnamon or chocolate are great. Adding a little whipped cream to strong black tea can also be terrific. It’s a little celebration in your cup. Recently we were asked to develop a green tea with marshmallows – it sounded odd at first so we experimented with this a bit...not so bad!

Tea can be a delicate business. Some ingredients are quite scarce and all are seasonal, agricultural products. Because of this they may vary in availability. A tea tends to look different from one blend to another. Take lemongrass for instance – its supply has been difficult to standardize over the past few years due to climatic chaos in the regions where it’s grown. Tea comes from the earth. It’s a living, growing plant in a constant state of change. So we respect it, and we just roll with it.

The word “orange” in “Orange Pekoe” has nothing to do with the citrus fruit. Orange Pekoe is a grade of tea. The grade “orange” refers to tea that would have passed inspection by the Earl of Orange, an 18th century tea aficionado who was picky about his tea leaves. The word “pekoe” (pronounced like “gecko” only with a “p”) is a Chinese word that originally referred to “whole leaf” tea.

In tea grading when it is followed by letters, the greater the number and the younger the buds. The younger the buds, the smaller the leaves. For example, our Darjeeling First Flush FTGFOP1 means Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe, First Grade.

The opposite of full leaf grades of tea are Fannings and Dust. These are the parts of tea leaves left over from sieving broken-leaf tea and are often used to fill tea bags.