Category: Review

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Gold Peak Tea’s Natural Lemon Flavour Iced Tea

Natural Lemon Flavour Iced Tea by Gold Peak Tea
Black Tea / Flavoured
$2.97 for 1.75L

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First Impressions

Gold Peak Tea appeared in my local grocery store and I was curious – mostly because it’s a tea product and I’m all about the tea. I was a little bit cautious though, because I can be a bit particular about my teas and a product like this isn’t something that I can play around with to really tweak and modify to my liking. That said, I decided to give their Natural Lemon Flavour Iced Tea a try – mostly because it was on sale.

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Natural Lemon Flavour Iced Tea is made up of: tea (filtered water, brewed tea concentrate), cane sugar, natural flavour, citric acid, and potassium citrate. Not a terribly long list of ingredients, which is nice to see in a prepared product. As a bonus, the label does mention that this product doesn’t contain preservatives or added colours. Oh, and this iced tea has to be kept refrigerated.

First Taste

Natural Lemon Flavour Iced Tea has a nice colour to it, I can definitely tell that the brewed tea concentrate that they used is a black. The aroma of this tea is all lemon, which isn’t to surprising considering the name of the tea. The lemon flavour is very bright, and the tea itself isn’t as sweet as I expected. The cane sugar has just enough sweetness to cut the lemon to the point where you can taste the lemon and it isn’t making your mouth pucker. The tea base itself has a slight malty flavour to it, which makes me wonder if they used an Assam as the base. It’s smooth going down, and it does well in a pinch if you’re craving some iced tea.

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My Overall Impression

3cups-2

I liked Gold Peak Tea’s Natural Lemon Flavour Iced Tea. It’s not too sickeningly sweet, and it’s nice to see a product on the shelf that isn’t full of high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners. I would have liked to have more information about the tea itself on the packaging, although I’m 99% sure that it’s a black tea base in this bottle. I think it’s a great iced tea if you’re looking for something on the go or if you’re not confident in your iced tea steeping skills. The balance of sweetness from the cane sugar to the lemon in this tea are quite good, especially since neither overpower the tea base which I really like. I’m still a huge fan of making my own iced teas at home, I like being able to make a wider variety of iced tea flavours and there’s not a lot of wiggle room in the flavours of this iced tea because it’s a fully prepared product. That said, I think it is delicious. One of the reasons that I probably won’t buy too much of it is because the bottle does take up a lot of real estate in my fridge. If it was shelf-stable and I could keep some in my pantry to save for when I’m feeling lazy, I think that would be a total game changer.

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Citizen Tea’s Milk Oolong

Milk Oolong by Citizen Tea
Oolong Tea / Flavoured
$10.50 for 50g

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

First Impressions

I love a good oolong, so I was really excited that one of the teas that Citizen Tea sent me was their Milk Oolong. I’ve had a few milk oolongs in the past and I really love the creamy and buttery flavour that a lot of them have. When I opened up this sample packet, I smelled a floral fragrance first followed by a scent that reminds me a lot of condensed milk. If you’ve never had condensed milk, it’s a sweetened and thickened milk that comes out of a can. It’s delicious, and it’s a bit of a treat to have (and so good – bad for me because I have an epic sweet tooth!). Sweet, floral, and milk scents. It’s an interesting combination because the floral aromatics are stronger than the milk fragrances, which I feel should be the opposite given that it is a milk oolong.

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The ingredients in Milk Oolong are described as oolong tea and flavouring. Natural flavouring? Artificial flavouring? I do wish there was a bit more information about the flavouring that went into this tea. Naturally, I assume that it is some kind of milk/dairy flavouring. If I was lactose intolerant I would have steered clear of this one though, without more information. Thankfully, I am not so I went ahead with steeping this flavoured oolong.

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Preparation

Citizen Tea recommends steeping Milk Oolong for 3 to 4 minutes in 90°C (194°F) water. I did my initial steep of Milk Oolong at 3 minutes.

