4mpersand

I steeped about triple the leaves in half the water for a soy latte today that I topped with whipped cream and cardamom instead of grabbing something from a coffee shop today. No bitterness, and no caffeine. Bonus.

Oh, so good. The bergamot and cardamom make for a beautiful drink!

A friend returning from Sri Lanka brought me a saree and a loose bag of Ceylonta tea. I didn’t really know what to expect since the package wasn’t in English, but I did a little searching, and it turns out this tea used to be a line from Lipton (the previous Brooke Bond, whom is also responsible for PG Tips) that was publicly rebranded by Unilever in 2010. Anyway – to the review.

This tea is like crack.

Honestly.

I drink it at work in the morning, in the afternoon, and then when I get home. I’ll consume literally up to two litres of it in a day. It’s simple, but it’s anything but plain. The flavours are robust, clear, and it’s near impossible to mess up brewing. So simple, but so good.

I kept a pitcher of this tea in my fridge at all times over the summer. It’s delicious.

Now, don’t get me wrong, my absolute favourite teas are hearty, robust English Breakfasts. But neither of DAVIDsTea’s attempts managed to do it for me. Their regular EB was much better than the Organic EB, probably because there were more Sri Lankan leaves in the blend. The Organic tasted….just… meh. Incredibly uninspired.

The worst part of it is that both of them were as fresh as they could have been, too. The sales girl was pouring them from their delivery bags into the canisters when I came into the store. Because of that, I got 100g of each so I’d have the tins to keep them extra fresh.

I tried valiantly to like these, really, I did. I steeped each of them at a regular strength, re-steeped those leaves, and tried them at double-strength with fresh leaves. I tried it plain, with cream, with sugar, with milk and sugar, and with lemon. There just isn’t anything I can do to make these teas drinkable.

After trying to love these over the course of a week and a bit, I actually broke down and went to my Sri Lankan grocery and bought a pound of imported fannings. So much better.

No notes yet.

Like english breakfast, but less. Less depth and breadth of flavour, even less colour for the same level of steep. The bags are even poorly made: quite thin, and you can tear them quite easily by pulling the string of the tab gently from the inside of the bag.

I don’t think I’ll be purchasing this again.

Much better than expected. Cherry, amaretto-ish flavour in an average black tea base. Best strong, with a splash of cream and a pinch of sugar.

This tastes lovely on its own, and even better in coffee. Roasty, dark chickory, warm vanilla, and nuts really boost the body on cheap coffee – and make proper coffee taste fantastic.

Desperately wanted to enjoy this but couldn’t. All I could taste was overly sweetened, almost synthetic coconut. I tried a mulberry out of the bag, to see if they were any good on their own, and no dice there, either. Quite a disappointment. Will not buy again.