Tag: DavidsTea

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24 Days of Tea: Crème Caramel Rooibos

Crème Caramel Rooibos by DavidsTea
Rooibos Tea / Flavoured
$7.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

Officially into the second half of the 24 Days of Tea advent calendar, and day 13 is Crème Caramel Rooibos. My initial reaction in seeing that it was a rooibos tea was “poop”. I don’t like a lot of rooibos teas, I’m quite particular (although I love Birthday Cake by DavidsTea). Rooibos to me often has an almost medicinal quality to the smell and flavour, and that is generally something that I don’t want to have in my cup because it’s not pleasant to me.

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Crème Caramel Rooibos has a slight caramel smell to it, but more heavy on the rooibos side. Crème Caramel Rooibos consists of: rooibos, caramel pieces, natural and artificial flavouring. For those who are lactose intolerant, it does contain milk. As you can tell from my photo above, my tin didn’t have a lot of caramel pieces in it (this may have played a role in my overall experience).

Preparation

The recommendation for preparing Crème Caramel Rooibos is to use near-boiling water (90-95°C/194-203°F) and to steep for 4 to 7 minutes. When I use my Breville IQ Kettle, I opt to use the French Press option (200°F) to get the water to the right temperature. I steeped my cup of Crème Caramel Rooibos for 5 minutes.

First Taste

Crème Caramel Rooibos steeps to have a very strong rooibos smell, very medicinal and not enough caramel in the steam that wafts up from the cup as it steeps. It does have a beautiful red colour that it steeps to, which I always like. There is a slight sweetness to this rooibos blend that I like, but it does get overpowered by the rooibos base. The medicinal quality in the smell is followed by a medicinal quality in the flavour. It lacks a creaminess that I was anticipating with a name like Crème Caramel Rooibos, and found that it benefits from a splash of evaporated milk. The cream content of the evaporated milk helps boost the caramel flavours, but doesn’t cut through the medicinal rooibos flavour as much as I would like.

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A Second Cup?

I did not resteep Crème Caramel Rooibos.

My Overall Impression

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I didn’t like DavidsTea’s Crème Caramel Rooibos. I really wanted to like this one, especially with a name like Crème Caramel Rooibos because I am all about the sweets (especially in the holiday season!). I found the amount of caramel in the steeped tea to be lacking, although it did improve a bit with the addition of evaporated milk. I’m just not overly fond of rooibos as a tea base, as I’m not a fan of medicinal flavours in my tea mugs.

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24 Days of Tea: Bear Trap

Bear Trap by DavidsTea
Herbal Infusion / Flavoured
$7.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

It’s Day 12 of the 24 Days of Tea advent calendar and today’s tea is Bear Trap. Kind of an odd-sounding name for a tea, but I don’t come up with these names! It is a very sweet and fruity smelling mix, with some strong berry flavours. Aside from some dried leafy looking ingredients, this blend looks like it could be easily incorporated into some granola to be turned into a trail mix.

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Bear Trap consists of: hibiscus, elder berries, rose hip shells, apple, papaya, lemon verbena, black currants, blueberries, strawberry leaves, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, morello cherries, and natural red fruit flavouring.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Bear Trap in near-boiling water (90-95°C/194-203°F) for 4 to 7 minutes. I steeped mine for close to 5 minutes.

First Taste

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Bear Trap is a very pink tea, more so than Forever Nuts is. It gets to be a very deep, almost red, pink, and it steeps to have a very strong fruity/berry smell to it. It smells heavily of cherries, I think that the cherries overpower the other fruits in terms of who wins in the fragrance war. On first taste, Bear Trap is quite tart. There is a sweetness to the blend, but I think overall it leans towards being to the side of tartness. The taste of Bear Trap isn’t overly strong of cherries though, it tastes quite like a strawberry fruit punch might. I feel that Bear Trap would benefit a lot from some sweetener mixed in to calm the natural tartness that the hibiscus adds to this fruity infusion.

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A Second Cup?

I did not resteep Bear Trap (I normally don’t with herbal/fruit infusions).

My Overall Impression

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I liked DavidsTea’s Bear Trap. I think that Bear Trap is quite tart, although the fruity flavours are definitely present. This is a blend that would highly benefit from having some added sweetener (perhaps some honey to further trap some bears?). I feel that Bear Trap would make an excellent iced tea or tea pop (concentrated tea mixed with some carbonated water), and it would be a great summer time/warm weather drink. It’s tasty, but I don’t think it does well as a ‘winter’ drink.

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24 Days of Tea: Hot Chocolate

Hot Chocolate by DavidsTea
Pu-Erh Tea / Flavoured
$8.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

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It’s day 11 of the 24 Days of Tea advent calendar and I was a little bit disappointed to pull out the drawer to see Hot Chocolate. Hot Chocolate and I have a bit of a history in that it had let me down. I posted my first review of Hot Chocolate in November 2015. I had high hopes for this tea then, and I still kind of do because of the name. Hot chocolate to me should be creamy and rich with chocolate flavour.

The ingredients in Hot Chocolate are: pu’erh tea, black tea, cocoa nibs, chocolate chips, chocolate curls, chocolate liquor, whey powder, lactose, soy lecithin, stevia extract, natural and artificial flavouring.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Hot Chocolate in near-boiling (90-95°C/194-203°F) water for 4 to 7 minutes. I had to steep close to 6 minutes to fully melt all of the chocolate.

First Taste

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Hot Chocolate steeps to a deep brown colour, there’s oil on the top of the cup. That is one of the issues with having chocolate in your tea (or sprinkles), is that it’s made up of oils so when it melts, you wind up with an oil slick on top of your tea. Not necessarily the most appetizing. It smells a bit like chocolate, but the taste itself isn’t helping the tea at all. There’s that dank earthiness from the pu-erh base, and then the watered down chocolate flavour from the chocolate shavings. Of course, when you take water and melt it in hot water, you’re going to wind up with watered down chocolate. There’s that harsh sweetness from the artificial sweetener, which I don’t like because it doesn’t add anything positive to this tea for me. I wound up adding a lot of milk to the tea and then finishing off the cup. The milk helps cut the sweetness, and make it more palatable.

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A Second Cup?

Hot Chocolate doesn’t do well when resteeped. The chocolate flavour is further diluted (there’s no more chocolate to melt!) and it doesn’t make for a very good cup of tea when you try one more steep.

My Overall Impression

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I didn’t like DavidsTea’s Hot Chocolate. With my second critical eye on this tea, I just find that it’s not very good. It needs a stronger chocolate flavour in order to make it remind me more of a hot chocolate, and it’s lacking a much needed creaminess to the tea itself that’s needed to better evoke the taste of a much beloved beverage.

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