Author: Michelle

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Citizen Tea’s White Cranberry

White Cranberry by Citizen Tea
White Tea / Flavoured
$11.00 for 50g

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Citizen Tea has provided me with White Cranberry for the purposes of providing an honest review. I received this product at no charge to me and received no other compensation.

First Impressions

This is the first of a few reviews from Citizen Tea, which I was really excited to receive in the mail. White Cranberry was the first I tried because I was feeling like having something light – which I typically find white teas to be light. This white tea blend consists of: white tea, bamboo leaves, snow white tea, pomegranate leaves, and flavouring.

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The description of this tea on Citizen Tea’s website states that there are cranberry blossoms in it somewhere (perhaps that is in the flavouring?). This tea smells amazing, I’m not going to lie. It has a very bright, fruity smell to it. The smell reminds me exactly of dried sweetened cranberries – do you know what craisins smell like? It’s just like that, and I love craisins so it’s a great smell to me.

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Preparation

Citizen Tea recommends steeping this white tea blend in 80°C (176°F) water for 2-3 minutes. The initial steep I did of White Cranberry was for 2 minutes in 175°F water, because that is the white tea setting on my Breville IQ Kettle.

First Taste

White Cranberry steeps to a lovely yellow colour, it smells strongly of cranberries. On first taste, the flavour of the tea is muted compared to the fragrance of the steeped tea. I find that the tea has a mild sweetness, even though it does smell a lot steeper than it actually is. The white tea base isn’t overpowered by the fruity taste. I do think it tastes like cranberries, with a hint of something else that reminds me a bit of raspberries. I find the tea itself to be smooth and free of bitterness. It’s enjoyable, and two minutes was a good length of tea time.

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A Second Cup?

I steeped White Cranberry a second time (for 2 minutes 30 seconds) and I found the colour was signficiantly lighter. The taste of this white tea blend was considerably more tea base and less cranberry. The base itself is delicious – it has a very mild sweetness with light vegetal taste to it. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of berry flavours the second time around, but it was a bit of a treat to be exposed to the white tea base in this blend.

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My Overall Impression

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I liked Citizen Tea’s White Cranberry. I really liked it during the first steep – the fruity taste of the cranberries in this white tea blend is delicious. I think it smells really good (both dry leaf and steeped), but I do wish that it resteeped a little bit better. That said, the price of this tea quite reasonable for a white tea blend. I find white teas are generally more expensive, and the price point of this tea (and others) on the Citizen Tea website are quite competitive. I think White Cranberry works really well for the first steep, if you’re in love with the fruity taste. The second steep is a good experience with the white tea, I just wish that the cranberry taste carried over better – but both steeps are good.

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Cold Steeping vs. Sun Steeping

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All tea drinkers know the usual steeping formula: tea leaves + hot water = tea! But what about cold steeping (also referred to as cold brewing) or sun steeping? I decided to do a little experiment!

I used DavidsTea’s Honeycrisp Apple because it’s a tea that I love hot or cold, and I also had enough to complete this experiment. I use about 1.5x the usual amount of tea leaves that I would use for my regular steeping method. The amount of tea you use is entirely up to you. The benefits to both of these steeping methods is that you don’t run into the issue of bitter or oversteeped tea. Part of the reason why some teas are so tempermental is that they are sensitive to high temperatures and long steep times.

Cold Steeping/Cold Brewing

I put 2 spoonfuls of the tea into a mason jar and filled it up with room temperature water. The lid goes on, and I put it into the fridge. I started the process at 11pm and strained the tea leaves out at 9am. Total steep time: 10 hours.

Sun Steeping

I put 2 spoonfuls of the tea into a mason jar and filled it up with room temperature water. The lid goes on, and I put it out onto my patio in direct sunlight. I started the process at 11am and finished it at 3pm. Total steep time: 4 hours.

Most online references I found for sun steeping or sun steeped tea says to limit steeping between 3 to 5 hours.

