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DavidsTea’s Spiced Pumpkin

Spiced Pumpkin by DavidsTea
Herbal Infusion / Flavoured
$7.50 for 50g

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First Impressions

What really excited me about reading the ingredients list for this tea is the delicious sounding ingredients! Pumpkin pieces, honeybush, cinnamon, cocoa shells, maple crystals and natural flavouring. The DavidsTea website tells me that this limited edition tea also has natural whipped cream along with pumpkin pie and maple almond flavouring. These ingredients are not on the label that was printed out at DavidsTea when I bought the tea, which is a bit disconcerting. So if you have any issues with dairy, be forewarned that this may not be the tea for you.

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When I opened the bag and took a big breath in, I can smell the cinnamon and a hint of maple and pumpkin. I don’t really smell anything that would scream ‘cocoa’ at me. It does smell like it would be a bit sweet, I’m really looking forward to trying this tea. I’m not usually very big on herbal teas/infusions – I like my blacks and greens! – but this one smells really good. I got a small amount of this tea just because it’s a limited edition tea and it’s new.

Preparation

DavidsTea has a recommendation for steeping in 96C (204F) water for 4 to 7 minutes.

First Taste

I steeped Spiced Pumpkin for close to 7 minutes mostly because I forgot about it. While it was steeping, there was this beautiful spicy cinnamon aroma from the tea. It’s very pleasant and reminded me quite a bit of pumpkin pie, which I personally really love so I was quite looking forward to the tea. As you can see from the photo, I was using a tea bag filter – the tea filters I currently use are from DavidsTea as I have two packets that came in sets of loose teas.

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It smells amazing, Spiced Pumpkin is a beautiful orange-brown colour. It isn’t particularly spicy at all in terms of flavour, I definitely can taste cinnamon and pumpkin, it’s a very smooth tea. No bitterness, no astringency. I find that the aroma doesn’t quite match the taste though, it definitely smells like pumpkin pie spices but it doesn’t quite taste like it though. I wish it tasted a bit more like it smells, almost like a poorly fulfilled promise.

A Second Cup?

Most herbal infusions don’t do well with steeping again – Spiced Pumpkin is no exception.

My Overall Impression

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I thought that DavidsTea’s Spiced Pumpkin was just okay. It smells amazing, but the taste just doesn’t do it for me. If the taste had been a better match for the amazing fragrance from the tea as it steeped, I would have given it a higher rating. It’s a decent tea, but the taste compared to the pumpkin pie smell was just a let down overall. I think it would do a lot better if it had a stronger spice taste to it – perhaps some nutmeg. It’s an alright tea and it does okay as a pumpkin tea in general – just doesn’t hit all the pumpkin spice notes for me.

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

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Teavana’s Silver Yin Zhen Pearls

Silver Yin Zhen Pearls by Teavana
White Tea / Straight
$22.98USD for 2oz

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First Impressions

Teavana packages their loose leaf tea in these paper bags with a shiny plastic interior and tin tie for closure. The packaging is fairly simplistic, but does the trick. The back of the Teavana bag has information for recommended steeping time and water temperatures, and even includes the differences for hot water versus iced steeping, as well as some trouble shooting tips. After getting filled, the bag gets a little label to personalize it with the name of the tea, the type of tea, and some steeping instructions (amount, water temperature, and steeping time).

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The first time I smelled this tea, I thought to myself that it smells very sweet and floral. The tea pearls are evenly sized throughout, and you can see that each pearl is duo-coloured. The hand rolled pearls are light, and smell fantastic. The only ingredient for this tea is white tea – Michelle finally reviews a straight tea! I love smelling this tea, it just smells so good.

The funny thing about the name of this tea (Silver Yin Zhen Pearls) is that Yin Zhen is ‘silver needle’ in Mandarin Chinese – which means that the name of this tea is really Silver Silver Needle Pearls. A bit redundant!

Preparation

Teavana recommends steeping Silver Yin Zhen Pearls in water that is 79°C (175°F) for 4-5 minutes. I steeped it for about 5 minutes.

First Taste

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Hand rolled pearl teas are beautiful in that they unfurl in the hot water and expand – a small amount of pearls turns into an amazing amount of tea leaves! The colour is beautiful yellow colour, clear and smells very floral. It’s fragrant and made me that much more eager to try it. First sip and it’s smooth. No bitterness, no astringency to be noted. It’s a very light and just amazing. It’s a little bit sweet, but not overly so. It has a pleasant aroma and an all around good quality tea. I quite like it! Given that it’s quite a bit pricey, I’m eager to know if it well resteep well.

