Author: Michelle

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Murchie’s Canadian Breakfast

Canadian Breakfast by Murchie’s
Black Tea / Flavoured
$4.95 for 2oz (56g)

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First Impressions

Murchie’s is delightful, in case you ever get the chance to go into one of their shops. Small, quaint, and filled with things to delight any tea lover. I went in this autumn for the first time and bought two teas, Canadian Breakfast and Princess Blend (review coming soon!). I had a wonderful time, in part because of the great customer service that I experienced. They have a minimum order of 2oz of most teas, except from their “top shelf” teas where you can opt for only 1oz. The top shelf teas are, as one might expect, more expensive.

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Canadian Breakfast smells of maple and black teas. The ingredients are: Ceylon and Keemun black teas, maple flavouring. The packaging is simple but informative. On the back (where the weight and name of tea is hand written) includes a general brewing guide. The two sides feature information (one side about brewing a good cup of tea, the other about Murchie’s the company). The front of the back boasts that Murchie’s uses “premium tea from select gardens around the world” and has a clear window so you can see your tea. It’s smells really good, and I like most maple things as much as the next Canadian.

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I like their packaging because it’s generic enough and informative enough that they can use it for all of their teas. I’m not a terribly big fan of the clear window and the fact that it’s not air tight (the big things that can ruin tea is: light, air, humidity, heat and odours – remember, if tea can take on aromas to flavour the tea, it can take on other smells as well!), but it does the trick until time comes to transfer to a tea tin.

Preparation

Murchie’s recommendation for their black teas is to steep in water that is 96-100°C (205-212°F) for 3 to 5 minutes.

First Taste

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Canadian Breakfast is bright and bold in a way that is expected from a breakfast tea. The tea part of the breakfast tea packs an amazing amount of aroma and flavour when the tea is steeping. Canadian Breakfast steeps to a dark reddish brown, a colour that remind me of orange pekoe. Most of the aroma of the steeped tea is the black tea blend, with a very subtle hint of maple. When tasting, the tea has a really bold flavour – the tea blend itself packs a bit of a punch with a flavour that reminds me a bit of grains and barley (malt flavours) with an astringent quality to it, and there’s the added sweetness of the maple that really brightens up the overall flavour. The maple isn’t very in-your-face once the tea has steeped, but it adds more flavour that makes the tea more complex than your average breakfast tea.

A Second Cup?

Canadian Breakfast does wonderfully for a second cup. The maple flavouring is slightly less pronounced, as one would expect, but it does the trick. If you’re missing the sweetness of maple, a bit of sugar or honey helps bring out what maple flavouring is in your tea quite a bit to make cup #2 closer to cup #1. Canadian Breakfast doesn’t do that well for a third steeping.

My Overall Impression

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I liked Murchie’s Canadian Breakfast. It’s a really nice tea with bright, bold flavour with the sweetness of maple. I’m not generally one for breakfast teas (e.g. English or Irish), but I quite like Murchie’s Canadian version of a breakfast tea. For the price of the loose tea, it is decently priced. There are a lot more cheaper breakfast teas out there, but this one has an amazing quality about it that actually makes me like it – which puts its pricing solidly in the “worth it” category. I think as a tea, I’d drink it only after getting up when I’m looking for something to help wake me up rather than a tea that’s good for any time of day. If you’re looking for a breakfast tea that’s different from your usual English or Irish blends, I’d definitely recommend that you give Canadian Breakfast a try.

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DavidsTea’s Pure Vanilla

Pure Vanilla by DavidsTea
Rooibos Tea / Flavoured
$7.90 for 50g

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First Impressions

The primary reason why I bought this tea while I was in the DavidsTea shop (for browsing purposes, honest) was because of the way it smells. I don’t drink roobios teas often (I make an exception for Birthday Cake though), but it just smelled so good. It has a very rich vanilla fragrance that mingles well with the aroma of the rooibos base and it just smells really, really good. I’m a big fan of vanilla (I love using vanilla extract when baking!), so having a vanilla tea is kind of perfect.

