Today's Tea: Garcinia Goodness

Garcinia Goodness from DAVIDsTEA

Description: We all sometimes need a little after-dinner relief. Next time, reach for this earthy, citrusy tea. It combines pu’erh and garcinia – two traditional metabolism boosters. Haven’t heard of garcinia? It’s a small tropical fruit that looks a bit like a mini pumpkin. And in its native Asia, it’s been used as a natural appetite suppressant for centuries. Here we blend it with black tea, pu’erh, orange peel and hibiscus, for a rich, earthy tea you can feel good about drinking. The perfect end to any meal.


Ingredients: Organic: Black tea, puerh tea, orange peel, hibiscus, garcinia, stevia, red cornflower. With natural orange flavouring.

Caffeine: 2 (Medium caffeine)

Brewing Instructions: 1.25 tsp    96°C/205°F 4-7 min

(From DAVIDsTEA: Garcinia Goodness)

Steph's Thoughts:
Honestly, I thought they misspelled gardenia, and it was going to be flowery. I was wrong.

Dry leaf notes smell very heavily of orange. I was worried I wouldn't like it because of the dry leaf notes, but I've learned not to judge my tea solely on its dry smell.

The tea tastes very much like an Orange Pekoe, but with a little bit of .... something. I think it's the earthiness of the pu'erh tea combined with the tang of hibiscus. The Hubby said that it tastes like "Red Rose tea with a slice of lemon." So, it's highly British then??

Garcinia Goodness tastes very good with sweetener. It's a little tart on its own, but the sweetener adds a nice flavour to it. Andrea (my TeaGuide) said that as an iced tea, the light citrus notes come through, but as a hot tea, it's the bold earthy pu'erh flavour that you get.

It is still from the Camellia sinensis plant, so you're going to get a bit of a caffeine hit if you're sensitive to that sort of thing.

It's not bad. It's not my favourite, but I'm glad I've tried it.

Verdict: Pretty okay.

Today's Tea: Snickerdoodle

Snickerdoodle from DAVIDsTEA

Description: Ever heard of a snickerdoodle? We swear we didn’t make it up. It’s actually one of the yummiest cookies around – soft, chewy dough coated in warm cinnamon sugar. And this decadently toasty blend captures the taste right in your cup. The surprise ingredient? Monk fruit – a traditional ingredient from China that’s 300 times sweeter than sugar. Blended with cinnamon, rooibos and pieces of brittle, it makes for a bakery-worthy treat you can enjoy guilt-free. It’s snickerdoodle dandy.

Ingredients: Brittle pieces, cinnamon, monk fruit, rooibos, natural butterscotch and cinnamon flavouring.

Allergen Information: Contains hazelnut.

Caffeine: 0 (caffeine free)

Brewing Instructions: 1.25 tsp     96°C/205°F 4-7 min

(From DAVIDsTEA: Snickerdoodle)


Steph's Thoughts: 
This was the first tea from the 2014 fall collection that I tried. My TeaGuide told me that this would be best tried as a latte, so I took her suggestion. It was fantastic! It's like a cookies-and-milk flavour without the soggy cookie!

Cinnamon is very prominent in this tea, and again, it's the good cinnamon, not the cheap stuff. (Seriously, I've said it before and I'll say it again - GOOD CINNAMON IS WORTH THE MONEY. It changes your life.) I totally love snickerdoodles, so this is a great, great tea.

Today, I'm drinking it straight (no milk), and it's pretty fantastic. It is a little bolder without the milk, but still great. I have a feeling that this would NOT be a good iced tea. (Later note: It's okay iced. It's not good lukewarm, though....)

I should mention, however, that due to the monk fruit, this tea DOES NOT need any added sweetener. It's almost too sweet as it is.

Today's episode of What Did I Learn About My Tea features monk fruit: Monk fruit, also known as luohan guo, is a subtropial melon cultivated in Asia, primarily southern China and northern Thailand.  It's part of the Cucurbitaceae family, which means it's related to watermelon, pumpkin, squash and cucumbers. It's used as a low-calorie sweetener (and I would imagine that you wouldn't have to use as much of it as you do sugar, given that it's 300-400 times as sweet as sugar. Imagine being able to use a teaspoon of sweetener instead of a cup in cookies.... whoa); as well, it's part of traditional Chinese medicine (used to make "cooling drinks" - to reduce fever or as a remedy for hot weather ailments). It's grown on a twining vine (which for some reason I picture as Devil's Snare....), and claims are made that it's packed with antioxidants and vitamins. Mogrosides, the active chemical compound that gives the fruit its sweetness, are also under scientific investigation for anticancer benefits.
(I've learned this from Wikipedia, so my facts may be off.....) This is all pretty cool, since I have a very sweet tooth (ALL THE SUGARS!!!!), hence the ... ahem... curvy figure, so anything that lets me have my sweets without the whoomp that comes with it is a-okay in my books. I'll have to talk to my doc about the prolonged uses of alternative sweeteners, but y'know. If I can use a teaspoon instead of a cup, I'm good.

One of the things that struck me as I was baking (actual) snickerdoodles this afternoon is how much the tea smells like baking cookies. The upside to tea is that it has significantly less calories than cookies, and takes far less time to prepare. I'm glad they got the smell right, in any case.

So, Verdict: Satisfies the cookie cravings. Sort of. (I had to bake a whole ton just to compare. They got it right!)