Guava Cadabra is a caffeine-free herbal fruit blend from DAVIDsTEA. This blend features mango, apple, hibiscus, elderberries, and guava crunchies. Guava Cadabra is DAVIDsTEA‘s Tea of the Month for July 2013.
Guava seems to be an uncommon ingredient in tea. Actually, even seeing guavas in stores is uncommon, unless I go to specialty markets. Guavas remind me of a coworker I had who would often eat them like a giant apple – walking around the office with this large green fruit in his hand, taking large bites out of it.
I ordered this tea as guava is tasty, unique and I do love my fruity herbals. Many of DAVIDsTEA‘s fruity herbals are fantastic, too!
Oh cool, nutritional facts!
Dry Leaf: The tea is chunky. I gave the bag a good toss to ensure the ingredients are combined, however the tea is so fruity chunky that it likes to mold into shape of my teaspoon. Reaching in with fingers, some of the bits are slightly sticky (and tasty!) so I’d be sure to correctly store this tea and use quickly.
Lots of interesting bits: sugary mango cubes, deep red hibiscus strands, itty bitty elderberries, mystery chunks and apple lumps.
The smell? OOOH MAN SO GOOD! Smells strongly sweet and fruity!
Steeping Instructions: I followed the packaging instructions and used boiling water, steeping the tea for 7.5 minutes.
Interestingly, in a gravity steeper the tea is a cute cloudy pink colour that reminds me of guava flesh.
When poured into the cup, the hibiscus steps in and turns the blend into a deep orange red.
Annoyingly, Guava Cadabra jams up my gravity steeper – the large, smushy chunks of fruit cover up the filter so the tea pours slowly! (FYI, no damage to the steeper, the steeped bits rinse away easily)
Taste: First sip, slightly watery in flavor intensity with a hint of hibiscus with a little tart. Tart-o-meter? 3/10. The tart is slight and all hibiscus, that thankfully isn’t overused here. Throughout the sip, the fruityness develops into an interesting, complex and exotic combination. I get a little mango smoothness, apple sweet and a lot of guava/pear/berry notes. The tea finishes sweet, but moreso sugar sweet than natural sweet. The fruity aftertaste lingers on for awhile after drinking this tea.
Sweetened: adding some german rock sugar nuked all the tart out of Guava Cadabra making it pretty much like fruit juice and candy. There is a mystery light creamy feel to this tea that reminds me of mango and guava flesh. YUM! I do miss a little tart as it tastes more like guava. It is really easy to over sweeten this tea as there is some sugar already in the blend.
Iced: I’m pretty sure DAVIDsTEA planned this to be an iced tea. I steeped Guava Cadabra double strength and poured over a tumbler of ice.
I decided to not add any sweetener just to see how it would taste. The flavor is pretty yummy iced! The mix of tropical mango and guava is crisp and candy-like with a little hibiscus tart. Much less tart here 1/10 on the Tart-o-meter and it is much sweeter. I could add a little sugar, but is good as is.
Mintea Owl has been lurking in a DAVIDsTEA tin since I unwrapped them, however this cup of iced tea is tempted him to leave the tin!
Comments; The more I drink Guava Cadabra, the more it entrances me – the fun exotic flavors are very tasty! It has a great crispness and interest without being flat in flavor. It is on the sweet side however, so be careful when adding additional sweetener (if that is even needed). FYI, this tea is fairly heavy – I made 1 cup hot and 2 tumblers of iced tea and I’m easily 50% through my 50g package.
I prefer this tea cold and I like how I don’t need to add additional sweetener to it. This would be a great tea for kids and fruity herbal fans!