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Pure Vanilla is made up of: red rooibos, vanilla beans, marigold flowers, and flavouring. For those curious, the DavidsTea website states that it is natural flavouring (my guess would be vanilla flavouring, given the rich and heavy vanilla scent to the tea). It is an organic tea, if that matters to you.

Preparation

The recommendation is to steep in 96°C (204°F) water for 4-7 minutes. I went right for the middle and steeped for about ~5-6 minutes. For rooibos teas, I like to use tea filters over metal infusers. I find that the rooibos itself is very fine and can get out of infusers, they stay in place better with the tea filters as long as you cinch it up tight.

First Taste

After steeping for about 5 minutes, the aroma is really inviting. It has a nice warm vanilla fragrance to the tea, Pure Vanilla steeps to a rich reddish brown that reminds me of the colour of chestnuts. It smells more heavily of vanilla than of the rooibos. The taste is pleasant. It has a nice light vanilla flavour that mingles well with the rooibos. There is a bit of an oily mouthfeel to this tea, which is I found to be off-putting near the end of the first cup, and there is a bit of an astringent taste to the end of each sip. Just a slight pucker, but it’s there.

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A Second Cup?

Pure Vanilla does well for a second steeping – the flavour is very close to the first cup! On the third try, it was more of a vaguely vanilla-tasting water.

My Overall Impression

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I thought that DavidsTea’s Pure Vanilla was just okay. While the smell and the taste of the tea itself is lovely and quite enjoyable, but the end of the first cup the oily mouthfeel was just not welcome. If you have one cup, and perhaps don’t finish the entire cup, you may not get put of by the texture. It’s an alright tea and I can see why DavidsTea wound up using Pure Vanilla as one of the teas to make tea-infused body products with because it smells amazing. I just wouldn’t want to finish a cup of it, which doesn’t really make it worth it to me to stock in my tea stash. It’s good enough for a cup perhaps here and there, but I wouldn’t continually go back to it.

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Teavana’s Jasmine Silver Needle

Jasmine Silver Needle by Teavana
White Tea / Flavoured
$19.98 for 2oz

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First Impressions

Jasmine Silver Needle smells amazing. Like the many other jasmine teas, it has a delicate floral scent. The tea leaves themselves are long and, as expected with silver needle tea, the leaves have the downy texture that is visible in the light. It’s a really pretty tea overall, and I quite like the look of it. In comparison to a lower quality jasmine tea, the Jasmine Silver Needle appears to be high quality and a true silver needle tea.

The ingredients are fairly simple, Teavana’s website states that the tea is made of: White tea scented with jasmine blossoms.

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Preparation

Teavana recommends steeping Jasmine Silver Needle in 79°C (175°F) water for 4-5 minutes. I opted to steep for closer to 4 minutes.

First Taste

Jasmine Silver Needle steeps to a light yellow colour, and it has an interesting fragrance to the tea itself. There is the floral jasmine scent, but then there’s also a little bit of a vegetal smell that reminds me a bit of cut grass. On first sip, the Jasmine Silver Needle is interesting. It does have a great floral taste, but it’s quite overwhelming compared to the actual tea itself. The actual vegetal tastes of the tea itself are lost and the majority of what I can experience when drinking this tea is the jasmine – a lot of jasmine. The tea itself is quite enjoyable – it’s smooth with a slight mouthfeel quality to it and it’s a very enjoyable cup of tea.

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A Second Cup?

On second steeping, it’s very similar to the first cup. The floral aroma and taste of the jasmine continues to overwhelm the silver needle.

My Overall Impression

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I thought that Teavana’s Jasmine Silver Needle was just okay. If I were to compare it to other jasmine teas, it would hold its own because it does really well in the jasmine part of it. But as a silver needle tea, it needs a lot of work. That isn’t to say that the tea isn’t good, because it is. It’s a very good jasmine tea that I find really good. But as a silver needle it falls short of expectations because the natural flavour and aroma of the silver needle tea is overpowered by the jasmine flowers. At the price that it’s at, it’s an overpriced jasmine tea. I’d drink it again, but I wouldn’t stock it in my stash – there’s better (and cheaper!) jasmine teas around.

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