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How does it taste?

For both jars of tea, I used a strainer to capture all of the tea leaves. What I was left with was two jars of tea.

The cold steeped tea was a nice, sweet tea, it smells just like the dry leaf and has a nice sweet taste that was almost as if I had added sugar or honey (except I hadn’t).

The sun steeped tea was considerably stronger in aroma – the apple flavour was quite fragrant. The flavours are stronger, brighter, but not quite as sweet.

I think the cold steeped tea requires less cooperative weather, I’m not sure how well it would fare if there was a bit of overcast as I picked a fairly sunny day that had highs of 22°C (~72°F). Cold steeping is something that’s easy to do if you do it the night before. Say you wanted iced tea for a party, just set up a pitcher and put it into the fridge. This is easiest if you have drawstring tea bags so you won’t have to strain out the tea later.

Both methods result in bitter-free tea, which is great since I did pick a tea blend that has a green tea base. This would be great with any type of tea since it won’t burn the tea leaves during the steeping process. I think both methods would be great for iced tea, just add some cubes after you’ve strained the tea.

 

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DavidsTea’s Quince Charming

Quince Charming by DavidsTea
Black Tea / Flavoured
$8.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

I picked this up at my local DavidsTea because it was marked down – I’m a sucker for new-to-me teas that are on sale. Quince Charming is said to be both hot and iced, as per the company that sells this black tea blend, so I’ll give both temperature extremes a try. When I opened the bag, the first thing I smell is the sweet smells of apples and pears. There’s some mild floral notes, and a brightness to the fruity aromas that reminds me a lot of lychees.

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Quince Charming is made up of apple, black tea, sweet blackberry leaves, hibiscus, apple pomace, quince, and natural quince flavouring. You can see quite a bit of the ingredients in the dry leaf. Quince often smells, to me at least, like pears, so I think that’s where the pear aroma was coming from.

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Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Quince Charming in near-boiling water for 4 to 7 minutes, near-boiling is 194-203°F (90-95°C). I steeped my pot of Quince Charming was close to 5 minutes for the initial steep.

First Taste

Quince Charming smells quite strongly of apples in the steeped tea. It’s a bright orange-red colour that is lovely to look at. When I smell the tea, the floral aroma is still very much present, and the apple fragrance is strong. I don’t really smell the pear/quince flavours that I noted in the dry leaf. On first sip of this black tea blend, I note that it’s quite tart. I think that’s to do with the hibiscus. There’s a certain amount of mouthpucker that I feel that this fruity-floral black tea blend lends itself to because of the ingredients. There’s a certain mix of tart and sour that reminds me a lot of sour candy. The floral notes in this tea are a bit overwhelming when the tea is hot, it almost seems a but perfume-y to me – just too much floral.

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I did pour a second cup over some ice cubes and found that the lower temperature helped to tone down the floral flavour. The tartness/sourness was a bit more palatable when the tea is cooler. I definitely liked Quince Charming better iced than hot.

A Second Cup?

Quince Charming did a remarkably poor job with being resteeped. The flavours were watered down and tasted nothing like the initial steep that I did of this fruity black tea blend. I would say that Quince Charming is not good for one more steep.

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My Overall Impression

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I thought that DavidsTea’s Quince Charming was just okay. I did not like this tea hot at all – the floral notes were overwhelming and it was far too tart and sour for me, I can’t imagine how it would have tasted if I had left it to steep for a full 7 minutes! That said, Quince Charming does quite well as an iced tea. A bit of sweetener would help to balance out the tartness, but having it iced helps as well. Unfortunately, this tea does badly at being resteeped, so there’s no added value there. I find that it reminded me quite a bit of Honeycrisp Apple (an apple green tea blend from DavidsTea), but with some minor changes in ingredients. Between the two apple tea blends, I would opt for Honeycrisp Apple over Quince Charming.

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