Category: Review

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Teavana’s S’mores Oolong Tea

S’mores Oolong Tea by Teavana
Oolong Tea & Yerba Mate / Flavoured
$9.98 for 2oz

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First Impressions

I am going to preface this review with the fact that I, perhaps unfairly, have high expectations for this tea. I love s’mores. I love camping, and roasting marshmallows, and the ooey-gooey marshmallows with graham crackers and slightly melted chocolate. The smell of the dry tea is interesting – the only smells that I can pick out are chocolate and cinnamon, with perhaps a touch of vanilla. There’s a whole host of other ingredients that I’m not getting.

The ingredients for S’ores Oolong are: cocoa kernals, white chocolate pieces, carob pieces, cinnamon, chocolate flakes, chicory root, marshmallow, oolong tea, roasted maté, artificial flavouring, bourbon vanilla pieces, and marigold petals. I wasn’t able to make out the tea bases at all, the aroma of the chocolate and cinnamon definitely overpower the oolong and maté

Preparation

Teavana recommends steeping S’mores Oolong in 195°F (91°C) water for 3 minutes. I steeped mine for 3 minutes.

First Taste

When S’mores Oolong is steeping, it has a heavy chicory root and cinnamon smell, surprisingly I can’t make out the chocolate at all. I would recommend that you use a filter bag instead of a stainless steel filter basket, unless the mesh of your basket is very fine – I wound up with a lot of small bits in my tea. The tea is quite cloudy, and smells strongly of chicory root and cinnamon, it smells sweet and has an oily film from the melted chocolate floating on the top.

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S’mores Oolong smells of cinnamon and chicory. It’s a cup of watery cinnamon and chicory root, with a little taste of chocolate, but it isn’t overwhelming in terms of flavour. There’s a bit of sweetness (from either the chocolate or the marshmallows), but I can’t taste either base (oolong or maté). It doesn’t taste very good to the point where I did not finish my cup because it just does not taste good (or taste like any kind of tea or beverage that I’d want to finish). I looked into the steeping basket after I had poured out a cup and realized that there was actually very little tea in the tea itself – the majority of what was left was just all the ingredients that show up before the oolong (aside from the marshmallow, that melted away).

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A Second Cup?

I did not steep S’mores Oolong a second time.

My Overall Impression

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I didn’t like Teavana’s S’mores Oolong Tea. It does not remind me of s’mores at all, the chocolate doesn’t come out as strongly as I expected from the dry tea. The overall flavour is underwhelming because the chicory root and cinnamon are strong and I can’t taste the base at all. If I were to try this tea again (and that is a very big if), I would probably add more tea to steep, in hopes of getting more flavour, but it isn’t a very promising tea at all. I wouldn’t recommend S’mores Oolong.

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DavidsTea’s Guangzhou Milk Oolong

Guangzhou Milk Oolong by DavidsTea
Oolong Tea / Flavoured
$12.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

Guangzhou Milk Oolong has this very distinct milk/cream aroma to the dry tea. There’s some mild floral notes to the tea itself, which is various shades of green. The oolong tea is tiny rolled and smells inviting. I love milk tea, although I’ve never tried a milk oolong before. The pricing is moderate, at least by DavidsTea’s standards.

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The ingredients for Guangzhou Milk Oolong are: Chinese oolong from the Fujian province, and natural flavouring. I can only assume that the natural flavouring might be the milk part of the tea because it smells like cream and milk so much.

Preparation

The label that my bag of tea came with says to steep in 85°C (185°F) water for 4-7 minutes. DavidsTea has updated their website since, and now recommends 75-80°C (167-176°F) for 4-7 minutes. I steeped my pot of tea in water that was about 80°C for 4 minutes.

First Taste

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Guangzhou Milk Oolong initially steeps to a very pale yellow. There’s some subtle cream flavours in the tea that reminds me a lot of butter in both aroma and flavour. It’s very rich tasting, with that flavour profile that reminds me of buttery cream. It’s quite tasty though. There’s a natural sweetness to this tea that doesn’t require additional sweetener, in my opinion. That isn’t to say that you couldn’t added more sweetener to it, if needed, but I don’t think it necessarily requires it. The tea leaves expand so much – this is definitely a tea that you don’t want to put into a filter bag because there would not be enough space of the leaves to expand sufficiently. As it is, I almost feel like my tea pot’s basket isn’t large enough.

