Category: Review

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DavidsTea’s Honey Black

Honey Black by DavidsTea
Black Tea / Straight
$14.50 for 50g

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First Impressions

First off, this was DavidsTea’s December Tea of the Month. Since I’ve started on my tea adventure (addiction? obsession? hobby?) they had not had a straight tea be their tea of the month, so I was quite excited. I find that straight teas resteep much better than flavoured teas, and the overall quality is generally higher. This may also be reflected by the higher price tag. If you’re interested in trying Honey Black, DavidsTea recently announced via Facebook that they were discontinuing this tea due to issues with the supply.

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Honey Black is described as being “from a small garden on the east coast of Taiwan” and that the leaves are hand-plucked. The tea leaves are definitely lovely, there’s so much detail to be seen in the twisted tea leaves. The smell of the dry tea is a very mild sweet aroma that mingles with the natural tea fragrance itself. The ingredient listed is simply “Black tea from the east coast of Taiwan”.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping in 96°C (204°F) water for 4-7 minutes. I steeped mine for about 4 minutes.

First Taste

The tea itself smells great once steeped. There’s an aroma that is a bit malty, like an Assam tea, with very slight smell of sweetness. The tea is a lovely golden brown colour that is quite welcoming. It does taste a bit malty but not as strong as Assam teas generally are, but it’s also a bit bitter and astringent. True to its name, there is a bit of honey taste to it, but it’s not overwhelming or overly sweet. The sweetness is just enough that I don’t think additional sweetener is necessary. The astringency and bitterness isn’t completely unpleasant, but I do think it would be if I had steeped for the full 7 minutes. I would definitely recommend steeping for a lower amount of time.

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A Second Cup?

Because Honey Black is a straight tea, I really wanted to see how it would do with being resteeped. It does well for the second resteep. I steeped it for about 4 minutes and had less of the bitterness that the first cup had, but the bitterness and astringency was still there.

My Overall Impression

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I thought that DavidsTea’s Honey Black was just okay. While the tea itself is nice and enjoyable (especially if steeped for less than 4 minutes at the recommended water temperature), I think that it’s expensive for what it is – which is a solid black tea. Honey Black makes for a good cup of tea, but there are better options out there for black teas that aren’t as expensive. If you are interested in trying it before it leaves DavidsTea forever, I’d recommend heading to a store to get a small sample bag (I’ve gotten 10g bags before in store!) before committing to a larger purchase, if you have a local store nearby.

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Stash Tea Company’s Premium Green

Premium Green by Stash Tea Company
Green Tea / Straight
$2.50 for 40g

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First Impressions

Much like in my previous review of a Stash tea (Earl Grey), I like the box. It’s simple, has all the necessary information (for me that would include the ingredients), and it’s card stock so it can be tossed in with the recycling when I’m done with it. I like Stash because it’s a fairly inexpensive brand, as far as teas go. I got my box of Premium Green when it was on sale for 2 boxes at $5. Stash has a pretty wide selection of teas that I still want to try (but don’t quite have the storage space for all the boxes that would entail).

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Premium Green comes in a box of 20 sachets (40g total), which means each tea bag contains 2g of tea. The ingredients are simply titled a “select blend of green teas”. Each sachet is in a simple foil-lined wrapper and each tea bag comes with a handy string and tag in case you forget what you’re drinking. The dry tea bag itself smells a bit salty to me, and a bit like grass. It’s not terribly off-putting, mostly because it reminds me of a Japanese sencha.

Preparation

Stash recommends that you “brew for 1-3 minutes” with no mention of water temperature. Their website states to steep in 170-190°F (77-88°C). I steeped my Premium Green in 80C water for about 2 minutes.

