Coconut Grove

Where does the time go?

No really, where? It feels like it was 3PM and then I blinked and it was 8PM. What happened? Ugh.

Anyway, this cold brew was fantastic – but nothing significantly out of the usual so I don’t have much, if anything, to add. I’ve been toying with the idea of adding milk to a cold brewed version of this. Anyone done that? Thoughts? Maybe on just adding milk to cold brews in general? I’m pretty sure I’ve never added milk to cold brewed tea before…

ZOMG I am typing this on my very first iPad. My laptop’s HD went kaput and the techs have had it for days now. My mom encouraged me to get one and reassured me that I’m worth it since I did well in school. Aww. Plus no more lugging around a 15" for presentations!

Anyway, everyone here probably knows by now that I am crazy for coconut. I was super sad that I didn’t get more of their coconut oolong before it went away but this came into our lives!

Flavoured white teas are very hit or miss, but the dry leaf smells like a more down to earth, less sweet coconut, comparing this to the oolong, at least. I can pretty much say the same about the flavour too. The base doesn’t fight with the coconut, and allows that yummy coconut awesomeness to shine through. This is without a word more akin to fresh coconut.

I only tried this hot since I can’t justify icing a white (and I pretty much always cold steep so you could imagine how expensive cold steeping this could get). But I’m sure this would make a lovely iced tea.

It’s hard to choose between this and the oolong though. Don’t make me choose!

Backlog

This was the last of this I had floating around, which is a little sad because I really think this is one of the better just coconut teas I’ve had. It was still buttery and creamy, and the mouthfeel falls somewhere between coconut water and light coconut milk. Drinking this also has has that little surge of juiciness that you get when you eat coconut shreds from the bag, and they almost seem to pop. I hope this finds its way back next summer.

Made the last of this one as a tea pop. I cold brewed it for about 8 hours. Mixed half and half with Perrier. Turned out pretty good. The tea is very light tasting, very much tastes like coconut water with an extremely light but smooth white tea base. So I think it should be mixed a bit more tea and less carbonated water. With half and half it kind of gives the tea a salty taste I sometimes can get with carbonated water. To me this one is pretty much coconut soda, but without all the sugar.

Edit: much better with 3/4 tea and 1/4 carbonated water.

My mom wanted to get more Cocomint Cream at DavidsTea this week, but it’s seasonal, I sadly informed her, and she was like oh no! So I told her she should try this one, and I picked some up as well. I also gave her my remaining bag of cocomint :) anyways, she splurged on 50 g of this after smelling it and tasting it iced in the store (I did too, it was pretty yummy) and tasted it earlier this week and loved it! So now it’s my turn to try it hot.

The dry smell is a nice coconut, not nearly as oily and overpowering as the coconut oolong, more of a nice shredded coconut smell. A lot lighter, the vanilla might also be helping that. I steeped for 4 minutes with 185 degree water. The steeped smell is maybe a bit more coconutty, but not bad.

I much prefer this coconut flavor than the oolong one. There isn’t that oilyness, its a dryer, shredded coconut flavor. It still is pretty strong, so that must be the flavoring coming out. But this one is much more bearable. The vanilla might be helping with that as well, or at least keeping the oilyness from becoming gross. I like the white base too, although not the price at DT haha. It’s light yet sweet, so far just sweet enough, almost on the line of too sweet, but more along the lines of the second steep of the oolong (I could hardly stand the first of that one). I will have to try the second steep of this at some point as well to see how mellow it is.

Overall, I am pleased it is not as potent as other coconut teas from DavidsTea. Coco Lemon Thai still beats this by a mile though, but I am happy to have tried this, and will gladly finish my 15 or 25 g of it, can’t remember how much I got. As I continue to drink it, the more I like it :) also very happy my mom liked it!

Cold-brewed in the Takeya pitcher. (Have I mentioned how much I love that pitcher yet?) I used about 9 scoops of tea to 64oz water and let it steep for around 12 hours.

When I scooped this out, I was impressed by the tea leaves they used — they were furry, decent quality white tea leaves! I’ve found that a lot of flavored teas skimp on the quality of the actual “tea” part. Not the case here. It made for a very happy Lindsey! (Note: I’m not sure what effect that has on the price of this guy – Mine came as part of the Summer Collection boxed set, so I have no idea how much it normally costs.) I also noticed that this one uses shredded coconut as opposed to the big pieces like Coco-Lemon Thai.

This tastes great iced! Nice and light, with a definite coconut butteriness. Slightly toasty, as I find all the best coconut teas to be. Coco-Lemon Thai used to be my favorite coconut white, but… I don’t know – this one may have replaced it. I like the simplicity of Coconut Grove. More of a pure coconut tea. Yeah, okay, I know that’s a stupid obvious statement because there’s no lemon or ginger or anything else that Coco-Lemon Thai has…but it still bears mentioning!

I don’t like this tea. It tastes exactly like coconut water. I didn’t like Tropicalia either probably because it tastes like piña colada which I don’t like (because of the coconut). The strange thing is I like the Buttered Rum (organic) which has coconut in it, as well as the coconutty SoHo Blend (Harney & Sons) :)

The dry leaf is mostly tea with long strands of coconut throughout. It smells like sweet coconut. The brew is pale yellow (but darkens as it sits for a couple of hours). Flavour: coconut water.

I drank it iced because I couldn’t imagine it hot nor do I have any desire to try it that way.

The tea delivers what it sets out to deliver: an all coconut tea. I just wish I liked it more. It is not astringent at 3 minutes with proper water temperature. I used a heaping “perfect measure” for 8 oz of water. Easy going tea for me, although whites can be picky.

Went to DavidsTea today during lunch to pick up some loose leaf tea bags to use at work, and ended up leaving with a steeped cup of this tea as well. It smelled like sweet coconut, so I decided to give it a shot. She put a little honey in it too. I was really surprised at how much I liked it. Their coconut oolong is too overwhelmingly coconut for me, but this tea was more my thing, even though it is definitely a coconut tea. Maybe I just don’t really like the combo of coconut and oolong? Maybe white is better, although I’m not sure I really tasted the white tea itself. Looked up the ingredients when I got home and there is some vanilla in there as well…must be why it’s kinda sweet and creamy. Mmmm. Anyway, I’ll probably pick some of this up next time I’m there. :)

Cuckoo for coconut! Creamy, coco-nutty goodness! I honestly don’t taste the white tea in this at all. I really only taste coconut and vanilla. I had it hot. It would probably be good cold as well.

Mmmmm, this is about as delicious as I had anticipated! Lovely creamy coconut with some sweetness. I haven’t had Coconut Cream from other companies recently (which is what I was thinking this tea may be the same as), so I can’t identify whether or not they are different. Might have to have to do a comparison later today. I’m almost tempted to say that this version is better, but it may just be that I’ve forgotten how good the others were.

Anyhow, thanks for sending along some of this one, Janelle, so I didn’t have to buy it!