Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
Thinking about Thanksgiving this week and cranberry sauce and decided to make this delicious blend of sweet young hyson green tea with dried cranberries, freeze-dried strawberries and organic flavors.
Learn more about this blend here.
Taster’s Review:
When 52Teas announced this Cran-Strawberry Young Hyson Green Tea as their tea of the week for the week of November 25th, I was pretty sure I’d enjoy it. I like cranberry, I love strawberry and I enjoy green tea. But I like this a lot more than I expected to! This tea offers a really appealing balance of sweet and tart, along with the smooth, lush flavors of a Young Hyson green tea. It’s really delightful.
I like that the cranberry and strawberry flavors are well-paired here, one doesn’t overpower the other and they aren’t competing with one another. As I said above, it’s a really good balance between sweet and tart. The tart cuts through the sweet enough so that it’s not too sweet, and the tart isn’t making me pucker. Very nice.
The Young Hyson tea tastes vibrant and it has a nice texture to it. When the tea is served hot, it has a soothing, broth-like comfort to it. When it’s iced, it tastes refreshing and smooth.
Really nice.
On the Sixth Day of Christmas, Della Terra Teas Sent Me This Tea …
Day six! Are you having as much fun counting down the days as I am?
Mouse King’s Cuppa
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Della Terra Teas
Tea Description:
Want to be as warm as a fluffy goose on this 6th day of Christmas? Sip down this one!
Feel like a king, a Mouse King even, right from the infamous Nutcracker ballet! This delicious spiced cranberry tea certainly is fit for a king!
Taster’s Review:
The last couple of days, I have been wanting a cranberry tea. I couldn’t find one in my stash (that doesn’t mean that I don’t have one there, just means I didn’t find one!) so I was really happy when I opened today’s package from Della Terra Teas and found this Mouse King’s Cuppa – a spiced cranberry tea! YUM!
The aroma that wafts from my teacup is a warm, cinnamon-y scent. Interestingly, this seems to be something that many of the teas in this year’s Christmas countdown box from Della Terra Teas have in common. Then again, this time of year inspires those warmly spiced teas. I don’t smell a lot of cranberry fragrance. Maybe a faint berry scent, but nothing too obvious.
The flavor is really nice. Up front, I taste the sweet flavor of the cinnamon. The cinnamon here is less spicy than it is sweet, but it certainly does still have some of it’s gently soothing and warming qualities to it. There are hints of other spices here too, perhaps clove. There is a warm, cozy background flavor.
Shortly after my palate recognizes the cinnamon, the tart notes of cranberry come through. The tangy berry notes are a delightful contrast to the the sweet notes of the cinnamon. This drink evokes thoughts of a winter-y party punch where someone steeped some spices in cranberry juice.
But the black tea is not lost in the medley of flavors. It is a mellower black tea flavor, yes, but, I can definitely taste it. It’s got a smooth, mild black tea taste. Part of me wonders how this combination of flavors might work with a more robust tasting black tea – perhaps something malty like an Assam.
As it is though, I enjoyed this cranberry tea! Another great gift in my box of goodies from Della Terra Teas!
Cranberry Ti Kwan Yin from 52Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
It’s one of the things that kind of sticks in my craw–hearing people say that flavored teas are just a way to dress up inferior quality teas and make them more palatable. We ONLY use quality teas here at 52teas. And occasionally, we do something that makes some of the tea purists a little crazy: we flavor an untouchable tea. Occasionally, like with this blend, we take a VERY high quality tea that most places wouldn’t DREAM of tampering with, and we tweak it, just a bit. This week we are offering another in our series of VIT (Very Important Teas) blends, a Gong Fu Ti Kwan Yin. After sampling it unaltered, I decided the already complex sweet/toasty/floral/slightly vegetal flavor of this amazing Ti Kwan Yin would most benefit from just a little tartness to contrast with the other flavors. So I added some organic cranberry flavor and real freeze-dried cranberries (just a few; I don’t want to be accused of short-changing the amazing tea on this one). The result: well, I guess ultimately it’s for you to judge, but I found it amazing.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This Cranberry Ti Kwan Yin was a VIT release (a Very Important Tea!) from 52Teas. What a VIT release from 52Teas means to me is that I actually have to place an order – I guess you could say that as a subscriber, I’ve gotten a wee bit spoiled! I love subscribing to 52Teas Tea of the Week program, because I automatically get the tea of the week from 52Teas … I don’t have to worry about missing the weekly announcement and getting to the website too late, only to find out that the tea has sold out. No sold-out worries for me! But when 52Teas decides to release a VIT, then I have to scramble to the website and hope that I’m not too late.
