Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Herbal/Tisane

Where to Buy:  DAVIDsTEA

Tea Description:

Looking for a new way to satisfy your sweet tooth? This sweet and tangy tea is where it’s at. With sour cherries, kiwi and coconut, it has all the taste of a candy shop treat – at next to no calories. Brewed over ice, it’s a deliciously fruity, kid-friendly summer treat. And brewed extra-strong then topped up with sparkling water, it’s an unbeatably refreshing TeaPop. How sweet is that?

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

This is part two of a five part review of the DAVIDsTEA Summer Collection.

This year I found myself relatively interested in all five teas offered from DT’s Summer Collection so I decided to do a review of the whole collection here on SororiTea Sisters. Not all the teas are going to be prepared the same way; I decided to go with my gut and prepare each in the way I thought that they were best suited for. Now, because DT has marketed/designed these blends to be prepared iced that does mean most of the five teas were tried in a cold preparation style.

This is not an exception; for my first taste of the summer collection I decided to cold brew this one. Based on the initial stream of reviews on Steepster this blend seems to be pretty well liked; as of writing my review there aren’t really any bad reviews of this tisane. That’s definitely unusual, and it has me quite curious especially since this is the blend I was least interested in initially.

Dry I think this has a really intense aroma, and it reminds me a lot of Lipsmacker’s Strawberry Kiwi flavour. It’s very over the top, and really candy sweet. And as long as this doesn’t mysteriously pick up a ‘waxy’ taste then I think that’s a good thing because candy is obviously what DT was going for. I’m not totally sure where I’m getting strawberry from though since that is definitely not one of the ingredients in this: but it’s distinctly strawberry and NOT cherry or cranberry.

Steeped up and strained this has a powerful flavour; it’s incredibly sweet with just a hint of tartness. The first thing I noticed was actually the absence of a flavor – coconut in this case. DAVIDsTEA is really heavy handed with coconut as an ingredient, in fact three out of five of this seasons blends have coconut as an ingredient! It’s only the returning blends that don’t, and I can’t help but wonder if they were maybe so popular because of the lack of coconut. I definitely anticipated the coconut to be strong though – and I’m not getting it at all. It’s really weird, actually. And thinking about it, I don’t remember seeing any coconut shreds in the measured out leaf either.

The first flavor I’m actually tasting though is the kiwi – it’s much strong than I thought it would be. It’s followed closely behind by very plump, juicy cherry, cranberry and – yes, strawberry notes too. It tastes A LOT like Strawberry Kiwi Lipsmacker, no matter how hard I try to shake the comparison. Another popular comparison with this one is Jolly Ranchers; both cherry and watermelon. I can understand the comparison, but I don’t necessarily agree with it. Although, it’s reminding me a lot of a summer cold brew favourite of mine: Prickly Pear from Tea Desire, and now that I’m thinking about it not only do both teas have intense kiwi flavour but Prickly Pear also has a rich melon flavour so maybe I am subconsciously drawing melon comparisons too.

I may be the first ‘negative’ review of this one though; while I didn’t think it was bad I did think that ultimately there was too much going on about about half way through my cold brew I was just getting really sick of the intense sweetness and artificial fruit flavours. I get why it’s getting good reviews so far, it’s different from a lot of other tisanes from DT; but I’d call myself neutral at best. It’s not going to be a restock for me.