Tag: Green Tea

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DavidsTea’s Roasted Gyokuro

Roasted Gyokuro by DavidsTea
Green Tea / Straight
$19.90 for 50g

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First Impressions

Roasted Gyokuro was another one of my free Frequent Steeper rewards. It’s one of DavidsTea’s pricier green teas, which meant that I really wanted to give it a try. I haven’t tried other gyokuro teas before, so bear with me. The dry tea leaves has a saltiness to the tea, the smell of it reminds me of the smell of grass and steamed spinach. It’s an interesting combination, but not so odd that it stops me from trying it. Roasted Gyokuro is made of organic green tea from Kagosima, Japan.

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Preparation

DavidsTea recommends seeping in 80C water for 2-3 minutes. I steeped it closer to 2 minutes since I wanted to resteep it and increase the steeping time for each additional steep.

First Taste

Roasted Gyokuro is a lovely pale yellow. It definitely has a fragrance that is unique to itself – it has a bit of saltiness, some grassy-spinach notes still. On first sip, I’m pleasantly surprised. There’s a bit of a buttery quality to the tea that mingles well with the grassy-spinach flavours. It does have a mild saltiness that I don’t find unpleasant. It adds to a different level of intrigue to the tea, which I quite enjoy because the flavour profile is different from the other green teas I’ve had in the past. The description from DavidsTea suggests that Roasted Gyokuro has a brown butter flavour to it, with a nutty aroma. While I do get some of the butter, I can’t really pick out any of the nutty smell, but it still makes for a very nice cup of tea.

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When I steeped for just the two minutes, it made for a very pleasant cup of tea. It wasn’t bitter at all. I think 3 minutes would be pushing it and might result in a sad cup of tea. I would recommend steeping for the 2 minutes for the initial steep.

A Second Cup?

Roasted Gyokuro resteeps well! The salty buttery-grass taste is a bit more pronounced with the second steep. It does fairly well for a third and fourth steep as well. It makes for a delicious pot of tea, I think it would pair well with sushi since it has that salty taste to it that would go well with fish.

My Overall Impression

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I liked DavidsTea’s Roasted Gyokuro. While I haven’t tried other gyokuro teas, I found this one to be tasty! It makes for a great cup of tea. The salty vegetal taste does lend itself to an enjoyable cup of tea, although I was a bit skeptical at first. there’s a lovely buttery taste to it. I wish I got some of that nutty aroma that DavidsTea mentioned in the tea’s description because I think that would have been a nice addition to the flavour profile of the gyokuro. As it is, it’s a great cup of tea, I just wish it had lived up a bit more to the expectations I had after reading the tea’s description. It resteeps well, so even though it is a bit on the more expensive side, it has great value from the amount of times that you can resteep it.

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Stash Tea Company’s Premium Green

Premium Green by Stash Tea Company
Green Tea / Straight
$2.50 for 40g

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First Impressions

Much like in my previous review of a Stash tea (Earl Grey), I like the box. It’s simple, has all the necessary information (for me that would include the ingredients), and it’s card stock so it can be tossed in with the recycling when I’m done with it. I like Stash because it’s a fairly inexpensive brand, as far as teas go. I got my box of Premium Green when it was on sale for 2 boxes at $5. Stash has a pretty wide selection of teas that I still want to try (but don’t quite have the storage space for all the boxes that would entail).

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Premium Green comes in a box of 20 sachets (40g total), which means each tea bag contains 2g of tea. The ingredients are simply titled a “select blend of green teas”. Each sachet is in a simple foil-lined wrapper and each tea bag comes with a handy string and tag in case you forget what you’re drinking. The dry tea bag itself smells a bit salty to me, and a bit like grass. It’s not terribly off-putting, mostly because it reminds me of a Japanese sencha.

Preparation

Stash recommends that you “brew for 1-3 minutes” with no mention of water temperature. Their website states to steep in 170-190°F (77-88°C). I steeped my Premium Green in 80C water for about 2 minutes.

First Taste

Premium Green steeps to a really pretty yellow colour. It has an aroma that reminds me of freshly cut grass and has this salty quality to it that reminds me a lot of seaweed (if you’ve ever had dried seaweed snacks or been to the beach, you know the smell I’m referencing). The taste itself is enjoyable. There’s a slight astringency that leads to a nice little bit of mouth puckering when sipping this tea. There is also a very grassy quality to the taste of Premium Green itself. The saltiness in the aroma isn’t off-putting when it comes to the mild saltiness in the tea itself. There was a bit of sediment at the bottom of my cup that is likely just the tea dust from the outside (or inside) of the tea bag.

