Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Tetley Tea or where Tetley Products are sold.
Tea Description:
Round, stringless tea bags are made with our unique Perflo tissue—sturdy, yet soft and porous, for faster tea infusion and better flavor release. 2 tea bags make 2 quarts of iced tea.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I don’t usually buy bagged teas off the supermarket shelf – and by this I mean to say, I just don’t do it. I guess I’m a bit of a tea snob. But when Tetley sent me a box of their Iced Tea Blend to try, I was willing to do so because a) that’s what I do, and b) tea. Tea makes me happy.
And really, when it comes to iced tea – especially cold-brewed iced tea – I really do prefer a bagged tea to a loose leaf tea. When drinking hot tea, I’m all about the loose leaf but when it comes to cold-brewing tea for iced tea, I prefer the convenience of a bagged tea because less mess = happier me.
So, I was actually happy to have this tea sent to me to try. I’m getting a little low on my cold-brew tea options (time to shop) and this helped to postpone my shopping for a little while, anyway!
To brew it, I filled my half-gallon glass iced tea pitcher full of freshly filtered water and then I dropped in two of the large tea bags from Tetley into the pitcher. Then I put the lid on the pitcher and stashed it in the fridge overnight.
Note: This is essentially “sun brewing” the tea too, because the sun doesn’t actually heat the water sufficiently to ‘brew’ the tea when you put out a jar of sun tea. By cold-brewing the tea using my above described method, you’re doing the same thing that you’d be doing to make sun tea except that my cold-brewed tea is now chilled. Eliminated a step! Yay!
The flavor: it tastes like black iced tea. This is an enjoyable unflavored black tea blend. I think I would prefer this to most other readily available grocery store blends. It’s refreshing and thirst quenching and the flavor is there.
This tastes like a pleasant iced tea. It doesn’t taste “dusty” the way some of those supermarket teas can taste. It’s smooth – not astringent and not bitter. It is brisk without an overly aggressive flavor. It’s a medium to full flavored tea, I suspect it’s a Ceylon or since it’s a blend, it’s comprised of mainly Ceylon leaves. It has that very clean, moderate, no-nonsense type of flavor that Ceylon tea is known to deliver.
If I were in need of an iced tea fix and I wanted a good, unflavored iced tea, I could see myself grabbing a box of this tea off the shelf. And since it is an unflavored tea, it allows for many interesting possibilities: try adding a few thin slices of lemon to the iced tea pitcher when you’re brewing it, or perhaps some crushed mint leaves or a couple of cinnamon sticks!
Christmas Fruitcake Iced Black Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
What’s Christmas without fruitcake? Not some brick of processed dried up yuck and colored cherries, but real, moist, sweet cake with cherries, oranges, cranberries, and pineapple–that’s the kind of Christmas fruitcake we tried to recreate here. And we did it, like always, with just premium organic Iyerpadi black tea and organic flavors. Enjoy!
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
OK, confession time: I actually like fruitcake. I’m probably one of the only people on earth that does like it. I don’t like all fruitcake, but if I happen to find a bakery that does fruitcake right – something that’s been baked in-house with good quality ingredients and that’s been doused with brandy … yeah, that stuff, I’d eat happily. That, to me, is the best way to ingest brandy.
So I was happy when Southern Boy Teas announced this Christmas Fruitcake Iced Black Tea as a flavor for the week of December 29th!
I don’t taste brandy flavoring here, so I don’t know that it was actually utilized in this flavor. But that’s OK, because this is really tasty just the way it is.
I’m really liking the flavors here. Of the fruit flavors, I think I taste the orange most. I taste orange throughout the sip and into the aftertaste. I get a nice little sweet and tart citrus note in the aftertaste. I taste notes of pineapple and cranberry and cherry, and I appreciate that these flavors are nicely balanced. I’m not getting an overwhelming, cough syrupy cherry note which is good.
The cake notes are softer than the fruit notes, but they’re definitely there. I get a sweet, cake-y flavor that is really pleasant. I taste hints of a buttery flavor. I like the way all the flavors come together in one sip: the sip starts out with a sweet orange note, and shortly afterward, I pick up on hints of cranberry. Pineapple is present throughout the sip. Cherry weaves its way in and out. The cake notes are sort of a sweet undertone throughout the sip and if I happen to slurp the sip, I get more of the cake-y sweetness (although it feels a little weird to slurp iced tea, I’ve gotta tell you.)
Overall, a really good, fruity, fun iced tea.
And please consider supporting this small business with their Indiegogo Campaign! They’re looking to reach new heights with their company and they need your support!
