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This is a queued tasting note.

So, a lot has been going on for me this week and much of that has actually directly correlated to DAVIDsTEA. I’ll be finishing up my Sommelier classes in less than a month now so I’ve been thinking about what I want to do afterwards. A fairly good friend of mine works at DAVIDsTEA and she recommended applying to work there as one of the seasonal tea guides just to get some tea related work experience on my resume and I thought that was an awesome idea. If nothing else, I think it’s a work environment I’d genuinely enjoy and it’ll be nice having that extra cash flow for the Christmas season.

So I actually got my cup of this during my group interview! One of the things they told us to expect for the interview was a free cup of tea and then my friend tipped me off that sometimes in smaller interviews one of the questions is to “sell” the tea you picked to the interviewer. So picking this one was definitely more strategic for me because it’s a tea I have LOTS of familiarity with and I knew there would be tons of different ways I could spin it. I could have talked about the “myth” based origins of the blend that relate to how it got its name because I know I’m always more interested in a tea when there’s a story or its nickname “The People’s Tea” and how that originated. I also know a ton of ways to cook with Genmaicha or pair it with different cheeses and chocolates so I thought that could be a unique approach as well. It’s also a great evening tea because of the lower caffeine amount and the fact the roasty notes are very soothing. Finally, I think it’s a perfect tea to bride the gap between traditional and “pure” teas and more fun, flavored ones. Also, I just really fucking like Genmaicha.

Turns out – that wasn’t even one of the interview questions. Probably because my group interview was gargantuan: roughly twenty people! Everyone wants to work for DAVIDsTEA…

Questions they did ask, for anyone curious, were availability (that was a huge focus) and what ‘defines’ good customer service as well as examples of how you could provide it at their store as well as how its been provided or not provided for you at other stores. Our interviewer (the store manager) also wanted to know our general preexisting knowledge of tea fucking nailed that part and then to finish and to get a sense of our personalities we were asked to either describe the person who has been our biggest influence in life/motivation in life OR an object that we feel close to that directly ties into our identity. I chose to talk about my tattoos – specifically the three I feel hold the most meaning, which would be my memorial tattoo, my Shel Silverstein piece, and my Camellia Sinensis tattoo.

Apart from the sheer size of the group, I’d say it was a pretty straight forward interview that, even if I hadn’t prepped before hand, would have been really easy to navigate. I’m a big fan of group interviews in general and I think finding a balance between having personality and standing out without ‘screaming for attention’ or talking over other applicants is something I’ve always done well with.

Oh, and I got the job! I should start somewhere between a week from now and two weeks. Once I start I think I’m going to continue to rate DAVIDsTEA blends, just without assigning any numerical score to them unless the Steepster community seems to have objections to that approach. I think that’s a good balance between continuing to write about them while still remaining impartial and not skewing the average rating here on the site. In the mean time, I’m going to continue to to review as normal. Also, any numerical ratings I currently have up for existing blends I think I will just leave untouched as they were before I was hired.

Thoughts?