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.
Marco Polo Rouge by Mariage Freres
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Roiboos
Where to Buy: Mariage Freres
Tea Description:
A wonderful secret tea will bring you to mysterious and distant lands. Flowers and fruits coming from China and Tibet give this rooibos a unique velvety taste.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This was the first Mariage Freres tea I tried, and it’s still among my favourites today. It’s one of their most well-known and iconic blends, and it’s one I was initially most curious to try, having heard various opinions. I used 1 tsp of leaf for this cup, and gave it approximately 3 minutes in boiling water. No additions. The resulting liquor is a medium red, with little scent except a vauge sweetness. The dry leaf is similarly innocuous in this way, with its scent giving little away. I think that’s why I find it such an intriguing tea in many ways – its secrets are well hidden, and a true impression of this tea comes only through having tried it.
The initial sip is sweet, with the flavour of creamy strawberry. It reminds me initially of strawberry yougurt, only without the texture. The initial intensity soon fades, however, and leaves the woody, almost medicinal tang of rooibos behind. It’s a little jarring after the initial sweetness, but past experience tells me that a dash of milk can help to smooth this transition. I have none with me at the moment, though, so I’m proceeding without! Successive sips add to the creaminess, which seems to build and linger a little longer each time. The strawberry is prominent, if a little artificial, but the rooibos base pulls it back from being cloying. It’s not the gentlest of partnerships, but it does work in this respect. The aftertaste is mildly floral, although it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how. If pushed I’d say jasmine, but it doesn’t play a huge role in the overall flavour. Those who are wary of jasmine (myself included) needn’t fear! As the cup cools, the rooibos becomes a little scratchy and drying at the back of the throat.
Mariage Freres descriptions can be maddeningly vague, and this one is no exception. It’s a tea worth trying, though, for the strawberries-and-cream deliciousness if nothing else. It does seem a little heavy-handed in some respects, which is rare for Maraige Freres in my experience. A case in point here is the rooibos base, which can dominate the flavour after the initial sip, and which can become a little scratchy and drying on the palate. It tempers the sweet, syrupy strawberry, though, and for that reason I can’t really complain about it. For me, this is a tea that works best with a reasonably long brew time (4 minutes or more), and a dash of full-fat milk. It’s palatable without, but this is how it really shines in my estimation. It’s a good introduction to the world of Mariage Freres, and definitely worth discovering alongside its black counterpart – Marco Polo.
Cantaloupe & Berries Green Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Southern Boy Teas
Tea Description:
This super refreshing and delicious iced tea will definitely get you in the mood for spring. We’ve blended our sweet organic Chinese sencha fannings green tea with organic cantaloupe, strawberry, blackberry and blueberry flavors. Be warned, this will disappear out of your fridge really fast!
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
If you’re a frequent reader of our site, then you’ve probably already read a review of this Cantaloupe & Berries Green Tea from Southern Boy Teas! A few of the sisters are fans of Southern Boy Teas!
I recently acquired a new iced tea jar. I’ve been looking for either a half gallon or gallon sized glass jar (not a pitcher but a jar) and I’ve finally found one. This search started several years ago when I was still yearning to make sun tea – before I discovered the joy of cold-brewing tea.
Note: sun brewing tea is essentially the same thing as cold brewing tea. The big difference is that with cold-brewing tea, you don’t leave the jar out in the sun, you stash it in the fridge. This bestows one obvious benefit onto the brewed tea: it’s COLD when it’s finished brewing. I don’t think the sun actually ‘brews’ the tea. The steep in the water brews the tea. I don’t know that the sun actually does anything to the flavor. But, I don’t think you could have convinced me of that a few years ago before I actually tried cold-brewing tea.
So I don’t know why it was still important for me to have a jar. I have an awesome iced tea pitcher that works great for cold-brewing tea. And to be honest, I prefer my awesome iced tea pitcher over the new tea jar, primarily because this jar has a very annoying lid. It screws on, the way most jar lids screw on, but the threads don’t line up as easily/nicely as I’d like them to, making it more of a chore to screw on/unscrew the lid than it needs to be. It’s a minor annoyance, certainly, but, because my awesome tea pitcher doesn’t have this annoyance, it makes it the preferred iced tea vessel.
But one advantage that the new tea jar has over my awesome iced tea pitcher is that the tea jar has a 1 gallon capacity. Therefore, I could hot-brew a whole GALLON of this tea all at once and didn’t have to stash the tea bag in the fridge to resteep. I got my full gallon during one brewing session. (Well, technically, it took four infusions to fill the gallon tea jar.) Plus, it freed up my iced tea pitcher for another tea so I can have 1 1/2 gallons of iced tea in the fridge for the warm weather ahead.
So, yes, I brewed a gallon of this tea. I steeped it one quart at a time, bringing the water to 170°F and then allowing the bag to first steep for 1 1/2 minute and adding 30 seconds to each subsequent infusion.
Refreshing! I like the combination of cantaloupe and berries. The berries offer the strongest flavor – with strawberry and blackberry dominating, but not by much. I also get a nice amount of blueberry flavor. The berries are sweet with that familiar berry tart note. The cantaloupe offers a sweet, delightful melon note that contrasts nicely with the tart and tangy berries.