Blackberry Sangria Iced Black Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Our amazing organic Iyerpadi iced tea base blended with the organic flavors of blackberry, red wine, and citrus fruits. This will delight your palate and the palates of your guests. A great iced tea to share with your holiday guests.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
It’s a tasty iced tea, but as someone who typically doesn’t get all that into alcoholic beverages, I’m not finding the flavor combination of fruit and red wine all that alluring. It’s just not my ideal flavor combination.
But it is tasty. The blackberry notes are very forward which I am enjoying, and I taste notes of red wine. I like that the red wine isn’t a particularly strong flavor, it reminds me a bit of the wine flavor you’d taste if you were drinking a wine cooler. Yeah, I used to drink those. They were pretty popular when I was younger. Boy, I just aged myself, didn’t I?
There’s also a background note of citrus. These flavors add more ‘tang’ than a real focused citrus-y flavor. A little bit of contrast to the sweet notes of blackberry.
The black tea is tasted among these other flavors, and I appreciate that as well. I can’t say that this is my favorite iced tea flavor, but I’m enjoying it. It’s refreshing and fruity and my palate finds it pleasing. But if I were to sit down and place another order, I don’t think that this would be one that I’d put into my shopping cart.
But Southern Boy Teas does have a lot of other teas that I’d put into my shopping cart (more than I’ll allow myself to buy! ha!) Have you checked out their Indiegogo campaign yet? They’re looking to take their brand to new heights with this campaign, so please consider contributing and helping them reach their goal!
Sugar Cookie Iced Honeybush Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Organic caffeine-free honeybush with organic sweet, cakey, sugar cookie flavors. This is one of those teas that your family might end up squabbling over, so be sure to stock up on a few of these. Blends like these are a great alternative to sugary caffeinated sodas–we don’t let me daughter have much caffeine, but she LOVES these honeybush iced teas.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
After having tried Christmas Cookie Shou Mei from 52Teas, I thought that this iced tea might be a lot like that blend, but it really isn’t.
This doesn’t have the same warm spice profile that the Christmas Cookie tea has. This is more of a sugar cookie. (Just like the name implies!) I like that it’s not overly sweet. I don’t get a heavy “sugar” cookie sugary taste, but I get that freshly baked shortbread-type of flavor. It’s sweet but not too sweet. This isn’t like a heavily iced sugar cookie that you’ll find in your grocery store bakery.
You know the cookies I’m talking about, right? They’re really colorful and they have trigger kind of names like “cotton candy” or “caramel apple” that lure you in and you have to try it, but then when you bite into it, it doesn’t taste like cotton candy or caramel apple, it tastes like sugar and shortening. It’s so cloying that a bite is all you can handle.
This is more like the homemade cookies that are rolled in sugar, so you get a even, consistent, sugary-sweet flavor, but as long as the cookies are made right, it isn’t too cloying. The dough is not overly sweet, more like a shortbread so balance is achieved.
I enjoyed this. I liked that despite the name “sugar cookie” this isn’t a too-sweet kind of drink. It’s really tasty!
Please take a moment to check out Southern Boy Teas’ Indiegogo Campaign – they’re looking to take their teas to new heights and could really use your support!
Citrus Blast Flavored Iced Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Learn more about Southern Boy Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
I was pretty sure that I’d enjoy this iced tea flavor from Southern Boy Teas … I mean, citrus and black tea? These are two flavors that just go together … much like iced tea and summertime go together.
And this is really refreshing. It definitely has a big BLAST of citrus flavor, but I appreciate that I’m tasting more iced tea than citrus fruit. And not surprisingly, the citrus notes are quite complementary to the flavors of black tea. Like I said before, these are two flavor profiles that just work.
This tea is not overly tart, the tea balances out the tart flavors and lets some of the sweet notes of the citrus flavors come through. For me, I think that the lime is the most prominent citrus note that I taste, but I also taste hints of lemon and orange. There is also a grapefruit-like note to this and I like how all these flavors meld together into a “blast” of citrus: all the citrus notes work together to create a very harmonious tasting, refreshing glass of iced tea that seems to disappear from my glass quickly.
And while citrus flavors and black tea DO work together well, I find that this is not just “lemon” or “lime” or “orange” flavored iced tea. It’s a medley of flavors so that makes it just a little different from an average pitcher of iced tea. I like that I can count on SBT to deliver not just tasty iced tea, but something that’s a little outside of the box. Something a little different, something a little unexpected … SBT not only keeps my palate cool and refreshed but happy too!