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Dessert by Deb’s Lemon Sugar Cookie

Lemon Sugar Cookie by Dessert by Deb
Black Tea & Rooibos / Flavoured
$16.00 for 75g

Lemon Sugar Cookie is an exclusive blend for Dessert by Deb subscription subscribers and is available for purchase by subscribers only at this time.

First Impressions

Lemon Sugar Cookie is a black tea and rooibos blend that came to me as part of my subscription box. This blend is a subscriber exclusive, hence the labeling of The Tea Society Club. I find the exclusivity of tea blends to be a really neat treat for being a member. The blend comes in a pale pink pouch with a familiar and colourful label.

Lemon Sugar Cookie consists of organic: black tea, fair trade rooibos, lemon peel, vanilla, Canadian maple, and brown sugar. When I ripped open the packaging, the first thing I noticed was the citrus notes. The lemon is really bright and inviting and honestly smells like fresh lemon zest. The maple notes and brown sugar are blending well together in terms of fragrance, and it reminds me of baking. I can smell the rooibos base more than the black tea, which is unfortunate for me because rooibos just isn’t my favourite ingredient (to drink straight up). The vanilla is something I find that kind of lingers in the background, but it’s definitely present!

Preparation

Dessert by Deb recommends steeping Lemon Sugar Cookie in 100°C (212°F) water for 4 to 6 minutes. I opted to do an initial steep for 5 minutes, just going for middle of the road with the steeping time.

First Taste

Lemon Sugar Cookie steeps to nice golden orange. The aroma is a blend of lemon and vanilla. There’s some molasses notes that I find as well when smelling the tea. The flavour is interesting. I can taste the lemon, the sweetness from the brown sugar and maple notes, and I can taste the rooibos. It does have that medicinal quality that I don’t particularly like when it comes to rooibos, but the sweetness from the Canadian maple and brown sugar do a lot to overcome that it and to hide it, so I’m not offended by the flavour of the rooibos (who knew?). The blend steeps really smoothly, and I find that the vanilla notes really pop at the tail end of each sip.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Lemon Sugar Cookie once, adding an additional 30 seconds for the second steep with the same leaves. I found that rooibos base was really flavour forward, so if you’re a fan of rooibos, I would continue steeping the leaves knowing that a lot of the sweetness is gone. If you’re not a fan of rooibos, I’d stick to just the initial steep.

My Overall Impression

I liked Dessert by Deb’s Lemon Sugar Cookie. I found the flavour of the initial steep to be great – I found lemon, molasses-notes, a creamy quality from the vanilla, and enough sweetness to off-set the medicinal notes from rooibos. The blend of ingredients was really great to make me think of a lemon cookie and I think it’s a great representation of the name in the ingredients. I would have liked the black tea base to be more forward and easier to find in the flavour, but the brown sugar and Canadian maple do a great job of hiding things with that high level of sweetness (which I greatly enjoyed!).

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Gold Kili’s Matcha Latte

Instant Matcha Latte by Gold Kili
Green Tea (Matcha) / Flavoured
$6.95 for 250g (ten 25g sachets)

First Impressions

Instant Matcha Latte was purchased on a whim one day when I was at the grocery story. The box was bright green, definitely eye catching and intrigued me enough to buy it. It’s a box with ten portions of Instant Matcha Latte drink mix. The box itself is a glossy cardstock, each packet feels like a plastic-coated foil.

Instant Matcha Latte consists of: sugar, refined fully hydrogenated vegetable oil, green tea powder, skimmed milk powder, matcha powder, dipotassium phosphate, mono- and di-glycerides of fatty acids, salt, silicone dioxide, natural flavours, and carotene. It weirds me out how low on the ingredients list that matcha shows up – green tea powder shows up earlier than it does, and sugar is number on! For those curious, there is 14g of sugar per packet and each one is only 25g. The aroma of the powder is really light on the matcha aroma, it otherwise doesn’t have much of a smell to it at all.

Preparation

Gold Kili recommends to pour the contents into a cup, add hot water (180mL), and stir. To make it iced, dissolve in 90mL of hot water and add ice. I opted to have it hot, and I used 185°F (85°C) water since there wasn’t a temperature specified.

First Taste

Instant Matcha Latte is a pale pistachio green, it has a nice lightness to the colour of the matcha that makes me think of a matcha latte. It’s not as deep of a green that I would honestly prefer, but I think it has a lot to do with the amount of matcha that’s present in the mix. The aroma is that of matcha, it’s light on aroma as it is on colour. The flavour is sweet first, grassy notes second. It lacks the umami notes that I look for when it comes to a nice matcha latte.

A Second Cup?

As matcha is a suspension, there were no second steeps with the powder.

My Overall Impression

I thought that Gold Kili’s Instant Matcha Latte was just okay. It’s a quick and easy to make – just heat up some water and stir in the mix. The lack of information about recycling the packaging is a bit disappointing, also the sheer amount of matcha not present in the mix. That said, I think it’d be great for someone who’s always on the go, or for the person who can’t keep matcha making equipment at work. I think it’s a touch too sweet for me, but I think it’d be nice iced and makes for an easy matcha latte when you’ve got a time crunch. It’ll definitely be something that I end up taking to work for an easy matcha latte in the staff room since I don’t get the time needed to whisk and find some zen.

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Masters Teas’s Shi Feng Long Jing

Shi Feng Long Jing by Masters Teas
Green Tea / Straight
$29.00USD for 1.5oz (43g)

Masters Teas has provided me with Shi Feng Long Jing for the purposes of writing an honest review.

First Impressions

Shi Feng Long Jing is an offering from Masters Teas from this year’s spring harvest – which is entirely something I’m interested in because who doesn’t want access to newly harvested tea? Long Jing is also known as Dragonwell (which you may have heard of before), and is one of the more well known types of teas to come out of China. This particularly one comes from Zhejiang, China and is grown at 500m above sea level, and was hand picked, which helps to minimize damage to the leaves and the plant itself.

The tea itself has some beautiful light spring green colours – the leaves are long and flattened, which is a familiar characteristic for dragonwell teas. The colour is incredibly vibrant, and there’s just the slightest nutty aroma coming from the tea.

Preparation

No steeping instructions on the packaging, but from their product page, Master Teas recommends steeping Shi Feng Long Jing in 170°F (77°C) water for 2 to 3 minutes. I opted to do an initial steep with 175°F (79°C) water that had been cooled for about 5 minutes and then used to steep Shi Feng Long Jing for 2 minutes.

First Taste

Shi Feng Long Jing steeps to a very pale yellow colour. There’s a definitely grassy and nutty aroma to it. The flavour is quite subtle, but it’s a smooth cup of green tea for sure. The grassy notes are more prevalent while the nutty flavours linger at the tail end of each sip. There was zero bitterness or astringency at the water temperature I used, and the length of steeping time that I used – something greatly appreciated.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Shi Feng Long Jing seven times (eight steeps total), adding an additional 30 seconds for each subsequent steep. The tea itself became more yellow as I steeped it, and the flavour got stronger. The grassy notes get strongest by about the third or fourth resteep, which is pleasant to experience.

My Overall Impression

I loved Masters Teas’s Shi Feng Long Jing. I’m a sucker for a decent cup of dragonwell, and Shi Feng Long Jing surpassed my expectations. I loved the opportunity in getting to try a newly harvested tea, and it stood up very well to being resteeped over and over again, so I would highly recommend doing that in order to experience the subtle flavour changes, and getting your money’s worth from this tea since it isn’t on the cheaper side of things. The savoury notes from this year’s dragonwell would make it a great pairing for a meal.

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