Author: Michelle

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DavidsTea’s Sunny C

Sunny C by DavidsTea
Fruit Infusion / Flavoured
$8.98 for 50g

First Impressions

I picked up a little pouch of Sunny C at one of my local DavidsTea retail locations (yes, I am still very much aware of how lucky I am to have several locations within driving distance to me!). I first smelled this one in store and was intrigued because the aroma of Sunny C reminds me of Tang. If you’re not familiar with Tang, it’s an orange drink mix that smells sweet and chock full of artificial orange flavouring and colour. Sunny C is marketed as an “immune booster bursting with orange, carrot & a sunny dose of Vitamin C”.

If you’re not into drinking your vitamins, vitamin C is also found in many foods – including citrus fruit, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and strawberries. Vitamin C is also important in preventing scurvy and lengthening the duration of the common cold – although there isn’t a lot of evidence to support vitamin C in preventing the common cold. Either way, vitamin C is important.

There are some huge dried fruit pieces in this fruit infusion blend that DavidsTea has put together. Sunny C consists of: apple, carrots, pineapple, orange, hibiscus, lemon peel, pink peppercorns, safflowers, ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and natural flavouring. For something that smells incredibly like Tang, which is the most fake-smelling orange drink  item that I can think of, I’m surprised that orange is the fourth ingredient in the blend and not somewhere higher up.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Sunny C in 95°C (200°F) water for 5+ minutes. My initial steep of Sunny C was for 7 minutes.

First Taste

Sunny C steeps to a dark reddish pink – a colour that I primarily attribute to the presence of hibiscus flowers and possibly also the safflowers as well. It still smells like Tang, but not as sweet as the dry leaf smells like. The flavour is surprisingly not as sweet as I expected it to be – and doesn’t taste as artificial as I remember Tang to be. Sunny C has a nice citrus flavour, which a pleasant acidic mouthpucker that I am attributing to all the acidic ingredients in the blend. It is a very pleasant fruity infusion that is very pleasant hot – I think it would also make for a nice iced tea as well, given the blend of ingredients, but it’s November and I really don’t want to make iced tea right now.

A Second Cup?

I attempted to resteep Sunny C once, but honestly the flavour was just not there and I would recommend only having one steep with this fruit infusion.

My Overall Impression

I liked DavidsTea’s Sunny C. For a fruity blend, it has a pleasant flavour and smells like a drink that I drank far too often when I was at my neighbour’s house after school when I was waiting for my parents to get home. If your main purpose in drinking it is consume some vitamin C, it isn’t that bad – as per the DavidsTea product page for Sunny C, this fruit infusion contains 15% of the daily recommended intake of vitamin C per cup. That said, there are less expensive ways to get in your daily vitamin C (for instance, an average orange can contain approximately 88% of your daily recommended vitamin C intake), but it is fairly tasty.

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.

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Vancouver Tea Festival 2018: Recap

Over the past weekend, I was at the 5th annual Vancouver Tea Festival, hosted by the Vancouver Tea Society at the Chinese Cultural Centre and the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in historic Chinatown in Vancouver, British Columbia. The event happened on Saturday, November 3rd (10am to 5pm) and Sunday, November 4th (11am to 4pm).

Each day of the tea festival had both presentations (included with the price of admission) and tastings (ticketed; I didn’t attend the tastings but I believe they were $5 per person, per tasting). The information was all laid out on the website in advance so I could plan accordingly to make sure I knew when I had to be where.

Herbs from the Herbal Tea-Making Workshop

A sampling of Amoda’s Curated Collection

I was there bright and early, even if Vancouver was living up to its nickname of Raincouver, on Saturday because the presentations that I wanted to attend on Saturday were the first two – Matcha 101 with Kimmy Xiao of Whisk Premium Matcha and Herbal Tea-Making Workshop with Tegan Woo of Amoda Tea and Vivien Hsiung of Vive Wellness. There were some technical difficulties and hiccups on day 1, but the presenters were all very graceful and took it in stride as they kept calm and carried on. Both presentations that I attended were so informative – I learned so much about the history and production of matcha as well as herbal properties and how to blend with intention. Continue reading “Vancouver Tea Festival 2018: Recap”

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Adagio Teas’s Masala Chai

Masala Chai by Adagio Teas
Black Tea / Flavoured
$8.00USD for 3oz (85g)

First Impressions

Masala Chai came to me in a resealable pouch that had all the necessary information on the label – which is always a nice touch. I have friends and family members with food allergies, so it’s always important to me to be able to check at a quick glance what ingredients are present in a tea blend (thankfully nobody has told me so far that they have an allergy to tea yet!). The rich aroma from the dry leaf is primarily that of the spices that are present in the blend. I can mostly smell the cinnamon and the ginger, as those are the strongest fragrances that I can pick out.

Masala Chai consists of: black tea, cardamom, ginger root, cloves, natural cinnamon flavour, and cinnamon bark. What’s nice is that the ingredients are easy to identify in the blend, there seems to be a fairly even distribution of most of the spices throughout the chai blend.

Preparation

Adagio Teas recommends steeping Masala Chai in 100°C (212°F) water for 7 to 10 minutes. I followed the steeping recommendations and did an initial steep of 10 minutes.

First Taste

Masala Chai steeps to a golden brown with a rich, spicy fragrance from the chai mix. I can easily taste the cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. There’s a pleasant sweetness in the tea, which balances well with the spicy notes with this black tea blend. I do find myself searching a bit for the cardamom, which is a flavour that I quite enjoy in chai blends but I also do recognize that it can be easily overpowered by strong spices such as the ginger and cinnamon.

I did pour myself a cup of Masala Chai, and added a healthy amount of locally sourced honey as well as some evaporated milk. Like many chai blends, this is a tea that takes to the addition of sweetener and milk or cream well.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Masala Chai twice, adding an additional 30 seconds for each subsequent steep. I found that the first resteep was most similiar to the initial steep – it was a bit watery compared to the initial steep. The second resteep did not fair well, and frankly I did not enjoy it at all. I would say that Masala Chai is good for one more steep.

My Overall Impression

I liked Adagio Teas’s Masala Chai. The flavours of the spices were pleasant, and it did hold it fairly decently to being resteeped. I found myself wishing that the cardamon was more present in the initial steep, and would have liked for it to have a heavier presence in the tea. The other spices were well represented in Adagio Teas’ version of Masala Chai, and I found it to make for a nice cup of tea.

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.