Category: Review

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Tea Experience: The Urban Tea Merchant

The Urban Tea Merchant
Vancouver, British Columbia
$38 for Easter Brunch Tea Set

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I recently went to The Urban Tea Merchant, located in downtown Vancouver, with a group of friends. I had been to a few places before for afternoon tea, but I had not been to The Urban Tea Merchant before so I was excited to give it a try. The space is split into a section for retail (where you can purchase prepackaged or loose teas, tea ware) and then there is seating areas both upstairs and downstairs for the tea service.

Each table had a tin of tea set out so you can smell the tea. The one that happened to be on our table was the Tea Party tea, which I felt was quite appropriate! Tea Party smelled like a sweetened black tea, I didn’t end up getting this one.

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Tea Ave’s Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong

Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong by Tea Ave
Oolong Tea / Straight
$12.50 for 25g

I received this sample of Tea Ave’s Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong for free, a review of the tea was not requested by the company.

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First Impressions

As with my other reviews so far of Tea Ave‘s oolongs, I greatly appreciate the simple but informative packaging that they package their samples in. Alishan Jin Xuan is, according to the lovely robin’s egg blue packaging, a tea that is “grown on the foggy Alishan Mountains” and it mentions how that oolong teas from this region (and this region alone) “produce the creamy, milky qualities found in the Alishan Jin Xuan”. This tea comes from 1100-1600 metres up the mountains, and the tea itself consists of only Jin Xuan oolong.

This sample came in a tea bag format, but I was curious this time so I ripped the bag open to see the tea inside. There’s a lot of tea in these tea bags, as evidenced by my Perfect Spoon being quite filled. I decided this would be a great opportunity to put the oolong into the steeping basket of my tea pot, which allows it room to expand. The tea itself has this deep grassy and earthy smell to it, with sweet floral notes as well. It is a very intriguing combination that I’m curious to try.

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Preparation

Tea Ave recommends using boiling water (100°C/212°F) and steeping for 1-3 minutes if you’re using it in a tea bag – resteeping up to 3 times. I followed the tea pot instructions, which said to use water that is 95-100°C (203-212°F) for 1 minute and to resteep up to 5 times.

Tea Ave mentions that you should add an extra 30 seconds to 1 minute per resteep, which is a pretty good rule of thumb to follow. Because I was using a tea bag’s quantity of tea in a tea pot, I didn’t fill it up too much as I didn’t want to dilute the tea.

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First Taste

Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong steeps to a nice pale golden yellow which has a lovely light floral scent to it with some grassy undertones. I found the tea itself has an enjoyable buttery cream quality to it – it almost has a pleasant oily mouthfeel to it but without the oil. It has a very smooth texture to the tea. What I found very interesting as I sipped this tea is that it has an almost salty quality to it that isn’t off-putting at all, this is due to this great floral taste that lingers in my mouth after having a sip.

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A Second Cup?

Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong resteeps amazingly well. I resteeped it for a total of five additional times and it had the same complex combination of flavours every single time. It resteeps so well, and it was nice to just have multiple cups of this tea because it’s so enjoyable. The flavours become a little stronger for steeps 2 and 3, and then wanes a little bit and tastes pretty good for steep six.

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My Overall Impression

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I loved Tea Ave’s Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong. The intriguing smell of the tea before it steeps, coupled with the amazingly complex taste of the tea after it steeps makes this a winner in my book. I think it would be a great oolong to try because it is so complex in terms of the different levels of flavours that the tea has. The intricate nature of the taste makes it an enjoyable cup of tea, I would really recommend resteeping this tea if you have the time to do so, it just makes for a great tasting experience and helps you get more value out of your oolong.

This is the last of my sample reviews for Tea Ave. I’ve greatly enjoyed trying their teas and I’m very grateful that Tea Ave was able to send me some teas to try. If you missed my previous Tea Ave reviews, I reviewed the follow oolong teas previously: Oriental Beauty, Dong Ding Oolong, Osmanthus Oolong, and Magnolia Oolong.

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

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DavidsTea’s Dragon Pearls

Dragon Pearls by DavidsTea
Green Tea / Straight
$14.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

Dragon Pearls is a very pretty tea. It’s hand rolled tea leaves that are mostly two colours. I found with the bag that I had purchased from DavidsTea, they’re generally uniform in size. There’s a fragrance to the pearls that is very floral with a heavy jasmine aroma. This is a green tea, so a jasmine scented green tea isn’t out of the realm of possibilities. The ingredients do not include jasmine, however, like DavidsTea’s jasmine green teas are often described as being ‘scented’. The ingredients for Dragon Pearls are: Chinese green tea from Zhejiang Province. As far as green teas go, this isn’t the least expensive option that DavidsTea has (it also isn’t the most expensive – that honour goes to their Butterfly Jasmine and some expensive matcha options).

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Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Dragon Pearls in 85°C (185°F) water for 3 to 4 minutes. They steeping instructions also mentions using 1 ¼ teaspoon of tea. Because the pearls will expand and unfurl, I would not recommend using that much. I used about 10 of the little pearls in my Tea For One pot (which produces about 2 cups of tea) – I would recommend using about 5-6 pearls for 1 cup of tea.

First Taste

Dragon Pearls is a very nice green tea. The pearls unfurl to reveal full tea leaves, which is nice. The steeped tea has a light floral aroma to it, which is nice. The tea itself is very smooth with a buttery quality to it. There is a natural sweetness to the tea. I had steeped it for about 3 minutes for the first steep, I feel that the steeping time recommended by DavidsTea is fair – I would not over steep this tea (or any other green tea) because it could go bitter very easily. Steeping for 3 minutes resulted in a cup of tea that was not bitter at all and was very enjoyable.

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A Second Cup?

I resteeped the same tea leaves an additional three times. I add about 30 seconds of steeping time for each subsequent steeping. The flavours did get better for steep #2 – it was a little sweeter, the floral taste was more present on my tongue, and it had the same great buttery quality. I think steeps 3 and 4 were very similar to steep #2. This tea does improve when you resteep it, which is a nice quality to have in a tea.

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My Overall Impression

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I loved DavidsTea’s Dragon Pearls. While it isn’t the least expensive green tea I’ve tried, it has some added value by being very easy to resteep – which is a bonus whenever you have an expensive tea, you get more bang for your buck with resteeping! It has a great natural sweetness that I think is easy on the palate. The buttery quality kept me wanting to resteep it, it’s just a very enjoyable tea overall. It doesn’t need anything extra (in my opinion), the only thing you need to watch is that you don’t burn it with water that’s too hot or steep it for too long.

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