Author: Michelle

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Zhena’s Gypsy Tea’s Caramel Chai

Caramel Chai by Zhena’s Gypsy Tea
Rooibos Tea / Flavoured
$8.99 USD for 36g (for the entire sampler)

This is a review of a tea that I received for my birthday in 2015. I won’t be doing too much digging into the costs of the gifts that I’ve received.

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First Impressions

Caramel Chai smells very spicy and sweet. It’s part of the sampler that Hazelnut Chai came in (my thoughts on the weight per bag vs. total weight of tea in the sampler is proof that math is actually handy in real life) and is the second tea from the bottom. I love the container still, it’s quite handy. The tea bags are the same as for the Hazelnut Chai – nice round bags that don’t come with a string (which I don’t mind too much). Caramel Chai smells heavily of spices and not so much on the ‘caramel’ side of things. It does smell distinctly sweeter than Hazelnut Chai, if that’s any consolation.

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Caramel Chai is made up of: organic, fair-trade certified rooibos, cinnamon, ginger root, licorice root, natural flavouring, cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, black pepper, organic vanilla bean. All of the ingredients listed have little asterisk next to it (aside from the “natural flavoring”) to indicate that the ingredients are certified organic. Pretty neat! But that’s an awful lot of ingredients to make it taste like caramel. I’m not a big of fan of licorice candy, so I’m crossing my fingers that the licorice taste doesn’t come out too much (or, if it does, that it mingles well with the other ingredients!).

Preparation

Zhena’s Gypsy Teas recommends steeping the tea bag in water that’s been brought to a rolling boil and to steep for 3 to 5 minutes. I steeped for about 4 minutes.

First Taste

Caramel Chai is pleasant, very spicy – the Chai really overpowers most aspects of this rooibos tea. The sweetness of the caramel isn’t very bold or inviting. The tea itself is a lovely red colour, and it really benefits from having just a little bit of sweetener added to it. I used white sugar, and that helped to brighten up the flavour and it does help to coax out those caramel notes, which are still quite weak in comparison to the spices of the Chai itself. I quite like it though, it’s a very pleasant cup of tea.

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A Second Cup?

Resteeping Caramel Chai doesn’t do much in terms of coaxing out more flavour or doing well for a second cup of tea. I don’t think Caramel Chai does well with more than one steeping.

My Overall Impression

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I liked Zhena’s Gypsy Tea’s Caramel Chai. It hits all the right spice notes as a Chai should, and while the caramel flavour was a little lost for me, a small amount of sweetener helps to coax out the flavour a bit and having a sweetener helps to brighten up the flavour a lot. I think this tea definitely benefits from having sugar (or a sweetener of your choice) added to it. It has a pleasant aroma and is easy on the palate. I think it’s a lovely Chai and the added bonus of being caffeine free (as it is a rooibos base) makes it nice for having any time of day.

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DavidsTea’s Red Velvet Cake

Red Velvet Cake by DavidsTea
Black Tea / Flavoured
$7.90 for 50g

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First Impressions

Red Velvet Cake smells more like cake than tea, there’s no doubt about it. In a way, it reminds me of Birthday Cake, but there’s a chocolate fragrance to this tea that Birthday Cake lacks. The aroma of vanilla and chocolate wafts up from the bag when I open it, and it’s just delightful.

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Red Velvet Cake is a black tea blend that consists of: black tea, chocolate, white chocolate, sprinkles, beetroot powder, natural and artificial flavouring. It also contains milk and soy in the ingredients, so those that cannot have lactose beware! It smells and looks amazing. If it had more red and white to the tea, I could see this being marketed as a Canadian tea (since, after all, DavidsTea is Canadian).

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Red Velvet Cake in 96°C (204°F) water for 4-7 minutes. I steeped my cup of Red Velvet Cake for the full 7 minutes to give the sprinkles and chocolate the time to melt and dissolve.

First Taste

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Red Velvet Cake is not a clear tea, it’s a bit of a murky reddish brown colour and it has an oily film on top that I was expecting (this is from the oils in the chocolate and the sprinkles). It smells amazing though, just like the dry tea smelled. Chocolate and vanilla, what’s not to love? On first taste, I’m greeted with the oily mouth feel that the oils from the sprinkles and chocolate gives the tea. It’s not unpleasant and does coat my mouth a bit. The flavour of the tea itself isn’t to exciting. It is surprisingly not as sweet as I expected it to be (since there’s so many sugar-laden ingredients). I added some sugar to the tea and that helped brightened up the overall flavour of the vanilla although I still struggle to find the chocolate in the flavour. The black tea base is also hard to find in each sip. The tea itself is okay in terms of flavour, although I do wish the chocolate came out a bit more (along with the tea base). If you set aside the cup and walk away and come back, the tea does not redeem itself when it is cold.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped the leaves from my first cup – it will be a surprise to nobody that it didn’t turn out very well for a second cup. I would say that Red Velvet Cake is a one cup wonder.

