Category: Review

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DavidsTea’s Supreme Pekoe

Supreme Pekoe by DavidsTea
Black Tea / Straight
$7.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

I grew up on orange pekoe as a staple in my life, so I have fairly high expectations since Supreme Pekoe is a lot more expensive than the Red Rose that I grew up on. DavidsTea describes the tea as having ‘graham cracker notes’, which was intriguing enough to me to get some to try. The dry tea of Supreme Pekoe smells a bit like plums, but it doesn’t smell overly fruity to me. The dry leaf of the tea smells like Red Rose to me, which is a very familiar tea, but Red Rose doesn’t make me think of plums. The tea leaves smell smallish to what I’ve come to expect from DavidsTea’s teas.

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Supreme Pekoe is described as being an ethically sourced tea with black tea from the Sabaragamuwa Province in Sri Lanka.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Supreme Pekoe in near-boiling water for 4-7 minutes. The product page on their website for Supreme Pekoe has the temperatures as 90-95°C (194-203°F). My first steep was for 4 minutes.

First Taste

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Supreme Pekoe steeps to a golden orange colour. I would recommend steeping this tea with a fine mesh infuser or a filter bag because there was a bit of dust that wound up in the bottom of my Tea For One pot, thankfully this didn’t end up in the tea itself.

The taste of Supreme Pekoe is a lot bolder than the orange pekoe of my childhood. It has a strong flavour, there’s a malty quality to it, and there’s more depth to the flavour with the addition of a wheat or grain quality to it. I would hazard a guess that this is what DavidsTea was talking about when they mentioned the graham crackers. It is interesting, for sure, and I quite like it. Supreme Pekoe does taste good on its own. The addition of sweetener (I used sugar) helps to brighten up the flavours, and does bring out more of that grain taste.

My childhood tea was Hong Kong-style milk tea (orange pekoe with evaporated milk and some kind of sweetener), I couldn’t resist doing the same with Supreme Pekoe. The tea itself holds up well with the addition of evaporated milk and sugar – the bolder tea base stands up and makes the milk tea more flavourful overall.

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A Second Cup?

I did resteep Supreme Pekoe – it holds up well for a second steep! The leaves unfurl quite a bit, and were larger than I had expected from the appearance of the dry leaf. The flavour is still as bold as the first steep, which is definitely something that I was never successful with when it came to resteeping Red Rose’s orange pekoe.

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My Overall Impression

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I loved DavidsTea’s Supreme Pekoe. Orange pekoe has always held a special place in my heart, so I did unfairly have expectations for this tea to be good as well. I found it to be very enjoyable and it does very well on its own or with sweetener and milk. It works well as an any time tea, and if you’ve never tried Hong Kong-style milk tea before I would highly recommend it!

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Teatulia’s Earl of Bengal Tea

Earl of Bengal Tea by Teatulia
Black Tea / Flavoured
$11.62 USD for 32g (16 tea bags)

I received this carton Earl of Bengal Tea by Teatulia as part of a reward for backing the Kickstarter for Tea Journey, an online tea magazine. I was unable to find Earl of Bengal Tea on the Teatulia website, I based the pricing on their other 16 count teas. The last review of this tea on Steepster was from over 2 years ago, so I suspect that this tea was old stock being given away as part of the Kickstarter.

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First Impressions

I really like the overall presentation of Teatulia’s Earl of Bengal Tea. It comes in what they call an “eco-canister”, which their packaging describes as being hand crafted and printed on recycled paper. Earl of Bengal Tea is captioned as being a “refreshing new take on the classic Earl Grey”. The carton has some preparation instructions, says that each bag can be brewed twice, and that all of the teas from Teatulia are sourced directly from Kazi & Kazi Estate Ltd. in Bangladesh. It further goes to describe that it’s a single tea garden, and that Teatulia creates a sustainable partnership with the people there. Pretty neat!

