Kokomo Green

So this tea has an average rating of 60. Wow. I don’t know that I’ve seen a DAVIDsTEA collectively that unpopular – maybe Aloha Pu-erh?

Anyway, I bought this on a whim/moment of weakness, and didn’t have any problems with it hot. I don’t really remember that cup, but this one shines when it’s chilled. Basically I threw a few generous scoops into my Takeya pitcher and let it sit overnight, and it’s very refreshing and light now. I’m tasting all the papaya and mango, as well as a touch of rose petals to give it a bit of something… else. But it’s balanced rather nicely and if it were sunny with blue skies I would have enjoyed the entire jug by now!

Sipdown! (146) And if this were one of the ones that were $14.50 for 250g I’d go for it. It’s nice to have cheap iced tea. I don’t know that I’d buy more at full-price though.

It is with great excitement I announce I made a good cup of iced Kokomo green! I say “with great excitement” because I was really kicking myself for buying this after two first disastrous attempts.

I lowered the temperature and used less tea, much less than the label suggests. It’s got great flavour now but a little on the weak side. I still have to play with the tea amount to see if i can get it a touch stronger minus the bitterness but all in all — progress!!!

I am not changing my rating because I still think they screwed this label up but I feel a little guilty. Thing is, it’s a finicky and unforgiving tea!

This tea is the reason why I’ve had the Beach Boys stuck in my head for days. Thanks a lot! I cold steeped the whole 10g and I was unimpressed. The flavours were meh. The only note reaching out to my taste buds was the mango, really. No papaya and maybe a faint whisper of pineapple.

The base was delicate in the first couple glasses, but the last couple were definitely on the bitter side. Nice attempt for a tropical green but doesn’t cut it.

No loss, though.

I love multi coloured teas, they are so nice to look at. They say that the first bite is with the eye and based on that belief this is very aesthetically pleasing. It has a very sweet pineapple and papaya scent that is very strong but also somewhat artificial. More like a candy than the actual fruit.

Once steeped this tea is yellow and has the same strong papaya and pineapple aroma as it’s raw state. In flavour this is a little bitter and astringent at first with a sweet tropical fruit after taste that lightens. I would say that this was A – over steeped and B – steeped at too high a temperature but I followed the instructions on the front of the package and this is how they recommend to have it. Think of a fruit green tea that has been steeped a minute or two too long and with boiling water. Eeeks-ville!

You sort of get used to the bitterness but personally I think it looks and smells much nicer than it tastes. This is most definitely not something I would like again.

Hmmm…. I think I understand the negative feelings towards this tea. It tasted pretty icky when I brewed it up. I’ll give it another shot, but I actually had to dump that cup down the drain. Something just doesn’t taste right. Yuck.

Thanks Janelle for sparing me from having to purchase some of this myself :)

I’m surprised this is so poorly rated. I thought it tasted fine but it was hard to actually be able to taste the ingredients. The green tea was pretty weak itself, but I could taste mango and papaya.

I decided to have it iced though, maybe that helps. There was just something about how it smelled that made me think it was better to ice it. And I sure as hell didn’t steep it for 5 minutes and certainly not at 200 degrees, jeez DavidsTea…it’s green tea.

I am sure I probably used the green tea setting on my kettle which is 175 and steeped it two minutes. I think instead with the rest of it I will use more tea. It just seemed really weak but apparently the only alternative is bitterness. Finicky tea!

REDUX TIME!

Steeped 4 minutes maybe a little less,put in a shallow tsp.

If this gentle steep doesn’t work I’m done I have too many fussy teas this better be amazing or I’m trading it. ( anyone up for trades btw?)

Okay so it is much better, not bitter. Pretty! Underwhelming but when done right it is nice oh wait further I drink the more bitter it gets ( exhausted sigh)

Not a win for DT change the formula please because this is like a bad ex you keep going to for a good kiss and mediocre to bad sex.

Yeah I said it.

Sipdown! Again, not bad but not my favorite. In other news my BFF is freaking out about how much tea I’m drinking at the moment. She’s worried it’ll keep me awake all night and that I’ll look tired in her wedding pictures tomorrow. She might be right, so I guess its time to make sure I stick to herbal and rooibos for the night.

I was trying to drink through my stash before buying more tea, but I couldn’t help but stop by DavidsTea during my lunch break yesterday. I was really going there to look for an iced tea maker, since the one I ordered on amazon arrived broken. Unfortunately, DavidsTea was already sold out of their first shipment of them! Really?!! Didn’t they just come in? Geez! I think the world just doesn’t want me to have an iced tea maker! So fine! I’ll make it with the steeping equipment I already own! There!

So, I picked up some of this tea to try, and also a new 36oz. Steeper. I decided it was time to upgrade my little 16oz. steeper from Teavana, which I may have bought before these things were BPA-free (yikes!).

Anyway, I decided to try my hand at cold brewing. My first time! I cold brewed this tea for 10 hours, and well, I think that may have oversteeped it, because there is a bitterness that is pretty yucky….kinda ruins the whole tea. Anyone have tips for cold brewing a green tea? I think I am going to have to try this tea the old fashioned way (hot) for comparison. It smells really sweet and tropical, but the taste is very light on the tropical fruit, and much more astringency than I would expect. I think it’s kinda grassy too. Oh well, I guess I’ll try cold brewing a non-green tea and see how that turns out.

UPDATE: YUCK! Just made it hot, and it still has that bitterness I found in the cold brew. I even disregarded the recommended steeping parameters on the package, which said 5-7 minutes at 200 degrees. Who steeps green tea like that?!! I steeped it at 176 degrees for 3 minutes. Blech. Bummer that I spent money on this tea. At least it was only 1 oz.

Ya know, as I am sipping, I think the bitterness has to do with the enormous amount of sediment, which now has settled to the bottom of the cup and it tastes a little better. Hmmm. Still not a winner.

Btw, this is my 200th tasting note! :D

I like this. Which, reading some of the notes here, is perhaps a bit of a surprise. I’ve tried a couple of tropical green teas before, and I’ve mostly been underwhelmed and, on the whole, not very impressed. They always smell nice, but they taste thin, weak, and generally a bit meh. This one is what I wanted them all to taste like. Papaya and mango are the dominant flavours, and I’m not getting much in the way of pineapple at all. With flavours this juicy, though, I can’t say I’m really all that bothered. None of the petals really seem to make much impact in terms of taste, although they do make the dry mix look pretty. As do the little chunks of actual fruit, come to that.

The green tea is discernable — it’s very slightly bitter, but not at all astringent. It contrasts with the naturally sweet fruit very well, though, so I’m not terribly upset about that either. I guess I’m just pleased to have finally found a tropical flavoured tea that genuinely tastes tropical. I should probably add that I ignored the time and temparature guidelines on the front of the packet. I know what seems to work for me with green tea now, and 5-7 minutes at nearly 200 F made me scrunch up my face in anticipation of how bitter that would turn out. I gave it my usual 2.5 minutes in water that’s been standing for a good few minutes and can no longer really be called “hot”. I guess around 180/185 F. It tastes good to me this way, and it’s put the Beach Boys in my head. Added to that, the sun has just come out after what’s been a particularly dull day so far. Perfect! I wish I had enough to try this cold, but part of me is leery of cold brewing green teas anyway. Thanks to Courtney for sharing this with me!