Category: Review

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DavidsTea’s Sheng Pu’erh

Sheng Pu’erh by DavidsTea
Pu’erh Tea / Straight
$10.98 for 50g

First Impressions

Sheng Pu’erh is not a tea that I would have necessarily picked out for myself a few years ago, but 2020 is a year of confusion, mystery, and Michelle trying new things. Because why not? Sheng Pu’erh comes in a very familiar silver pouch from DavidsTea – sealed and resealable. It is a larger bag than you’ll usually find 50g of tea in, which lends me to believe that it’ll be an airy tea and just a very ‘light’ tea overall.

The leaves of Sheng Pu’erh are lightly twisted and have a range of colours from dark brown to a reddish brown colour to even a cream colour for the leaves that show some feathery bits to it. Sheng Pu’erh consists only of sheng pu’erh tea from Yunnan Province, China. The aroma is a mix of earthy and roasted nuttiness. I found out from the DavidsTea website that their Sheng Pu’erh is only a year old, so there’s still room for improvement on the tea itself if you allow it to age.

For those new to pu’erh, there’s two basic types: sheng and shou. Sheng is raw while shou is ripe – sheng is less processed and shou is more processed. I’m still not too familiar to the ins and outs of pu’erh tea and I don’t even remotely pretend to be an expert on it – but I’m in the process of learning! More on that later…

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Sheng Pu’erh in 95°C (200°F) water for 4 to 5 minutes. I opted to do a quick rinse of the leaves first with the same temperature water before doing a steep time of 4 minutes.

A quick rinse is just like it sounds: pour the heated water over the leaves in the tea pot, and immediately pour it out before it really gets a chance to steep. Then continue the steeping process as normal. Rinsing helps to ‘wake up’ pu’erh tea leaves a little bit, and is a common technique when starting a steep of pu’erh leaves.

First Taste

Sheng Pu’erh steeps to a light golden yellow. The aroma is slightly smoky, earthy, and something that reminds me of mushrooms. It has a nice slightly thickened texture, and is a smooth sip. The flavour stays the same throughout the sip, and it just has a bit of a gentle mouthfeel that allows the flavour to coat in the inside of your mouth without an lingering aftertaste.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Sheng Pu’erh four times (five steeps total), and added an additional 30 seconds for each subsequent steep. The leaves really opened up from the dried state and you can see the texture in the full leaves after they opened up after all the steeps. The flavour does deepen as you go and remains fairly faithful to the initial steep. It does get a bit more earthy and the smoky notes lessen with the subsequent steeps.

My Overall Impression

I loved DavidsTea’s Sheng Pu’erh. I found it to be a very pleasant cup of tea, and it really reminds me of a pu’erh that you might get with dimsum at a restaurant (I miss dimsum!). There’s a nice earthiness to it that isn’t overpoweringly robust, and the texture of the tea is just smooth. I would liken this to being a good introductory pu’erh because it’s not over the top in flavour, but it doesn’t lack in flavour either. There’s nothing particularly offensive about it, which I can sometimes find fault in for other pu’erh teas, but just makes for a decent, standard cup of pu’erh (which isn’t to say that as a bad thing, but it makes a nice introduction, and I kind of wish that this had been one of my introductory pu’erh teas myself when I first started branching out).

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Teakan’s Bi Luo Chun

Bi Luo Chun by Teakan
Green Tea / Straight
$30.00 for 70g

Bi Luo Chun  is one of five teas from Teakan’s Tea Exploration Kit (Volume 2) and makes up 15g of the 70g of looseleaf tea in this curated collection.

First Impressions

Bi Luo Chun comes in a sealed (resealable) kraft paper pouch with the standard minimalistic label from Teakan. This is one of the teas in the Volume 2 collection that I was really looking forward to trying. I’m a huge fan of traditional Chinese green teas, and Bi Luo Chun fits the bill for sure. This particular tea comes from Pu’er, Yunnan, China and was harvested spring of 2020 (something good that came from this year?). The leaves themselves are beautiful – lovely white downy bits in the spirals that go really well with it’s name (which literally translates to green spring snail).

The tea leaves have a nice grassy aroma to it, very sweetly vegetal that reminds me of the smell of raw napa cabbage (which is nice and sweet when cooked – and goes very well with pork, if anyone was wondering). It’s inviting and makes me eager to try this.

