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I picked this one up at Walmart. Ten dollars for 80g including the tin. The tea is wrapped seperately inside.

I prepared this two ways. The first was the traditional Japanese way, using a large amount of tea, 7-8g, and a small amount of water, 200 mL. The second method was to use a large mug of water, 400-450 mL and 4g of tea.

In both cases the tea had plenty of flavour. Grassy and Straw like aroma’s dominated the tea. On the second steeping this mellowed nicely. This is the sort of tea you would want to drink while sitting in a field after harvesting hay.

It’s quite different from the usual lemony sencha. The price makes brewing some concentrated sencha very inexpensive. I will say that it reminds me somewhat of green teabag tea, but more so.

I will post pics later.

Today’s random steeping is an Earl Grey from Singell Estate in Darjeeling. The bergamot flavour is light enough to be enjoyable. The scent is milder. Bergamot is a type of orange, but is a little different. It is neither like the lemon or lime that I have freshly squeezed in my tea. The tea itsslf is a black darjerling. I believe the use of this tea as opposed to a more full bodied tea lets the bergamot shine through. The colour is closer to a lighter ceylon.

I had this tea prepared at David’s. I wanted to compare it with the $6 tin that I get at Walmart. I won’t do a full review except to say that it was good. Steeped for 3 minutes. Vegetal, but I suspect there may be some citrus in there, if I brewed it at home. I had it with asian food.

I had this prepared for me at teavana. The aroma was interesting and the flavour was good. The only thing is that I think the rock sugar coloured the tea brown.

I had this tea prepared for me hot at the store. The peach flavour is not overpowering and works well with the matcha’s greenness. The colour was good. The volume of prepared matcha was much more than is normally prepared, so it is not possible to judge the full matcha flavour. Just as a regular cup of tea, it worked well. I would like to try it as a regular matcha.
I added sugar.

I picked this one up at Walmart for $6 Cdn. The box contained 40 bags, and they are the old fashioned style of teabags that we had growing up, not individually wrapped.

As it was hot outside, I decided to do a glass of iced tea, after walking to buy the tea bags.

I used 2 tea bags and 250 mL of boiling water. That’s about 6 grams of tea. Then I filled up a big bowl with ice and poured the tea in. That was enough to make one extra large cup. I squeezed in part of a lime as well. I also added sugar.

The first thing I noticed right away was the colour. Immediately after pouring in the water you see the most beautiful gold tea colour.

The flavour was light and drinkeable. I didn’t find it strong like Liptons.

The review for the hot version will follow. Special thanks to Stockman for suggesting this tea.

For the hot version, I decided to go with two tea bags and 250 mL of water and then added some cold water after. The tea had a good flavour.

I also tried ot hot with lots of milk and sugar. I found it a bit week, even using two tea bags. The asssam in my cupboard was tastier. I will continue to try thus tea as I have lots left.

This is the Canadian version which is made with Ceylon and Indian Teas. I bought this one at Walmart for $8 Canadian.

Looking at the dry leaf, you will notice that it looks like it has been all ground up. Hopefully, the lighter colour are tips and not twigs etc. A quick tip: if you roll the bowl of leaf around a bit, you can get an idea of how much dust there is in the tea. There is little aroma in the dry leaf. The brewed leaf has juat a little tea aroma.

The brewed cup is just as unexciting. I tested two David’s breakfast teas yesterday and this one and they were all like this.

My advice is to find a good quality Ceylon.

Strangely, I have a package of Twinings English Breakfast in Teabags that has been sitting around for two years and it is better than this as well. A nice clear reddish brew that I have drunk without milk and sugar. Note that the Brits get a different blend in their home country as well.

I decided to brew this morning as well in a more concentrated form, because I had watched Twinings brew it this way. I measured out a teaspoon (3 grams) and 200 mL of water for 3 minutes. The tea was more brisk this morning. There was almost a metallic taste on the tip of my tongue. My tongue now feels furry and a numb.

Dry Leaf:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJqLAFLhBSQ/

Brewed Leaf:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJqMJjKhCzx/

This was a replacement for the other David’s English breakfast.

The leaf looked much more broken, but there were more tips.

Overall the dry leaf smelled better than the previous one.

Nothing to write home about though. Actually, I find this one so unexciting that I didn’t even finish it all.

I’m starting to wonder what is going on at the lower end of the sprectrum.

Did tea used to taste good and now doesn’t at a certain price point?

Second review. This time I upped the leaf to a wopping 10 grams. Hot water. Sealed up with lid. Standard 3 min. Repeat for second cup.

Sugar and Milk.

Flavour: Very little.
Colour: Dark

Second steeping for 3 min.
Colour lighter than last time.

Mostly tasting milk and sugar.

This is the green tea that I picked up for $10 for 100 grams. I decided to try strong brewing it, so I weighed out 10 g of the tea. 200 mL of water was used at a cooler temperature, around 150 to 160 F.

The tea had a shimmery golden appearance. The taste was vegetal. With sugar, it brightened up, but still was on the oceanic vegetal side.

The second brewing was also vegetal. Although this time there was a strong vegetal / mineral smell. Quite unusual.

By the third steeping the tea had mellowed in flavour.

Dry Leaf:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJnj8TGBNTM/

Wet Leaf
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJnlPEcBztS/