Category: Review

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DavidsTea’s Mom’s Apple Pie

Mom’s Apple Pie by DavidsTea
Green Tea / Flavoured
$7.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

I bought a little bag of Mom’s Apple Pie from the store purely because it smelled amazing. The dry leaf has this amazing apple cinnamon aroma that I love from apple pie, so I was pretty much sold on it as soon as I smelled it. Mom’s Apple Pie is a green tea and the ingredients are: green tea, apple, cinnamon, natural and artificial flavouring. Mom’s Apple Pie is (yet another…) limited release tea, so if you’re interested in giving it a try now would be a good time.

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The tea itself has plentiful pieces of apple and cinnamon in with the green tea, which is nice to see. It has a great smell to it, definitely reminds me of apple pie. The problem with teas that come with flavouring is that it can often be lost when steeping, or when resteeping.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping in 85°C (185°F) water for 3-4 minutes. I steeped in my Tea For One pot for about 4 minutes.

First Taste

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This tea has a beautiful smell when it’s steeping and after I pour a cup of it. It has a very rich apple cinnamon smell. The unfortunate thing is that the taste of apples is weak in the tea, and the cinnamon is fairly lost in the tea itself, which is disappointing because it is very much present in the smell of the steeped tea. I added a bit of sugar to my cup of tea and found that it brought out the taste of apples and cinnamon quite a bit, but it wasn’t enough to overcome my disappointment in the tea. I like trying green teas, and I’ve had good teas with apple in it before (Honeycrisp Apple is one that I wound up getting a whole tin of). Mom’s Apple Pie raised my expectations of itself because of the great smell it had, but the taste is just lacking.

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A Second Cup?

I attempted to resteep Mom’s Apple Pie but found that the weak apple taste was even more lost. I would not recommend doing one more steep with Mom’s Apple Pie.

My Overall Impression

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I didn’t like DavidsTea’s Mom’s Apple Pie. I found the smell of the dry leaf and steeped tea to be much better than the taste of the tea itself. The cinnamon was missing in the tea and the apple flavour was weak, I had high hopes for this tea because of how good it smelled, but I found it sorely lacking in flavour. I would definitely recommend adding a little sugar/sweetener if you’re going to give Mom’s Apple Pie a try because it does help bring out more of the flavours in the tea. Because of the disconnect between dry and steeped tea, I just had to give this tea one cup. I wanted to love it, because of how good it smelled, but there are much better flavoured green teas out there.

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Pluck’s Ctrl+Alt+Delete Blend

Ctrl+Alt+Delete by Pluck
Herbal Infusion / Flavoured
$8.00 for 30g

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First Impressions

I received Ctrl+Alt+Delete as part of a swap package, and was rather tickled by the name of the tea, since I’m familiar with using that keyboard combination. The front of the bag is see-through on the sides of the label and I could see how fine the herbal blend is. Pluck includes all the usual information necessary for a tea drinker: how much to use, steeping time, water temperature, information on the ingredients, as well as a best before date. The slogan for Pluck is “Local. Natural. Bespoke.”. On the back of the bag, Pluck mentions that their source ingredients from ethical sources, local growers, artisan producers, and they produce their blends in small batches (hence, bespoke).

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Ctrl+Alt+Delete was opened up one night when my sister needed some kind of herbal infusion as she was coming down with a cold. Ctrl+Alt+Delete has a very strong ginger and lemongrass smell to it, the strong ginger smell kind of tickles the nose a bit. The ingredients are: ginger, rose hip, dried organic lemon peel, lemongrass, and dried Muskoka cranberries. I could not smell the rose hips or cranberries.

Preparation

Pluck recommends steeping Ctrl+Alt+Delete in 100°C (212°F) water for 3-7 minutes. I steeped for approximately 4 minutes.

First Taste

This herbal blend steeps to a nice yellow colour. The blend of ingredients is very fine, I would recommend using a tea filter over a stainless steel infuser because you’ll end up with bits of the herbs in your tea and in your mouth. The herbal infusion has a very nice warmed ginger smell, the lemongrass isn’t as strong in the steeped infusion fragrance as it was in the dry blend.

It has a mildly sweet lemon flavor with a very nice ginger taste to it, which I appreciate. The ginger isn’t overwhelming or spicy, as ginger can be, but it does make my entire mouth feel warm when drinking it. It’s quite pleasant and it’s a very relaxing cup of tea.