The green tea is a little lost in this – but I do get a hint of buttery flavor as well as a hint of that buttery mouthfeel. I also get just a hint of a fresh, grassy taste. These notes are subtle and even though I think I’d like the green tea flavors to be a little more distinct, I found this tea very enjoyable overall.
Windy City Blend from TeaGschwendner
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black, Green & Oolong
Where to Buy: TeaGschwendner
Tea Description:
What a gentle treat for the body and soul! A delicious whirlwind of flavor composed of seven sweet teas.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Thanks to my tea friend Sil for sending some of this my way!
I cold brewed my sample; it’s been absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous here in Saskatchewan lately (Spring has arrived!) so I’m not making hot tea for my commute to work anymore – which means I’ve had to be a little bit creative with what I’m picking out for cold brews. It’s resulted in some surprisingly great brews though! Since this tea is a jumble of different types, part of me was also relieved about not having to figure out what temperature to brew this one at hot.
This was a very weird tea; there’s certainly a lot going on with it. I tried it semi blindly; I hadn’t looked it up before hand to see what the ingredients were but I had seen reviews on it so I knew to somewhat expect strawberry and caramel notes. Otherwise, I had no prior knowledge going in.
My experience was that the oolong stood out the most of all the teas mixed in here; and then the black tea – didn’t really pick up anything particularly like green tea. Perhaps the little bit of nuttyness at the front of the sip? But that note could be attributed to the other base teas as well; it’s all very open ended. In addition to some nuttyness, I noticed a fair bit of toastier notes and mineral notes at the start of the sip; this is partially what made the oolong stick out a little more for me.
This transitioned into the body of the tea, which had a sort of ‘medium’ sweetness and richness to it; definitely the caramel. While this flavour was strongest in the middle of the sip, it was still present all throughout. The finish is where the strawberry kicked in for me; though I found it more of a soft, generic red berry sort of flavour and a lot less distinctly like strawberry.
Now that I’ve looked up the tea I see there are also some floral ingredients. I don’t recall pinpointing anything distinctly floral at all – but it is possible (though perhaps a bit of a stretch) that the presence of these flavours, if there at all, were just kind of smooshed in with the flavour of the oolong for me. With all that was going on with this tea I think it’d be perfectly reasonable for me to have missed them again.
I would totally drink this again; the impression I got is that this is definitely one of those teas that gets better the more you drink it. Depending on the outcome of trying it a few more times and seeing what flavours are more consistent, I think it could be a unique addition to a person’s tea stash!
Summer Solstice Herbal Tea from Tealux
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Fruit/Herbal Tisane
Where to Buy: Tealux
Tea Description:
Summer solstice is the name for the mythical night of the 21st of June ‘ the shortest night of the year. Midsummer is often described as a pause in-between a change in nature and provides us with the opportunity to pause for a moment in order to align ourselves with the energy changes of the natural forces. We have united the taste of ripe sun fruits and fresh herbs with the Swedish midsummer tradition of blossoms, in order to keep the rays of sun a little while longer in your cup.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
It’s not quite the Summer Solstice yet, but the weather is definitely getting warmer! Perhaps that’s why this particular blend really spoke to me today. It’s hard to tell from the description exactly what you’re going to get, so I jumped right in and brewed up a cup. The first thing of note is the size of the fruit pieces contained in this blend. There are whole raspberries, generous slices of freeze-dried strawberry, and large pieces of apple, pineapple and papaya (about 1 inch square.) There are smaller pieces of hibiscus, small flakes of nettle leaves, and a scattering of sunflower blossoms. The blend as a whole is bright and colourful – very summery-looking. It smells quite rich and fruity, rather in the manner of fruit cake.
I used approximately 2 tsp of leaf, and gave it 4 minutes in boiling water. It’s by no means easy to measure, due to the large leaf size, but I did my best! The resulting liquor is golden brown, and the scent is mildly fruity – I’m picking up blackberry and coconut primarily.
To taste, the raspberry and strawberry are a lot more prominent than I thought they might be. They’re juicy and natural-tasting, sweet initially and then a little tart. The more “tropical” flavours develop in the mid-sip; a lot of coconut, a hint of pineapple, and a slight pepperiness from the papaya. It’s a slightly odd combination, like two halves of two different teas have been unexpectedly brought together. It’s not unpleasant, but the transition from summer berries to tropical fruit is a little jarring. The fruit flavours linger well into the aftertaste, and I can detect a splash of blackberry at this point. It’s tart and a little sour, but again incredibly juicy, and I could see this working well with the initial strawberry/raspberry combination. Somehow, though, it’s not quite what I wanted after the tropical explosion that preceded it.
I quite like this one, purely for it’s accurate fruit flavours and sheer juciness. It’s a great thirst quencher on a warm day. I would have preferred it to be either berry or tropical, though, rather than both. The two flavour sets aren’t a brilliant match to begin with, and nothing is gained when they have to compete with each other for dominance. Still, it’s a pleasing cup on the whole, and I can imagine it working well iced in the warmer months to come.