Tag: 24 Days of Tea

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24 Days of Tea: Forever Nuts

Forever Nuts by DavidsTea
Herbal Infusion / Flavoured
$7.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

Oh, Forever Nuts – one of my favourite pink teas. I posted a review of Forever Nuts back in January 2016, so I won’t be going in depth on this tea again. There has been an increase in price, and I used the entire contents of the little advent calendar tin for my cup of tea because of the large pieces of this herbal tea mix.

Forever Nuts is made up of: apple, almonds, cinnamon, beetroot, and artificial flavouring.

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Preparation

The preparation for Forever Nuts is to steep in near-boiling water for 4-7 minutes (same for both packaging and online product page), where near-boiling water is 90-95°C/194-203°F.

First Taste

I quite enjoy Forever Nuts, it’s not my first time trying it. I love the fact that it turns a surprising shade of pink and there’s a heavy fragrance. I’ve noticed that this little tin has more almond smell to it than when I’ve previously steeped Forever Nuts. I think it may be because the tin had more almonds in it compared to other ingredients.

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I find Forever Nuts to have a sweetness to it, so I don’t bother adding any sweetener to it. However, my favourite way of preparing Forever Nuts is as a tea latte. I have a tutorial on here about how to make tea lattes at home without fancy equipment.

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A Second Cup?

I do not resteep herbal infusions, Forever Nuts is not an exception.

My Overall Impression

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I liked DavidsTea’s Forever Nuts. From the colour to the flavour, it’s clear why Forever Nuts is considered to be a DavidsTea Fan Favourite when it comes to their extensive tea wall. The one thing that really keeps it from being a 4 cup rating for me is the fact that it’s not a tea that I reach for or think about enough to want to keep it in constant rotation in my tea stash. It is a fantastic blend though, and I like keeping a little bit of it around because it’s such a fun tea to have on hand to offer to guests.

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

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24 Days of Tea: Organic Ginger Pear

Organic Ginger Pear by DavidsTea
White Tea / Flavoured
$12.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

Day 8 of the 24 Days of Tea calendar is Organic Ginger Pear, and let me tell you that the smell of this dry tea smells exactly like it’s labelled on the tin – ginger and pear. I found with this tea, and a lot of the other teas that have big chunks, is that the tea base itself ends up settling to the bottom of the tin so when I first looked into it all I saw were the dried pieces of ginger and pear. But after digging into it a bit, there was the white tea leaves, so that wasn’t too disconcerting.

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Organic Ginger Pear is made up of: ginger, apple, cinnamon, white tea, pear, rosehip, and natural quince, pear, apple, and cinnamon flavouring.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Organic Ginger Pear in hot water (75-80°C/167-176°F) for 4 to 7 minutes (both on the packaging and on the product page). If this was purely just the additives, I’d be inclined to agree, but there is a white tea base. White teas are generally steeped for 2-5 minutes. I steeped Ginger Pear for close to 3 minutes. I have a page here on One More Steep about steeping times for various types of teas.

First Taste

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While Ginger Pear is steeping, there’s this really nice warm ginger aroma to it that just wafts up. It has a lovely light orange colour, and it just smells good. On first sip, I was pleasantly surprised that I could taste the pear as I couldn’t smell it very well as it was steeping. The ginger flavour just lingers pleasantly on the tongue as I drank this tea. There’s a subtle natural sweetness, that I would attribute to all the fruit that’s in this tea blend, that partners well with the ginger. I don’t think that this tea really needs additional sweetener at all.

A Second Cup?

I tried one more steep of Organic Ginger Pear. I found with the second steep that there was a bit of a flip in the flavour profile. The ginger was stronger the second time around than the pear, although that was still present as well. There’s less sweetness to the tea as the ginger’s spiciness begins to crowd out and overpower the other flavours.

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My Overall Impression

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I liked DavidsTea’s Organic Ginger Pear. I think it does fantastic for a single steeping to get the full ginger and pear flavour profile. If you’re a fan of ginger, I think you’ll also enjoy subsequent steeps with this tea. I would hesitate to recommend following the steeping directions set out by DavidsTea as 7 minutes would be far too long for a tea with a white base. It is a very tasty cup of tea though, and I really enjoyed the ginger and pear pairing.

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

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24 Days of Tea: Nutty and Spice

Nutty and Spice by DavidsTea
Oolong Tea / Flavoured
$9.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

I was super excited to see that Day 7 of the 24 Days of Tea advent calendar was an oolong tea! And then I smelled it and I was just overwhelmed with the heavy spice aroma from this little tin of tea. I couldn’t even see the oolong until I started shaking it out into my stainless steel tea infuser because of the giant chunks of fruit. Honestly, the first thought that went through my head was “What’s all this stuff doing in an oolong?!”. There’s a heavy cinnamon smell to this tea blend.

Nutty and Spice’s ingredients are: oolong tea, roasted chicory root, pineapple, papaya, cinnamon, walnuts, ginger, apple, rose pepper, roasted almonds, cardamom, almonds, pistachios, cranberries, rose blossoms, natural and artificial flavouring.

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Preparation

The calendar packaging recommends steeping Nutty and Spice for 4 to 7 minutes in hot water, this is the same as the online product page where hot water is 75-80°C (167-176°F). I steeped my cup for close to 4 minutes.

First Taste

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Nutty and Spice steeps to a nice golden orange, the first thing I could smell while it was steeping was the cinnamon. Unfortunately, the first thing that I could taste when I was drinking it was the cinnamon. I could not make out the oolong base at all – I’m assuming it’s there because I can physically see it and pick it out from the rest of the ingredients. It has a very “warm” flavour profile, the mix of spices is almost comforting in a way with how they just warm you up from the inside out. Unfortunately, that’s not what I look for in an oolong – especially all that cinnamon.

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A Second Cup?

I attempted to resteep Nutty and Spice a second time and was disappointed as it was kind of this watery messy that sort of resembled a cinnamon stick.

My Overall Impression

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I didn’t like DavidsTea’s Nutty and Spice. I really like oolongs, generally speaking, and the additives thrown in here don’t do the tea any favours. I find that the spices are very heavy in the flavour profile and effectively drown out any flavour that the oolong base would have added to this tea. On the other hand, I wish that some of these spices had made their way into day 6’s Apple Cider for more of a mulled apple cider flavour.

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