My Overall Impression

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I thought that DavidsTea’s Red Velvet Cake was just okay. This reminds me a lot of Birthday Cake, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. The chocolate was a struggle to find, and the tea itself was a bit of a let down in terms of matching up between the dry leaf and the steeped tea. It smells amazing though, and when it is hot the tea is quite palatable. It has a nice, rich vanilla flavour to the tea, but I think steeping it according to the directions was where I went wrong. I will try this again with more of the tea (perhaps in a pot?) and steep it for longer periods of time in hopes of coaxing out more of that sugar and chocolate from the sprinkles and chocolate chips. Given the ingredients, I would say this would likely taste really good steeped in milk as well or at least having some cream added to it to give it that bit of oomph that it needs to have a heightened richness in flavour, but it’s not doing much for me having steeped it in water.

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DavidsTea’s Buddha’s Blend

Buddha’s Blend by DavidsTea
White and Green Tea / Flavoured
$10.90 for 50g

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First Impressions

Buddha’s Blend was recommended to me one day when I was in the DavidsTea store and wanting to smell some teas (as one does). I asked the sales representative for some recommendations and she must have pulled down like twenty different teas for me to waft towards my nose. Buddha’s Blend intrigued me because it’s a white and green tea blend. Plus it has such beautiful floral notes and big (very obvious!) hibiscus flowers that just add another layer of delicacy to the tea itself.

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Buddha’s Blend consists of: white tea, green tea, jasmine pearls, white hibiscus blossoms, natural and artificial flavouring. The dry tea has this amazing floral taste (from the mixture of jasmine and hibiscus, I would assume), but it also smells like peaches and pears, which is interesting to me because those ingredients are nowhere to be found on the ingredients list (unless it’s part of the “natural and artificial flavouring”). It is a very beautiful tea though, the mix of ingredients is lovely to look at!

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Buddha’s Blend in 80C (176F) water for 2-3 minutes. I opted for closer to 2 minutes since it’s so easy to over steep white teas and end up with a bitter cup. If you’re steeping a tea blend and there isn’t any guidelines for steeping, always opt to steep for less time because you can always steep it longer (but you can’t turn back time).

First Taste

Buddha’s Blend smells amazing. It doesn’t smell as strongly as a juicy peach or pear (like it did in dry leaf form), but it’s still there. It smells fruity and floral with underlying notes of sweetness. Buddha’s Blend steeps to this lovely pale yellow colour and it has such an inviting fragrance! On first taste, I can taste the jasmine for sure, the floral taste of jasmine is so very present and it doesn’t taste like peaches or pears (which is a bit of a disappointment. The tea base itself is a bit lost in the blend of ingredients, although there is a mild astringency to the end of each sip. 2 minutes may be a bit too long for this blend, despite it being on the low end of the recommended steeping time. I tried steeping a fresh spoonful of Buddha’s Blend for around 90 seconds and the astringency is gone in the taste of the tea. There’s also more obvious tea notes in the cup that was steeped for only 90 seconds in comparison to the one steeped for the full 2 minutes. It’s a tasty cup of tea!

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A Second Cup?

Buddha’s Blend tastes like floral water for steep #2 (for the leaves originally steeped for 90 seconds) and it’s bitter. I would say that Buddha’s Blend is only good for one steep.

My Overall Impression

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I thought that DavidsTea’s Buddha’s Blend was just okay. It makes for a fairly pleasant cup of tea – if you don’t over steep it and it’s unfortunate that the directions say to steep for 2-3 minutes when I found steeping for 2 minutes resulted in a sub par cup of tea. Overall, the taste of the tea is good if you don’t over steep it, and the dry tea smells amazing. I just wish the flavours of peaches and pears was more present in the tea itself after steeping. There’s a slight sweetness to the tea that I enjoy. I would have another cup of this tea (which is a good thing because I probably have about 20 more grams of it), but it probably won’t become a staple in my tea stash. It’s a little finicky in the steeping times, and while it smells delicious, it doesn’t do well for resteeping and it doesn’t taste as good as it smells which lends to (bitter) disappointment.

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