First Taste

Milk Oolong steeps to a pale yellow. I found that the dry tea aromatic mixture of floral and condensed milk followed through to the steeped tea. Surprisingly, it doesn’t taste as floral as it smells (a bonus since I wasn’t really expecting flowery notes in a milk oolong). The condensed milk flavours do carry over fairly well, and it has an aftertaste that reminds me of artificial sweeteners (like stevia). I’m not a huge fan of artificial sweeteners, as I prefer to add my own to teas, but it’s not incredibly off-putting. There is a bit of a buttery cream quality to this tea, although the taste of condensed milk does ring more true than a cream/buttery flavour.

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A Second Cup?

I resteeped Milk Oolong quite a few times (seven resteeps in total). I found that the flavour of this oolong drastically improved by the second resteep (third overall steep). The artificial sweetener aftertaste was gone, and the flavours were more in line with what I expect in a milk oolong (buttery, cream, mild sweetness). The floral fragrance became a distant memory, and I found that the straight milk flavours gave way to the buttery goodness.

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My Overall Impression

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I liked Citizen Tea’s Milk Oolong. I was not a huge fan of the first two steeps that I did of this tea – there was too much artificial sweetener taste, and the floral aromatics of the dry leaf weren’t appealing to me. However, once I steeped the leaves a couple of times, the flavours began to change to what I was looking for in a milk oolong – butter and cream. If you’re not into the artificial sweeteners, I would recommend steeping (and pouring out) the first two steeps of this oolong and then drinking the rest. Luckily, this tea resteeps very well (I did 8 steeps total with the same leaves), so there is still a lot of flavour left even if you discard the first two steeps.

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DavidsTea’s Tea the North

Tea the North by DavidsTea
White Tea / Flavoured
$10.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

I was at my local DavidsTea and I asked my friendly neighbourhood tea pusher what the new tea was and he told me that it was Tea the North. Now, I know DavidsTea already has a maple syrup tea called Oh Canada! so I wasn’t really expecting something similar, but still was expected something with some maple influences, or something else that screamed ‘Canada’ to me. What I smelled instead was a lot of coconut and pineapple. Instant recoil from the container holding the sample that I was just smelling because it just did not make sense.

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Tea the North consists of: melon, pineapple, coconut, white tea, hibiscus, sweet blackberry leaves, apple, rose petals, rhubarb, safflower blossoms, and natural flavouring. He had rattled off the list of ingredients to me and I must have looked confused because then he told me that most of the ingredients were white or red. Oh. I suppose that makes sense? But coconut and pineapple does not scream Canada to me – it makes me think of pina coladas (and getting caught in the rain). Nevertheless, I wanted to try a bit of this white tea blend because I’m a bleeding heart (and Canada Day is one of my upmost favourite holidays).

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Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Tea the North in hot water for 4 to 7 minutes. For those interested, “hot water” is defined on the product page as being 167-176°F or 75-80°C. I did an initial steep of 5 minutes in 175°F water.

First Taste

Tea the North steeps to a bright red – which did not surprise me given the fact that the blend includes hibiscus, rhubarb, and safflower blossoms. The taste of this tea is… interesting? There’s sweetness to it that comes from the fruit (melon, pineapple, apple), and a touch of tartness (from the hibiscus and possibly the rhubarb). I think I would describe this as being primarily coconut and artificial flavouring. The coconut flavour is heavy in this white tea blend, and there’s just something about it that lingers on my tongue that I just do not like. I’m not sure if it is the flavouring in this tea, or maybe just the combination of flavours, but coconut takes center stage and all the other ingredients (aside from adding a touch of sweetness or tartness) stay in the background – the far, far background.

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A Second Cup?

I didn’t really want to, but I did resteep Tea the North. The second time around was not an improvement on the first, I’m afraid. Is it possible for coconut to strengthen in flavour? Because that’s what it seemed to do here. The mix of sweet and tart was incredibly muted this time around, and I felt like it was just coconut again, with an odd aftertaste that seemed sour to me.

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My Overall Impression

1cup-2

I didn’t like DavidsTea’s Tea the North. I wanted to at least love this tea blend, because I’m a sucker for all things Canada and with the impending 150th birthday (tomorrow/July 1st), I really wanted to love this tea. I think it’s cute that they did a blend of primarily red and white ingredients instead of doing maple (again), but I feel like it really missed its mark. The aroma of coconut and pineapple don’t make me think of Canada at all, and the tea itself was a bit of fail in the flavor department.

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