First Taste

Premium Green steeps to a really pretty yellow colour. It has an aroma that reminds me of freshly cut grass and has this salty quality to it that reminds me a lot of seaweed (if you’ve ever had dried seaweed snacks or been to the beach, you know the smell I’m referencing). The taste itself is enjoyable. There’s a slight astringency that leads to a nice little bit of mouth puckering when sipping this tea. There is also a very grassy quality to the taste of Premium Green itself. The saltiness in the aroma isn’t off-putting when it comes to the mild saltiness in the tea itself. There was a bit of sediment at the bottom of my cup that is likely just the tea dust from the outside (or inside) of the tea bag.

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A Second Cup?

I attempted to resteep Premium Green, but it doesn’t resteep well and I would not recommend it. The resteeped tea is very watery and tastes nothing like how the tea should taste.

My Overall Impression

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I liked Stash Tea Company’s Premium Green. It’s a fairly inexpensive green tea with a great flavour profile if you’re looking to branch away from the every-day jasmine green tea (not that I don’t still love jasmine!). It works out to be $0.125 per tea sachet, which isn’t bad if you’re wanting to get away from that daily takeaway coffee habit (or if you’re just looking for an inexpensive tea to stash away at work). It’s an interesting tea because of the flavours that remind me a lot of sencha, and it makes a bold cup of tea. I really like the fact that it’s readily available – Stash is available in a lot of major grocery shops which makes it a bit easier to find. I would have given Premium Green four cups instead of three if it had resteeped at least once at a decent flavour – I think for something that claims to be “premium” that it should be able to handle being resteeped as all good quality teas can be.

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Tea Ave’s Oriental Beauty

Oriental Beauty by Tea Ave
Oolong Tea / Straight
$14.99 for 25g

I received this sample of Tea Ave’s Oriental Beauty for free, a review of the tea was not requested by the company.

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First Impressions

I am a sucker for detailed packaging and Tea Ave does not disappoint. The label for Oriental Beauty gives some details about where the tea comes from, the roasting level, oxidation level, and then the brewing methods (of which there are many). The brewing methods include use of a gaiwan, tea bag, tea pot, and cold brew. Wow. This little sample bag had enough for me to do two cups on separate days.

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The tea leaves are lovely with light twists in the leaves. The dry tea has this great sweet floral and fruity aroma to it that isn’t overwhelming. The floral scent is quite light and it smells quite nice. Oriental Beauty consists of qing xing oolong.

Preparation

For the tea bag method, Tea Ave recommends steeping in water at 85°C (185°F) for 1 minute and that the tea can be resteeped up to 5 times.

First Taste

Oriental Beauty steeps to a beautiful clear golden yellow. The aroma from the tea is very much like the dry leaf – a light sweet, floral and fruity scent. The tea itself is smooth, with a mild natural sweetness that doesn’t overwhelm the taste of the tea itself. The sweetness to the steeped tea reminds me a lot of honey, but it doesn’t overpower the natural floral and fruity taste to the tea. The fruity part of the taste reminds me a lot of berries. It’s a very pleasant cup of tea with absolutely no bitterness or astringency at all.

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A Second Cup?

Although the directions said to resteep up to five times, I actually resteeped an additional seven times. The mild sweetness to the tea actually gets bolder for resteeps 1 to 3. The flavour of the Oriental Beauty remains true to the first cup for resteeps 1-5. The 6th cup was beginning to taste thin in comparison to the cups before it, and the 7th cup was basically a watery ghost of what the oolong did taste like.

My Overall Impression

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I loved Tea Ave’s Oriental Beauty. This is a fantastic oolong as it resteeps very well. While it is one of the more expensive teas that I’ve reviewed so far on One More Steep. I think the fact that it does taste fantastic and can be resteeped many times makes up for the initial sticker shock. I definitely think that this is the type of tea that you should have when you’re not going anywhere though, as you wouldn’t want to leave wet tea leaves laying around to be reused the next day. If you’re going to resteep (and resteep again!), it should really be done all in the same day since it can be difficult to properly dry the tea leaves out (and mold is a horrible thing to ingest). For the value of a great tasting tea that can be resteeped up to 5 or 6 times, I think that Oriental Beauty is a wonderful oolong that deserves a taste if you’re looking for a tea to treat yourself with.

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