Category: Review

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24 Days of Tea: Jumpy Monkey

Jumpy Monkey by DavidsTea
Yerba Mate / Flavoured
$7.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

This is about to be the worst review ever, because I’m going to start by stating that I did not actually try this tea. I hate coffee (I know, I know…). I really cannot stand the smell of coffee on a good day. Up until maybe 4 years ago, the smell of coffee made me sick to my stomach.

Jumpy Monkey has a bitter coffee smell to it, I don’t really smell any of the chocolate that is supposed to be in there (I also don’t see it at all). With all the coffee that’s supposed to be in it, this is not an infusion of any sort that I want to try, but I am posting about it because it is part of the 24 Days of Tea.

The ingredients of Jumpy Monkey are: roasted yerba mate, green yerba mate, white chocolate, carob, baba budan coffee, green peaberry coffee, Brazil green coffee, Kenya green coffee, chicory, olive leaf, almonds, artificial vanilla flavouring.

My Overall Impression1cup-2

I did not try DavidsTea’s Jumpy Monkey, so I can’t give it a proper rating. I’m just really not a coffee fan at all, and the idea of drinking something that may make me feel sick to my stomach is not why I started One More Steep. If you’ve tried Jumpy Monkey before, let me know below in the comments how you feel about it! Is it something that a coffee hater might actually like, if given the chance?

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

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24 Days of Tea: Snow Day

Snow Day by DavidsTea
Herbal Infusion / Flavoured
$7.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

Day 1 of DavidsTea’s 24 Days of Tea advent calendar for 2016! I received this calendar for my birthday in November, there are some still available in stores and online (the calendar retails for $40).  Each day has a different tea in a gold tone screw-top tin. There’s probably enough in tea tin for 2-3 cups of tea, depending on how much you use per cup and also it depends on the tea. Some blends have more heavy ingredients or bulkier ingredients that just take up more space.

Snow Day was around last winter, I know this because I received a tin of it for the holidays as a present. If you haven’t tried it before, Snow Day smells like mint chocolate. It reminds me a lot of how mint chocolate ice cream or After Eights candy smells like.

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There are mini chocolate chips, and cute little snowflake sprinkles. It’s a really cute tea and really nice to look at! The ingredients of Snow Day are: peppermint leaves, cocoa beans, cocoa husk, chocolate drops, white chocolate pieces, sugar sprinkles.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Snow Day in “near-boiling” water (90-95°C / 194-203°F) for 4 to 7 minutes. I steeped for close to 4 minutes.

First Taste

Because of all the chocolate drops/pieces and sprinkles, Snow Day does have an oily film on top that can be a little bit off putting to some people. The hazards of having chocolate in tea! I find that this tea smells very strongly of mint after it’s steeped, and the chocolate plays sort of second fiddle to the mint but it is still very noticeable.

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The mint taste is heavy compared to the chocolate, much like how it smells, but the chocolate is still present. The tea is sweet and overall has an oily mouthfeel to it. However, it isn’t off-putting to me. While Snow Day does taste good straight, I do add a little bit of evaporated milk and that just gives it a creamier feel to it. I find that it is sweet enough without added sweetener.

A Second Cup?

I generally do not resteep herbal infusions, Snow Day was not an exception to the rule.

My Overall Impression

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I loved DavidsTea’s Snow Day. I’m not generally a fan of herbal infusions as I find that they often don’t taste as good as they smell, but I do like Snow Day quite a bit. I think it’s the comforting and familiar combination of chocolate and mint that really does it for me. I like that it’s an herbal tea though, which means non-caffeinated so I can drink it at all hours of the day. Shift work tends to throw me off, so I do need to watch what I drink and when, but this is an ‘any time’ drink for me.

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

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DavidsTea’s Lapsang Souchong Star

Lapsang Souchong Star by DavidsTea
Black Tea / Straight
$7.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

I could probably not tell you what possessed me to buy a small bag of this tea, but buy it I did! As a lapsang souchong, which is a smoked tea, it does have a very obvious and very smokey aroma to it. The first thing I noticed about this tea was the smell. The leaves are well twisted, there’s a very familiar camp fire feel to this tea because of the smokey aroma.

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DavidsTea lists the ingredients as being “organic Chinese black tea from Fujian province”, which is where the lapsang souchong tea originates from.

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Preparation

The recommendation for Lapsang Souchong Star is to be steeped in near-boiling(194-203°F / 90-95°C) water for 4 to 7 minutes. 7 minutes seems terribly long for a first steeped (and so did 4 minutes), so I steeped for about 3 minutes.

First Taste

After the initial three minute step, Lapsang Souchong Star steeps to a deep orange colour. The tea itself has a strong smokey aroma. When I first took a sip of it, I was first very overwhelmed by the bold smokey taste that the tea has, but as I begun to get used to it, it was quite pleasant! The taste of the tea had this lovely maltiness to it, as it isn’t at all sweet. The tea itself has a bold flavour, it’s savoury and is a bit of a ‘meaty’ tea in that it doesn’t resemble the teas I normally drink (sweet, floral, fruity, natural honeyed flavours). Lapsang Souchong Star doesn’t nearly has much of a smokey taste as it does in smell.

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A Second Cup?

I resteeped Lapsang Souchong Star once (for 4 minutes) and it tasted about the same as the first steep. It could probably go for a third steep, but I did not attempt that.

My Overall Impression

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I thought that DavidsTea’s Lapsang Souchong Star was just okay. It’s not a terrible cup of tea, in that it tastes as advertised – having a campfire aroma, there’s a maltiness to the tea that is strong. It just isn’t the cup of tea for me as it isn’t the type of tea that I normally gravitate towards, and there’s a reason for that. For those who don’t like the naturally sweet, floral, and fruity teas, this may be one to try! I also found a bunch of recipes online for using this tea in cooking to infuse some of that smokey flavour into food, so that may be an option for me to use the rest of this tea in the future.

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