I ordered these samples such a long time ago that I’ve been ripping them open without quite remembering their contents. This morning I ripped open “strawberry blonde” hoping it’d be some kind of strawberry-vanilla black tea, but it’s a strawberry green. Even though I prefer black tea in the morning, I was committed.
This is an adorable number! What a light, sweet blend! The green is a tingling non-vegetal one, which allows the sweet strawberry to hop into the limelight. This flavor is so rich that it tastes like this tea should have calories.
(Speaking of which, why does anyone drink apple or orange juice when they could just drink flavored tea? Or herbal tea? Don’t they know how easy tea is on calories? Straight tea without sugar/honey/whatever is ZERO WEIGHT WATCHERS POINTS, guys.)
This is supposed to taste like a strawberry crumble, but I’m not getting anything that tastes like a graham cracker or granola. That said, I don’t particularly care about it being a crumble. I think this stands on its own as just a nice strawberry experience. I suspect that it’d be pretty good iced, too.
I’m a brunette, but I feel pretty included in this blend!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Perkse Tea
Description
❤ A deliciously light green tea with smooth traces of strawberry delight! We source our strawberries from Niagara Region in the province of Ontario.
Our luxury loose leaf teas are carefully blended & packaged by hand within 24 hours prior to shipping. We source directly from farmers/cultivators/tea merchants. Our teas are packaged in an air tight resealable pouch to ensure freshness.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Notes about Pearls of Jade – Bi Luo from Silk Road Teas. . . .
Glorious. . .
The mouth feel this tea gives you is so nice. . . .
Smooth from the tip of your tongue to the back of your throat. Then there is the wet smell.
Oh what a heavenly aroma!
Grassy, nutty, vegetal and slight hints of earth.
One can tell that these leaves have been carefully cared for. Clear, golden amber liquid color.
Flavors range from vegetal and the beginning to slightly sweet and mineral.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Silk Road Teas
Description
Harvest date Spring 2017. A sweet & vegetal flavor green tea that comes out early in the harvest. This lot is pre-Qing Ming – picked as the weather warmed in late March into first days of April. The leaf is a crisp green color, lightly curled and sprinkled with white buds. This is our harvest or select grade Bi Luo Chun. It offers a greener leaf appearance and a wonderful herbaceous taste. An excellent value tea that captures a taste of spring in a sweet, relaxing cup.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
True Honey Teas Green . . . .
Today my husband asked me for a no nonsense not fru fru simple drinking tea and I knew exactly which tea to brew up for him.
True Honey Teas offer tea drinkers a tea and honey combination in every sip of their teas. In both their K Cups and bagged teas, honey along with sugar has been added in one for or another. And when I say sugar I mean sugar. Not stevia or or any other sweetener. But pure sugar. My husband was quite excited about that fact.
Brewed up with water at around 190F and allowed to steep for 3 minutes, this tea yields a very delicious yet very sweet brew. The honey comes across right away and the green tea base provides that perfect contrast to the sweet honey giving the tea this very satisfying sip each and every time.
I will admit, the honey/sugar is a bit much for me and I find myself only able to drink a cup here or there. I rarely add any sugar or honey to my teas, but the rest of my house devoured this tea after I brewed up a few cuppas. Like DEVOURED it to the point where they are asking me for more. They even asked me to throw a few tea bags into a pitcher to make a batch of sweet iced green tea. Something that I think even I could get on board with.
All in all a great cuppa for sure just one I don’t think I could see as a daily drinker for me personally. This tea blend is simple and to the point. Green Tea sweetened with honey and sugar. Honestly, a great combination for any tea drinker! My family has deemed this tea blend a winner!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: True Honey Teas
Description
24 Green Tea Bags With All-Natural Honey Granules
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Matcha Ice Cream from DAVIDs Tea. . . . . .