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The carton is not air-tight, the 16 tea bags are in a clear plastic bag that is not sealed or resealable. This is a bit of a let down since air is one of the things that can cause tea to go stale. I put the entire bag into a plastic zipper bag just to seal them in. Each individual tea bag is made out of corn silk (as per the packaging) and they are compostable. The whole tea leaves are visible through the corn silk sachet, but they do look small. The bergamot flavouring isn’t as heavy as I’m used to with Earl Grey teas, but I am looking forward to trying it! Earl of Bengal Tea is made up of organic black ta and oil of bergamot.

Preparation

Teatulia recommends steeping Earl of Bengal in boiling water for 2-3 minutes, and then recommends repeating for a second cup.

First Taste

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Earl of Bengal steeps to a lovely orange colour, it is quite clear and the corn silk sachet does a fantastic job of keeping most of the tea leaf debris out of the tea itself. It smells like a very mild Earl Grey as it still lacks a strong bergamot scent. I had steeped it for the full recommended three minutes. Tasting it, it tastes quite like a rather plain black tea. It isn’t bitter when steeped for the full 3 minutes, which is nice. Nothing in particular stands out about this tea though.

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I did try adding some sweetener to the tea to see if it would help bring out the flavour. I used sugar and found that the black tea base does stand out a little bit more with the addition of a sweetener. It tastes almost astringent with the added sweetness to the tea. The bergamot remains lost.

The corn silk sachet itself does a good job, as you can see in the above photo that there is still some room for the leaves to expand. It is nice that it isn’t overly filled with leaves. I do think that the tea could have done better if they had been loose, so I may try this tea again with the leaves emptied into an infuser.

A Second Cup?

Because it was recommended, I attempted to steep Earl of Bengal for a second time and it was a very lackluster tea. It was very weak and watery, I would not recommend steeping it for a second time.

My Overall Impression

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I didn’t like Teatulia’s Earl of Bengal Tea. As much as I wanted to, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I would have expected something with a heavier hand of the bergamot oil, as it was meant to be a refreshing new take on the Earl Grey. I think this tea works well if you’re looking for a black tea that could stand to be doctored up with some sweetener or cream, but overall I would say that there are other better (and less expensive) black tea options out there to try.

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DavidsTea’s Oh Canada!

Oh Canada! by DavidsTea
Rooibos Tea / Flavoured
$7.98 for 50g

Happy 149th birthday, Canada!

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First Impressions

Oh Canada! smells amazing. It smells exactly as one would expect a Canadian-themed tea to smell – like maple syrup. Somewhere along the way, maple syrup just became the thing that is associated with Canada. Sadly, this tea does not also smell like poutine, but the cute maple leaf candies sprinkled throughout the tea more than make up for that. I really enjoy smelling this tea, it doesn’t smell like the maple syrup “products” that are more water than syrup, it smells like the maple syrup I’m used to.

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Oh Canada! is made up of: red and green rooibos, honeybush, caramel, toffee, candy leaves, natural and artificial flavouring. For those with allergies or sensitivities, Oh Canada! has milk, soy, and almond in it.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends near-boiling water for 4-7 minutes. Those temperatures, according to their website, are 90-95°C (194-203°F). I steeped mine in just boiled water for close to 6 minutes.

First Taste

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Oh Canada! smells like strongly of rooibos, with hints of maple syrup and caramel after it has steeped. This patriotic rooibos steeps to a lovely reddish brown that I’ve come to expect from rooibos based teas. There’s a very pleasannt taste to it, but it is primarily rooibos rather than maple syrup and caramel. Despite the added sources of sugar (maple syrup, maple leaf candies), it isn’t very sweet.

I added a little bit of sugar into my cup of Oh Canada! and I found that the maple flavours became more pronounced with the addition of a sweetener.

A Second Cup?

Based on the nature of this tea and the use of flavourings and candies, I did not resteep Oh Canada!

My Overall Impression

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I thought that DavidsTea’s Oh Canada! was just okay. I love the idea on a patriotic, maple syrup tea more than I actually liked drinking Oh Canada! I really wanted to love it for all the reasons that I love Canada, but the fact remains that the rooibos base overpowers the maple syrup flavouring without additives on my part. I think this tea does well with the addition of a sweetener, and if you want to taste more of the maple flavouring I would recommend using a little bit of sweetener.

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