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A Second Cup?

I attempted to resteep Ctrl+Alt+Delete. It does okay for one resteep, the lemon and ginger is still very much present in the taste, but a second resteep leads to a watery cup of lemon and ginger that I would not recommend.

My Overall Impression

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I thought that Pluck’s Ctrl+Alt+Delete was just okay. I was a bit disappointed that the cranberries and rosehips weren’t more prominent in the dry or steeped herbal blend. If I was feeling under the weather, I think this concoction of ginger and lemongrass would do the trick. Ctrl+Alt+Delete is a decent herbal infusion, I do think a lot of people would like the ginger and lemongrass combination – but also that it’s a nice blend to have if you’re not feeling well. I would definitely make this again, especially if I have a sore throat, but I don’t think it’s something that I would buy or want to keep a stock of in my stash.

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DavidsTea’s The Earl’s Valentine

The Earl’s Valentine by DavidsTea
Black Tea / Flavoured
$9.75 for 50g

The Earl’s Valentine was a limited edition Valentine’s Day tea put out by DavidsTea. The review is coming to you in March because it took me a while to track down the tea as it was sold out in stores near me.

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First Impressions

I was first introduced to The Earl’s Valentine last year. I had bought a small bag to sample, less than 25g, and when I had the first cup I was hooked! And then I tried to go back to the store to buy more and it was already sold out and long gone by the time I went back (a day or two after Valentine’s Day). This year, I tried to go to the store ahead of time, but it had been delayed getting to the local stores. And by the time the stores did get it in stock, I was told a lot of them only received 1 kilo of The Earl’s Valentine and many of the sold out the same day. I wound up buying two 50g bags online so I could get my fix. This tea is a black tea, the dry leaf smells heavily of chocolate oranges with a hint of floral goodness. You can thank the chocolate and the bergamot for that wonderful mix. It reminds me a lot of the Terry’s chocolate oranges that are often on sale around Christmas time.

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The Earl’s Valentine is made up of: roasted carob, black tea, chocolate pieces, rose buds, cornflower petals, natural and artificial bergamot, chocolate and cocoa flavorings. There is also the addition of an allergen warning that this product contains milk and soy.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping The Earl’s Valentine in 96°C (205°F) water for 4-7 minutes. I steeped for about 5 minutes.

First Taste

The Earl’s Valentine steeps to a surprisingly not murky orange colour. I say surprisingly because I find that most teas with added chocolate often isn’t clear. This one isn’t too bad. When taking in the aroma of a freshly steeped cup of The Earl’s Valentine, you can really smell the bergamot with a hint of chocolate. The smell of roses was more present in the dry leaf than the steeped tea, but some floral notes are in the smell and taste of this tea. The bergamot isn’t as strong in this tea as it is in DavidsTea’s Organic Cream of Earl Grey, but it is still enjoyable. I really like Earl Grey teas in general, so this one does hit the right notes for me – Earl Grey teas with a twist generally make me happy.

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I did wind up adding just a bit of sugar to this tea. I found that despite the addition of chocolate, it wasn’t sweet enough for me. The addition of sugar does help to brighten up the bergamot and chocolate flavours in the tea, so I would recommend adding some sort of sweetener if you can. There is a bit of an oily layer on the surface of this tea, this would be from the melted chocolate. It’s not unpleasant, but this is the type of tea that I would recommend having hot or mixing with milk or cream so you’re not subjected to the oily surface layer when the tea is cooled or cold.

A Second Cup?

I attempted to resteep The Earl’s Valentine and found that it didn’t resteep very well as many of the flavourings that I loved in cup one were gone by cup two. This is another one of those one steep wonders.

My Overall Impression

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I liked DavidsTea’s The Earl’s Valentine. Perhaps I was waxing nostalgia when I went on my hunt to find this year this year, because I only had so little last February, or it could be that the formulation of this tea had changed between last year and this year. The Earl’s Valentine is a good alternative to the classic/plain Earl Grey, so there is definitely that. I find the combination of chocolate and bergamot to be very tasty, and the floral notes left by the rose buds in the tea make me feel like I should be having this as part of a tea party. I would recommend adding a sweetener to this tea, as it does help brighten up the flavours a lot.

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