There’s no doubt that matcha has been all the rage in recent years. Brewed in traditional ceremonial style, mixed up as a latte, flavoring everything from macaroons to yogurt, you kind of can’t go anywhere *without* seeing it in some capacity. I’ve been a fan of matcha lattes especially for a while now– something about the verdant green-ness of the powder balanced with the creaminess of milk is especially heavenly. You can imagine, then, when I saw David’s Tea’s most recent matcha re-imagining included a matcha ice cream flavor– well, I was all about it.
The dry leaf is beautiful– matcha powder-coated green tea leaves, with big slivers of almond and tiny swirls of what I’m assuming is white chocolate candy (I mean, it’s *ice cream* tea. It was never going to be healthy). What I pictured: dreamy, vanilla-almond creamy green, perfectly balanced with a dash of milk. What I got: kind of vanilla-almond-y, with OMG STEVIA, YOU GUYS STEVIA IS HERE JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, STEVIA. (Isn’t that how stevia always shows up in tea? Loud and proud?) I’m not an across-the-board stevia hater, but here, it just doesn’t work well for me. It’s harsh and takes me out of the otherwise lovely flavors, and leaves that funky-sweet almost aspartame-y aftertaste that’s just not my jam. Now if you’re wondering– why even review this tea if you’re thinking it’s just super not for you, Mary? Let me tell you, friends– the one saving grace of this particular blend is that is *does* work well with milk, which helps temper the stevia taste fairly well– particularly when it’s foamy, latte-style milk. Overall, once this sample is gone, I won’t be re-purchasing. I think I’ll just stick to my matcha ice cream by the scoop, please and thanks.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: DAVIDs Tea
Description
This white chocolate and almond green tea contains a double scoop of healthy matcha.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Jasmine Green Tea from Zesta Tea. . . . .
With how my life is structure, having a tea that I can pop in a bottle of iced water or freshly prepped water is key. I sometimes need a quicker route to tea than the traditional loose leaf variety. It sounds silly, but being a mom of 4 with all of the other work and home tasks that need to get done on a daily basis, I find that sometimes time just doesn’t always allow for the prep needed for my beloved loose leaf. Yes, I know. Prepping loose leaf tea takes a mere minutes, but sometimes I really do find myself up against the clock to grab shoes and get out the door with kids in two. This is where Jasmine Green Tea from Zesta Tea has been my hero.
Jasmine Green Tea is a bagged tea variety of one of my beloved teas. With a gorgeous elephant as their logo, Zesta Tea knows how to do give you a lot of flavor in a tea bag. Freshly prepped with hot water, this tea gives that familiar and soul loving floral flavor mixed with that brilliant green tea base. The jasmine flavor really is the star here and the green tea is a bit more gentle. . . quite a romantic combination in my opinion. The tea is smooth and really hits the spot when you need something quick. I do still enjoy my loose leaf version of jasmine green tea better, but this tea is perfect for those instances where I need to really get a moving.
What I found that I really adore about this tea is how marvelous you can brew up an iced tea. I fill my water bottle up with ice, water, and a few of Zesta’s Jasmine Green Tea bags. Stick it in the fridge and in an hour or so, I have wonderful iced tea. Perfect for those on the go moments that fill up my day everyday. And this iced tea always compliments whatever lunch I’ve scrounged up for myself.
For a bagged tea, this Jasmine Green Tea has really caught my attention. I’m excited now to jump into the loose leaf teas that Zesta Tea sent us to review along with the other bagged tea varieties. I see lots of tea tasting sessions in my future this weekend!
I’ve had other bagged tea varieties of this tea blend before and for the most part, have walked away disappointed. Not the case here. This may be a tea I need to pick up more of for those busy summer days that are quickly approaching.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Zesta Tea
Description
Chinese green tea delicately flavoured by imprinting the leaves with natural Jasmine flowers and allowing the tea to absorb its fragrance. The flowers are then carefully removed by hand leaving behind this exotic tea that can be drunk any time of the day and particularly makes a great accompaniment to food.