Preparation

Teakan recommends steeping Bi Luo Chun in 90°C (194°F) water for 3 minutes (western style steeping) or a rinse followed by a 15 second steep (for gongfu style steeping). I’m opted to do the western style steeping in my teapot with 195°F water heated in my variable temperature kettle.

First Taste

Bi Luo Chun initially steeps to a very pale yellow. There’s a nice sweetness that wafts up from it. The taste of this green tea is a touch grassy, there’s still a vegetal flavour that reminds me of napa cabbage because it has that nice sweetness. There’s zero bitterness or astringency with the 3 minute steep, and I find it to have a nice thickened texture to the tea. It’s got a great body to the tea, without feeling heavy. The grassy notes are sweet which really make it easy to drink.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Bi Luo Chun a total of seven times, adding an additional 30 seconds for each subsequent steep. I found the flavour to be more intense with the first and second resteep, and the tea itself was more of a golden yellow. It becomes sweeter the deeper the colour of the tea gets, which is really enjoyable.

My Overall Impression

I loved Teakan’s Bi Luo Chun. I was really looking forward to trying this green tea and I was not disappointed by it at all. The experience is really a journey, and getting to watch those little ‘snails’ open and straighten up is really a nice treat! The fact that the tea itself has a good amount of sweetness to it doesn’t hurt either. I enjoyed this the most hot, although I did sip some that had been left to cool and it was pretty good too. I would highly recommend resteeping this tea because it gets better after the initial steep.

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DavidsTea’s Blueberry Muffin

Blueberry Muffin by DavidsTea
Fruit Infusion / Flavoured
$7.98 for 50g

First Impressions

Blueberry Muffin was a tisane that caught my eye when I was putting in an order online with DavidsTea. I figured that I’m always on the look out for new fruit tisanes to try out iced, so why not? I do like berries, so Blueberry Muffin was hopefully going to tick the boxes. Blueberry Muffin comes in a sealed, resealable silver pouch with a bright label on the front. I’m not sure if I’m the only one, but I’m not a fan of the super tiny print on the labels because I just find them hard to read at times, especially if I don’t have the best lighting available when trying to look at what’s in it.

That said, Blueberry Muffin was very fragrant when I opened the pouch and scooped some out. There’s a lot of fruit in this blend, and it has a very berry-forward aroma. I can even pick up on some dairy notes, which I attribute to the yoghurt in the blend. Blueberry Muffin consists of: apple, raisins, carrot, hibiscus blossoms, beetroot, artificial blueberry muffin flavouring, yoghurt bits, blueberries and cornflower blossoms. Before reading the label, I had zero clue that “blueberry muffin flavouring” was a thing – but I guess we learn something new every day! I wonder what other type of products an artificial blueberry muffin flavouring goes into?

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Blueberry Muffin in 95C (200F) water for 5+ minutes. I opted to do an initial steep of 7 minutes.

First Taste

Blueberry Muffin steeps to a nice pink colour, it reminds me a bit of the colour of watermelon juice. I would attribute this particular shade to the carrot, hibiscus blossoms and the beetroot. The aroma of the tisane is definitely fruit forward, and it smells sweet. It does actually taste like a blueberry muffin, which is both surprising and not considering that a blueberry muffin flavouring is in the blend somewhere. There is a subtle tartness at the beginning of each sip, which I would think is from the hibiscus.

I tried it both hot and iced, and I would say that I preferred it iced over hot. Having Blueberry Muffin hot just didn’t do it for me, but iced was certainly a treat. It tastes like a muffin with a nice level of sweetness to it.

A Second Cup?

As with most tisanes, resteeping Blueberry Muffin did not work out as it just didn’t have that flavour. I think that that flavouring was really sapped out with the initial steep, which is a shame since it was surprisingly good.

My Overall Impression

I liked DavidsTea’s Blueberry Muffin. Part of me really wants to love this tisane, because it really does taste like its namesake, but at the same time, how much of that flavour that I enjoyed was from artificial flavouring? And how is blueberry muffin flavouring even a thing? It’s definitely a mystery to me, but I did enjoy the flavour and wish it was more natural than artificial. I think I’ll be using this as iced tea for sure, and perhaps mixing it with some lemonade since blueberry and lemon is such a delightful flavour combination and I think the sour of the lemonade will balance well with the tartness of the hibiscus.

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