Fortunately, I got in on this tea. I don’t know that I’ve ever come across a cranberry flavored Oolong tea before, so I was excited to try this. I mean, the sweet, toasty, creamy taste of a Ti Kwan Yin combined with the tart and tangy notes of cranberry sounds amazing!
And while I have to admit that I wasn’t crazy about it with my first couple of sips, I’m finding myself coming around to this tea and I’m liking it. I think that the tea definitely does benefit from some cooling time – this seems to taste better when it’s warm rather than piping hot … and it’s really delightful iced! When served hot, it has a slight … “off” taste that I can’t quite place. But after it’s had a chance to cool slightly, the cranberry flavors come through as well as the delicious notes of the Ti Kwan Yin, and the two meld together quite nicely.
The flavor of the cranberry is tart and maybe just a tad TOO tart for my taste and maybe that’s why I was getting that slightly off taste I mentioned before. As it cools, some of the sweeter notes of the Ti Kwan Yin come through and soften the tartness of the cranberry just a tad. The Ti Kwan Yin has a charcoal-y roasty-toasty taste to it, and I really like that together with the notes of the cranberry, as this seems to bring out some of the sweeter tones of the berry.
Overall, I find this to be a deliciously toasty, nutty, sweet, creamy cuppa with a lovely tart and tangy finish from the cranberry. This is a tea that definitely evokes the spirit of autumn/early winter for me, and makes me wish for a quick return of my favorite season!
A delightful tea – not my favorite VIT from 52Teas but one I’m definitely glad I managed to get my hands on before it sold out! And A quick visit to the available NOW page at 52Teas (aka Zoomdweebies) tells me that this tea is STILL in stock, so if this tea is of interest to you, you better hurry and get some for yourself!
Fireberry Tisane from Tiesta Tea
Tisane Information:
Leaf Type: Rooibos & Herbal Tisane
Where to Buy: Tiesta Tea
Tisane Description:
Dark, rich, and smooth. Who doesn’t want that? With a combination of all your favorite berries, this charmer will definitely leave you burning for more. (Another amazing iced tea!)
Learn more about this tisane here.
Taster’s Review:
This Fireberry Tisane from Tiesta Tea is a very unexpected tisane. The name suggests to me a tisane with the warming power of ingredients such as chili pepper or perhaps ginger … but this tisane has neither. And because I didn’t read the ingredient list before I took my first sip, I was surprised at how smooth this tasted. It didn’t taste sharply tart the way many fruit and herbal tisanes do, and I suspect this has something to do with the rooibos in the blend.
Oh, it still has some tartness – not just from the hibiscus but from the three different berries: cranberry, currants and elderberries. But the sweet, slightly nutty, slightly honey-esque notes of the rooibos softens the tart bite.
This is a tasty blend. I do still find myself a bit let down by the lack of “fire” in this blend, and I am wishing that there was in fact some chili pepper or ginger of something else that might give it a touch of heat. As it is though, it’s a remarkably smooth tisane … with a nice sweetness and contrasting tart note that doesn’t take tart too far.
Enjoyable … one I would be happy to drink again.
Cranberry Mango Green Tea from Zen Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Zen Tea
Tea Description:
Tart and tangy cranberries meet the rich sweetness of ripe mangos. Sweet, invigorating and exceptional!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Oh YUM! This Cranberry Mango Green Tea from Zen Tea is oh-so-delicious!
The contrast between the cranberry and mango is fantastic! This cup is at once sweet, tart, fruity, and of course, mildly invigorating with a lovely green tea lushness that I’m finding absolutely captivating.
I recommend letting this tea cool just a minute or two after pouring the cup, when it’s still right from the teapot hot, the flavors seemed to be hiding. But after a minute or two, the flavors really POPPED!
I’m loving the fruit flavor here. This tastes like authentic cranberry and mango – its not that artificial, chemical kind of fruit taste that some teas possess. The mango tastes sweet and juicy, like a fresh, ripe mango! Pair that with the robust tartness of the cranberry and BAM! You have a really delightful combination of fruits that work amazingly well together. Mango and cranberry are two flavors I wouldn’t have ordinarily thought of combining, but they work astonishingly well together!
And the green tea is not hidden in this blend either. The Chinese green tea tastes sweet, a little creamy (as if it were “kissed” with just a touch of butter) and slightly vegetative. I wouldn’t call it a grassy vegetative taste, more like the taste of steamed vegetables … but, a very mild vegetable … and the taste is very subtle. If you’re one who tends to shy away from green teas because of the sometimes aggressive vegetative taste … I’d recommend trying this one. The vegetative taste here is delicate.
This is really good – one that I’ll want to stock up on when it gets warm out … it’s going to make an AWESOMELY refreshing iced tea!