A Second Cup?

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Straight teas tend to resteep well, and Silver Yin Zhen Pearls did not disappointed. The leaves didn’t further unfurl as they were mostly done the first time around, but the flavour is still incredibly good – same great colour, aroma, and taste.

My Overall Impression

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I loved Teavana’s Silver Yin Zhen Pearls. It’s a beautiful tea that tastes fantastic. It resteeps well, which adds a bit more bang to its buck. I do wish it was cheaper as it is a fairly expensive tea given that 2oz is only around ~50g. But it does taste amazing, and it’s quite fun to watch the pearls unfurl and do their thing. I do wish that I could buy smaller amounts of this tea because it is fairly expensive, but if you happen to get a ‘free reward’ through the Starbucks reward program, you can opt to redeem for 1oz of free tea at Teavana if you happen to have one locally – I don’t believe that you are able to redeem free rewards online.

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

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Liquid Proust Teas’ Smoked Breakfast

Smoked Breakfast by Liquid Proust Teas
Black Tea / Flavoured
$5USD for 1 ounce

Liquid Proust Teas has provided me with Smoked Breakfast for the purposes of providing an honest review.
I received this product at no charge to me and received no other compensation.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

I first came across Liquid Proust Teas on Instagram shortly after I had posted my first blog entry here on One More Steep. Andrew Richardson, the owner of Liquid Proust Teas, had liked my screenshot and I saw that he was looking for bloggers to review some teas. We communicated and a couple weeks later I got a package of tea to review! This is the first of four reviews of Liquid Proust Teas.

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First Impressions

The bag that this sample of Liquid Proust Teas’ Smoked Breakfast came in is very sturdy, I thought I was going to rip the thing apart trying to get it open! But onto the tea… The aroma of smoke is very, very strong and it reminds me a lot of the smell of a campfire. There is an underlying scent that reminds me of star anise, which is not listed on the ingredients list at all. The tea itself is quite nice, I can see a lot of texture in the dried leaves and the leaves themselves are decently sized.

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Smoked Breakfast contains the following ingredients: Chinese black tea (FOP), lapsang souchong, cinnamon pieces, and flavouring. For those who’ve never had a tea with lapsang souchong before, it is a smoked tea (which accounts for the strong smoke smell). Despite cinnamon being on the list (and being able to see the cinnamon), I can’t smell it at all when the tea is dry. I would have liked it if the ingredients list identified the flavouring as natural or artificial.

Preparation

Liquid Proust Teas recommends steeping Smoked Breakfast in 205°F (96°C) water for just 60 seconds. I thought this was a typo a first, given that black teas are normally steeped for a few minutes, but I did check the Etsy page for this tea and it is not a typo. So I gave it a go at 60 seconds.

First Taste

The tea was steeped for 60 seconds and it still smells smokey although it is not as strong as when the tea was dry, it is a lot more muted now it’s been steeped. I did have to let it cool down a bit as 60 seconds is not a long time to allow water to cool down. To my surprise, Smoked Breakfast is a very smooth tea. It wasn’t bitter and it doesn’t taste smokey. Instead, it tastes a bit sweet. There’s not spiciness that I would have expected from the cinnamon, I can’t taste it all. The tea itself is delightful. The subdued smell of campfire promotes a sense of nostalgia.

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A Second Cup?

I opted to try steeping Smoked Breakfast for a second time. This time I steeped it for longer than the initial 60 seconds (probably around 90 seconds). The campfire aroma is still gentle and not over-powering, and the taste of the tea remains true to the first cup. I love it when a tea can be steeped again and taste great! It would probably do very well for a third or even fourth resteep, although I didn’t try it as it was quite late in the day when I had resteeped this tea.

My Overall Impression

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I liked Liquid Proust Teas’ Smoked Breakfast. The heavy smoke aroma is very strong and can be off-putting if you’re not prepared for it. I find that the smokey aroma doesn’t transfer into the flavour of the tea itself, and overall it is a very nice tea. I quite like the taste of it and the gentle smoke aroma when the tea is ready to go is quite pleasant. The 60 seconds recommended steeping time was a good call by Liquid Proust Teas, and it did pretty well with the second steeping. Being able to resteep a tea and have it taste great is a great quality to find in any tea.

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