Category: Review

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DavidsTea’s Pom Cider

Pom Cider by DavidsTea
Black Tea / Flavoured
$8.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

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I got Pom Cider while I was in stores because the sales associate at the DavidsTea store talked a lot about how great and fantastic it is. They didn’t have it as a sample/Tea of the Day that day, so I wasn’t able to sample it before going home with a little bit of it just to try. I first smelled the dry tea in store, but smelling it again at home made me question why I got it. It smells very sweet, and is reminiscent of cherry-flavoured cough syrup – definitely something that I did not enjoy as a child whenever I was sick and I do not enjoy it now.

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Pom Cider is made up of: fennel, hibiscus, black tea, rosehips, apple, orange, pomegranate, stevia extract, and natural pomegranate flavouring. You can definitely see the fennel. There is just so much fennel involved with this tea that the black tea takes a back seat compared to the rest of the ingredients.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping in near-boiling water for 4 to 7 minutes. Near-boiling, according to the product page, is 90-95°C (194-203°F).

First Taste

Pom Cider steeps to a beautiful deep red that I would guess is contributed to by the rosehips, hibiscus, and pomegranate (but mostly the hibiscus). The tea itself smells very strongly of rose and hibiscus, but I don’t smell any of the pomegranate which is disappointing. The tea itself tastes very sweet and tart, it has an odd after taste that I find happens a lot with teas that come with artificial sweeteners mixed in already. Pom Cider tastes more of all the other ingredients than it does the black tea base, which is a bit disappointing. I feel that if the additives highlighted the black tea, it would be more enjoyable.

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The tartness in the taste creates a lot of mouth pucker feel that reminds me the natural tartness that apple cider can have, but it doesn’t have the same spice profile that apple cider has. The lack of pomegranate in the flavour of Pom Cider is really disappointing.

A Second Cup?

I did not attempt one more steep of Pom Cider.

My Overall Impression

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I didn’t like DavidsTea’s Pom Cider. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I bought a small bag of this tea, the fact that it smells like cherry cough syrup is off-putting and it doesn’t make me want to try it after I got a good whiff of the tea. But I tried it anyways, and I was really disappointed by the lack of pomegranate flavour in the tea itself, as well as the overall sweetness of the tea (and the weird aftertaste that artificial sweetener lends to the tea itself). I wish that the black tea was more in the forefront of the tea’s flavour profile instead of being the understudy to all the other ingredients.

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DavidsTea’s Life Long Oolong

Life Long Oolong by DavidsTea
Oolong Tea / Flavoured
$9.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

Life Long Oolong is a tea that I had gotten as part of a boxed collection that I had purchased from DavidsTea, it was one of those “Oh, look at what popped into my shopping cart…” moments. Life Long Oolong came in one for DavidsTea’s standard silver resealable bags, which I quite appreciate. Because it came in a box set of teas, this one came heat sealed at the top. Nothing a little ripping action couldn’t fix!

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Life Long Oolong smells like exactly like peaches – the description given to the tea does not disappoint in that manner. It’s easy to see the oolong mixed in with the other ingredients and it smells quite nice! I like peaches (the fruit) and this reminds me of peaches a lot. The ingredients for Life Long Oolong are: Shui Xin oolong tea, apricot, peach, almond, orange peel, safflower petals, natural and artificial flavouring.

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Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping in 85°C (185°F) water for 4 to 7 minutes. I did my first steep for 4 minutes.

First Taste

Life Long Oolong steeps to a beautiful golden orange, the tea leaves unfurl nicely – I would highly recommend giving any oolong room to grow. It is a fairly heavy tea, I find, what with all the additions of fruit and almonds to the tea. After steeping, it smells like peaches and is very close to the pre-steeped dry leaf smell.

I found that Life Long Oolong has a very sweet peachy taste to it, and I can make out the oolong base to the tea. The taste of apricots does make its way into the flavour profile and I find it adds just a bit of natural sweetness to the tea. It’s not a tea that needs the addition of sweetener, unless you have an extreme sweet tooth. I think because of the fruit content and the natural sweetness to the tea, it would make a really nice iced tea. That said, it makes a good cup of hot tea as well.

I wound up pouring a separate cup with some ice cubes and found it to be delicious and refreshing. We’re going to ignore the fact that I had a cup of iced tea in October.

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A Second Cup?

I resteeped Life Long Oolong an additional two times – both times adding about an extra minute to the steeping time (so steep #2 was for 5 minutes, steep #3 was for 6 minutes). I found the peachy flavour of the tea to be the best for first steep, and the flavour and aroma of peach and apricots in the subsequent steeps to be lacking. The second steep isn’t terrible, but the third definitely tastes watered down and anemic in flavour and excitement.

My Overall Impression

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I liked DavidsTea’s Life Long Oolong. The name is fun to say, the tea tastes great, and it does well both hot and cold. That said, it doesn’t do well with resteeping, which is a shame because it does have a tasty oolong base. I found the additional steeps to be poor echoes of the original steeping of Life Long Oolong, which made it disappointing. It’s a one steep wonder, in my opinion. That said, it’s a delicious peachy tea that’s naturally sweetened by all the fruit that’s in it, which is why I gave it three cups out of four.

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Yellowstone Foods’ Wild Huckleberry Tea

Wild Huckleberry Tea by Yellowstone Foods
Black Tea / Flavoured
$7.99USD for 30g

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First Impressions

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Wild Huckleberry Tea was one of the souvenirs that I bought for myself when I ventured to Yellowstone (I also bought a huge mug!) – it just seemed like an excellent idea to pick up tea for myself! The packaging is actually a thin sheet of wood that is so thin that it is pliable and able to bend around to form a cylinder. The tea bags come in a silver-tone packaging that has no way to reseal, so I put the tea bags into a freezer zip bag. Part of the problem I found with this tea is that it lacks an ingredients list – I can tell by smelling it that there is huckleberry flavouring somewhere, and it’s a black tea. The huckleberry smell is very strong and it smells sweet.

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Preparation

As there were no recommended steeping instructions, I opted to follow the usual black tea steeping times and temperatures that I go with: 212°F (100°C)/boiling water steeped for 3-5 minutes (I went with 4 minutes).

First Taste

Wild Huckleberry steeps to a reddish orange, and smells like berries! I can make out the black tea base in the smell. Tasting the tea for the first time, I find that there is a mild astringency that isn’t off-putting, and that the berries taste is quite mild compared to what was expected based on the stronger huckleberry smell. It is tasty though. I wound up adding a little bit of honey to the tea while it was still hot, and I found that it brought out the huckleberry taste a bit more in the flavour of the tea. It never quite reached what I was expecting (based on the smell of the steeped tea), but it did get closer.

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A Second Cup?

I did attempt to resteep Wild Huckleberry and I found that it did very poorly for a second steep as the huckleberry flavouring was all but gone – it was present in the aroma of the tea, but gone in the taste.

My Overall Impression

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I liked Yellowstone Foods’ Wild Huckleberry Tea. It is a bit pricey for what it is (works out to be $0.53USD/cup!) and I would love to find a less expensive version of it, I find having the huckleberry flavouring in the black tea is a nice change to a plainer bagged black tea. I definitely feel that the tea benefits from having a sweetener, and I think it would make a fantastic tea latte. It’s a yummy tea, but I’ve always been a fan of black teas. Despite the cost, I would still have bought it while on vacation because it doubles as a tasty souvenir.

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