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A Second Cup?

I attempted to resteep Premium Green, but it doesn’t resteep well and I would not recommend it. The resteeped tea is very watery and tastes nothing like how the tea should taste.

My Overall Impression

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I liked Stash Tea Company’s Premium Green. It’s a fairly inexpensive green tea with a great flavour profile if you’re looking to branch away from the every-day jasmine green tea (not that I don’t still love jasmine!). It works out to be $0.125 per tea sachet, which isn’t bad if you’re wanting to get away from that daily takeaway coffee habit (or if you’re just looking for an inexpensive tea to stash away at work). It’s an interesting tea because of the flavours that remind me a lot of sencha, and it makes a bold cup of tea. I really like the fact that it’s readily available – Stash is available in a lot of major grocery shops which makes it a bit easier to find. I would have given Premium Green four cups instead of three if it had resteeped at least once at a decent flavour – I think for something that claims to be “premium” that it should be able to handle being resteeped as all good quality teas can be.

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DavidsTea’s Buddha’s Blend

Buddha’s Blend by DavidsTea
White and Green Tea / Flavoured
$10.90 for 50g

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First Impressions

Buddha’s Blend was recommended to me one day when I was in the DavidsTea store and wanting to smell some teas (as one does). I asked the sales representative for some recommendations and she must have pulled down like twenty different teas for me to waft towards my nose. Buddha’s Blend intrigued me because it’s a white and green tea blend. Plus it has such beautiful floral notes and big (very obvious!) hibiscus flowers that just add another layer of delicacy to the tea itself.

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Buddha’s Blend consists of: white tea, green tea, jasmine pearls, white hibiscus blossoms, natural and artificial flavouring. The dry tea has this amazing floral taste (from the mixture of jasmine and hibiscus, I would assume), but it also smells like peaches and pears, which is interesting to me because those ingredients are nowhere to be found on the ingredients list (unless it’s part of the “natural and artificial flavouring”). It is a very beautiful tea though, the mix of ingredients is lovely to look at!

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Buddha’s Blend in 80C (176F) water for 2-3 minutes. I opted for closer to 2 minutes since it’s so easy to over steep white teas and end up with a bitter cup. If you’re steeping a tea blend and there isn’t any guidelines for steeping, always opt to steep for less time because you can always steep it longer (but you can’t turn back time).

First Taste

Buddha’s Blend smells amazing. It doesn’t smell as strongly as a juicy peach or pear (like it did in dry leaf form), but it’s still there. It smells fruity and floral with underlying notes of sweetness. Buddha’s Blend steeps to this lovely pale yellow colour and it has such an inviting fragrance! On first taste, I can taste the jasmine for sure, the floral taste of jasmine is so very present and it doesn’t taste like peaches or pears (which is a bit of a disappointment. The tea base itself is a bit lost in the blend of ingredients, although there is a mild astringency to the end of each sip. 2 minutes may be a bit too long for this blend, despite it being on the low end of the recommended steeping time. I tried steeping a fresh spoonful of Buddha’s Blend for around 90 seconds and the astringency is gone in the taste of the tea. There’s also more obvious tea notes in the cup that was steeped for only 90 seconds in comparison to the one steeped for the full 2 minutes. It’s a tasty cup of tea!

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A Second Cup?

Buddha’s Blend tastes like floral water for steep #2 (for the leaves originally steeped for 90 seconds) and it’s bitter. I would say that Buddha’s Blend is only good for one steep.

My Overall Impression

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I thought that DavidsTea’s Buddha’s Blend was just okay. It makes for a fairly pleasant cup of tea – if you don’t over steep it and it’s unfortunate that the directions say to steep for 2-3 minutes when I found steeping for 2 minutes resulted in a sub par cup of tea. Overall, the taste of the tea is good if you don’t over steep it, and the dry tea smells amazing. I just wish the flavours of peaches and pears was more present in the tea itself after steeping. There’s a slight sweetness to the tea that I enjoy. I would have another cup of this tea (which is a good thing because I probably have about 20 more grams of it), but it probably won’t become a staple in my tea stash. It’s a little finicky in the steeping times, and while it smells delicious, it doesn’t do well for resteeping and it doesn’t taste as good as it smells which lends to (bitter) disappointment.

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