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DavidsTea’s Life Long Oolong

Life Long Oolong by DavidsTea
Oolong Tea / Flavoured
$9.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

Life Long Oolong is a tea that I had gotten as part of a boxed collection that I had purchased from DavidsTea, it was one of those “Oh, look at what popped into my shopping cart…” moments. Life Long Oolong came in one for DavidsTea’s standard silver resealable bags, which I quite appreciate. Because it came in a box set of teas, this one came heat sealed at the top. Nothing a little ripping action couldn’t fix!

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Life Long Oolong smells like exactly like peaches – the description given to the tea does not disappoint in that manner. It’s easy to see the oolong mixed in with the other ingredients and it smells quite nice! I like peaches (the fruit) and this reminds me of peaches a lot. The ingredients for Life Long Oolong are: Shui Xin oolong tea, apricot, peach, almond, orange peel, safflower petals, natural and artificial flavouring.

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Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping in 85°C (185°F) water for 4 to 7 minutes. I did my first steep for 4 minutes.

First Taste

Life Long Oolong steeps to a beautiful golden orange, the tea leaves unfurl nicely – I would highly recommend giving any oolong room to grow. It is a fairly heavy tea, I find, what with all the additions of fruit and almonds to the tea. After steeping, it smells like peaches and is very close to the pre-steeped dry leaf smell.

I found that Life Long Oolong has a very sweet peachy taste to it, and I can make out the oolong base to the tea. The taste of apricots does make its way into the flavour profile and I find it adds just a bit of natural sweetness to the tea. It’s not a tea that needs the addition of sweetener, unless you have an extreme sweet tooth. I think because of the fruit content and the natural sweetness to the tea, it would make a really nice iced tea. That said, it makes a good cup of hot tea as well.

I wound up pouring a separate cup with some ice cubes and found it to be delicious and refreshing. We’re going to ignore the fact that I had a cup of iced tea in October.

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A Second Cup?

I resteeped Life Long Oolong an additional two times – both times adding about an extra minute to the steeping time (so steep #2 was for 5 minutes, steep #3 was for 6 minutes). I found the peachy flavour of the tea to be the best for first steep, and the flavour and aroma of peach and apricots in the subsequent steeps to be lacking. The second steep isn’t terrible, but the third definitely tastes watered down and anemic in flavour and excitement.

My Overall Impression

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I liked DavidsTea’s Life Long Oolong. The name is fun to say, the tea tastes great, and it does well both hot and cold. That said, it doesn’t do well with resteeping, which is a shame because it does have a tasty oolong base. I found the additional steeps to be poor echoes of the original steeping of Life Long Oolong, which made it disappointing. It’s a one steep wonder, in my opinion. That said, it’s a delicious peachy tea that’s naturally sweetened by all the fruit that’s in it, which is why I gave it three cups out of four.

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

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Yellowstone Foods’ Wild Huckleberry Tea

Wild Huckleberry Tea by Yellowstone Foods
Black Tea / Flavoured
$7.99USD for 30g

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First Impressions

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Wild Huckleberry Tea was one of the souvenirs that I bought for myself when I ventured to Yellowstone (I also bought a huge mug!) – it just seemed like an excellent idea to pick up tea for myself! The packaging is actually a thin sheet of wood that is so thin that it is pliable and able to bend around to form a cylinder. The tea bags come in a silver-tone packaging that has no way to reseal, so I put the tea bags into a freezer zip bag. Part of the problem I found with this tea is that it lacks an ingredients list – I can tell by smelling it that there is huckleberry flavouring somewhere, and it’s a black tea. The huckleberry smell is very strong and it smells sweet.

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Preparation

As there were no recommended steeping instructions, I opted to follow the usual black tea steeping times and temperatures that I go with: 212°F (100°C)/boiling water steeped for 3-5 minutes (I went with 4 minutes).

First Taste

Wild Huckleberry steeps to a reddish orange, and smells like berries! I can make out the black tea base in the smell. Tasting the tea for the first time, I find that there is a mild astringency that isn’t off-putting, and that the berries taste is quite mild compared to what was expected based on the stronger huckleberry smell. It is tasty though. I wound up adding a little bit of honey to the tea while it was still hot, and I found that it brought out the huckleberry taste a bit more in the flavour of the tea. It never quite reached what I was expecting (based on the smell of the steeped tea), but it did get closer.

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A Second Cup?

I did attempt to resteep Wild Huckleberry and I found that it did very poorly for a second steep as the huckleberry flavouring was all but gone – it was present in the aroma of the tea, but gone in the taste.

My Overall Impression

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I liked Yellowstone Foods’ Wild Huckleberry Tea. It is a bit pricey for what it is (works out to be $0.53USD/cup!) and I would love to find a less expensive version of it, I find having the huckleberry flavouring in the black tea is a nice change to a plainer bagged black tea. I definitely feel that the tea benefits from having a sweetener, and I think it would make a fantastic tea latte. It’s a yummy tea, but I’ve always been a fan of black teas. Despite the cost, I would still have bought it while on vacation because it doubles as a tasty souvenir.

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

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DavidsTea’s Detox

Detox by DavidsTea
Rooibos & Green Tea Blend / Flavoured
$8.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

I feel that I have a healthy level of skepiticism when it comes to teas that make health claims, especially when it comes to teas that claim to help with detoxing, clearing out all the bad stuff. This is primarily because I work in healthcare and the body is pretty good at removing toxins all by itself and doesn’t need a tea in order to do that. That said, I did give DavidsTea’s Detox a try because it is one of the fan favourites and I wanted to see if it is as good as people claim.

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The ingredients in Detox are: rooibos, sencha green tea, lemon grass, ginger, juniper berries, ginkgo, and natural lemon flavouring. It has an incredibly strong ginger and lemon smell to the dry leaf, and I can make out most of the ingredients when looking through the dry leaf.

As an aside, there can be interactions between ginkgo and/or ginger with certain medications. It is always a good idea to let your doctor and pharmacist know when you are consuming herbal supplements as they may be aware of interactions or things to look out for.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Detox in 85°C (185°F) water for 3-4 minutes. I steeped for about 3 minutes.

First Taste

Detox steeps to a beautiful golden orange, and it smells quite strongly of ginger and lemon. I find that the taste is also quite heavy on the ginger and lemon grass side, although I can’t really make out much of the green tea base or even rooibos. I’ve never had juniper berries so I’m not quite sure what those are supposed to taste like, but nevertheless I taste ginger and lemon grass. It reminds me a lot of when I was younger and if I was sick, my mom would make up a tea with some ginger, honey and lemons. This prompted me to add some honey to it, which actually helps the tea out a bit! The honey helps to make the lemon flavouring more pronounced and tones down the harshness of the ginger, which makes me feel a little it less like I should be bundled up in blankets on the couch.

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A Second Cup?

Detox does not resteep well, and I would say it is not a tea that’s meant for one more steep. The lemon grass, ginger, and lemon just falls very flat when I attempted to resteep it. It does not make for an enjoyable cup of tea.

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My Overall Impression

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I thought that DavidsTea’s Detox was just okay. I think there’s some nice points to Detox – if I was feeling a bit under the weather, I may have a different opinion of this tea at that time (I will definitely make some again when I’m feeling sick and report back!). As someone who’s healthy and trying out Detox, it just reminds me of when I was sick in the past and brings back the feelings of not feeling great and having my mom take care of me. It’s not an everyday tea for me, that’s for sure, but I can appreciate how this tea would be good if I was sick. I would definitely recommend adding honey to it, I think it just adds a little something that the tea is missing otherwise.

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