Tag: DavidsTea

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24 Days of Tea: Green Passionfruit

Green Passionfruit by DavidsTea
Green Tea/ Flavoured
$8.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

It’s Day 10 of the 24 Days of Tea advent calendar (only 14 more days left!) and the day of the tea is Green Passionfruit, which is a flavoured green tea. It’s not a tea that I’ve ever really paid attention to before, even though I’ve probably sampled it a good handful of times in store before. Green Passionfruit has this fantastic fruity smell to it, at first I couldn’t place it until I looked down at the tin and small the pieces of pineapple staring back at me. This mix smells sweet, which I attribute to the pineapple in the mix. The green tea leaves are visible, so are the corn flower petals. The dried black currants almost blend in with everything else, with their colouring, but they are very present in the tea blend as well.

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The ingredients of Green Passionfruit are: pineapple, green tea, black currants, cornflower petals, calendula petals, safflowers, natural passionfruit flavouring. I’m a bit disappointed that one of the ingredients isn’t dried passionfruit, to be perfectly honestly.

Preparation

DavidsTea’s recommendations for steeping Green Passionfruit is with hot water (75-80°C/167-176°F) for 3-5 minutes. I steeped my cup for 4 minutes.

First Taste

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Green Passionfruit steeps to a fairly bright yellow – which I think has something to do with the pineapple, possibly a little bit of the green tea, and the safflower. This tea has a very sweet smell to it, the pineapple helps make it seem like a nice hot tropical drink. The green tea base isn’t completely masked by the fruit, as I can still make out the mild vegetal flavours of the tea. The pineapple and passionfruit play nicely together and don’t overwhelm each other when they balance out with the green tea. There’s a good amount of sweet to this tea, so I don’t think additional sweetener is necessary (at all!).

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I think this tea would be excellent iced, due to the fruity flavours and fruit sugar content. This is part of the reason that I find it a bit odd that it’s in a winter advent calendar – the tea itself is good, it’s just not really a “winter” tea for me.

A Second Cup?

I tried one more steep of Green Passionfruit and found to the flavour to be very lacking. The fruity goodness of the first steep was nothing more than a memory with the second steep, and the sweetness had definitely waned as well. I think that Green Passionfruit is really only good for one steep.

My Overall Impression

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I liked DavidsTea’s Green Passionfruit. It has great fruity sweetness to it, and I think I would really enjoy this as an iced tea or cold steeped tea even more than I do hot steeping it. I find it to be an interesting choice for a winter advent calendar selection, since it would probably be better suited for an iced tea collection if it hasn’t already been in one. I enjoyed being able to taste the green tea base and there is a beautiful balance between the fruit flavours and the tea base, which I know from tasting experience can be difficult to achieve.

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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.

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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.