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A Second Cup?

I resteeped Guangzhou Milk Oolong an additional four times with an additional 30 seconds or so for each subsequent steeping. This tea steeps to a deeper yellow every single time. The flavour of butter in this tea gets deeper and richer. It doesn’t get that much sweeter though, which is okay by me. The creaminess of the tea is just more pronounced, but it doesn’t feel like I’m biting into a stick of butter, so it’s fine by me. The tea leaves were fully expanded by the end of steep two, and are (for the most part) full leaves.

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My Overall Impression

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I loved DavidsTea’s Guangzhou Milk Oolong. It has such an interesting flavour profile that I really enjoyed the creaminess of the tea. Because it resteeps so well, I would recommend having this tea on a day when you can take the time to enjoy a cup of tea and resteep at your leisure. The ability of this tea to withstand one more steep after steep makes the price worth it, in my opinion. The great creamy flavour makes this tea interesting, and the flavour just gets better and better every time you steep the tea leaves.

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Tea Shop of East West Company’s Puerh Vanilla

Pu Erh Vanilla by Tea Shop of East West Company
Pu-erh / Flavoured

This is a review of a tea that I received for my birthday in 2015. I won’t be doing too much digging into the costs of the gifts that I’ve received.

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First Impressions

Pu-Erh Vanilla came in a darling little branded tin. I love insects, I took an entomology course as part of my first degree, so I’ve always had a place in my heart for six-legged creatures. The dragonflies on this tin just make me smile. There’s a simple label on the tin with some hand-written details including the name of the tea and how long to steep the tea for. The back of the tin includes some more details that I can’t read. This tea was given to me for my birthday in 2015 from a friend who went to a jaunt around Europe! She came back with several teas for me to try, which definitely put a smile on my face.

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Pu-Erh Vanilla has a nice earthy, woody scent to it with vanilla overtones. It’s very pleasant and inviting, the vanilla reminds me almost of baking but the earthy notes to it reminds me of camping, which is a nice touch. I did manage to find the tea page on their website, which stated that this is a “red tea with vanilla scent”.

Preparation

According to the label from Tea Shop, this tea is to be infused for 3 minutes. There’s no temperature information, but I normally steep pu-erh teas in 96°C (204°F).

First Taste

Pu-Erh Vanilla steeps to a rich reddish orange colour, and gets darker the longer you steep it for. The scent is incredibly inviting as it’s vanilla, it smells very strongly of vanilla. The taste is purely pu-erh though, with hints of vanilla flavouring. Because it’s mostly of the pu-erh base, the tea has a strong earthy taste to it, that isn’t unpleasant. It reminds me a lot of teas that I’ve had before in more traditional Chinese restaurants, which isn’t a bad thing. I think they used a fairly robust pu-erh base, which is why the vanilla has such a hard time standing up next to the pu-erh base/natural flavours. Steeping for three minutes did the trick here as the tea isn’t too dark as pu-erh teas can be when steeped for a long time. The flavour is good though, it tastes like a good quality pu-erh which is always well appreciated.

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A Second Cup?

I resteeped this about four times, and the flavour profile remains the same. Mostly the robust flavours of the pu-erh, some hints of vanilla, but mostly the pu-erh. It holds up very well to repeat steepings.

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My Overall Impression

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I liked Tea Shop of East West Company’s Pu-Erh Vanilla. I feel weird because I’m really only docking a cup because the vanilla isn’t more of a star in this tea. The pu-erh that they used is much too strong to be properly flavoured, so the vanilla is a bit muddled and not shining as much as I would have expected. The pu-erh itself is wonderful though, the flavour is strong and makes for many great cups of tea and it resteeps so well. Because the vanilla was so present in the dry leaf, and in the ingredients and the name, I really do wish that it was more present in the steeped tea because it was so inviting. I’m not that torn up about it though, because I got many cups of tea and it’s good regardless of the lack of vanilla in the taste.

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