Confession: I’m completely fine with drinking alone…. Tea, of course 😉 But drinking with friends offers some undeniable benefits – laughter and memories made, more importantly a spread of tastebuds that offers better insight than just one picky tongue.*
There are so so many beautiful ingredients in this custom Blueberry Custard from Blendbee, I needed all the help I could get to do it justice! First off, I highly recommend using a clear brewing system (gravity steeper or mason jar) to be able to fully enjoy the making of this majestic Purple infusion. (Fortunately I had just cleaned the hard-earned tea patina off mine with baking soda and vinegar, so it was even more beautiful than my usual cuppa!)
Between the three of us sipping, only one added sugar and it really took away from the innate sweetness of this mix, hmmm better off just trusting the blend maker on this one. Some of us were crazy about this tea, but others found the herbals to be unpalatable. So we looked into what exactly were imbibing…
With Blendbee, you can create your own mix weighing anywhere from 1 oz to ½ pound. You start with a choice from 15 tea bases, and here they chose the China Green tea.
Next there are over 90 categorized ingredients to choose from (though it’s recommended to stick below 8). Must be a tough decision from all those options! This blender chose 7:
Earthy and pungent category: yarrow flower;
Mild and fruity category: elder berries;
Herbaceous herb category: strawberry leaves;
Mild and nutty category: ashwaganda root;
Mild and herbal category: agrimony herb, and coriander seed;
And one uncategorized, marshmallow root.
Next the website offers additional extracts and flavors (up to 3 per blend). Here the blueberry and custard flavor extracts were used. (It was argued at one point that this put the ingredient count to 9, above the recommended 8, but that person is a stickler for semantics and didn’t like the tea anyway, so read that with a grain of salt).
Some of these herbs strike me as acquired tastes, beyond that, I would’ve preferred having actual blueberries instead of the extract, though I didn’t see it as an option (yet) and the extract probably consistently offers more flavor in a smaller space.
This organic blend featured so many different flavor profiles, it was a… memorable… experience for well-developed sippers, and newbies alike.
*The best part of sharing with friends is finding a loving home for leaves that aren’t your favorite (yet). Thanks H.R.!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: BlendBee
Description:
Create custom teas, with more than a hundred quality and organic ingredients to choose from.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Blueberry Green Kukicha from Frontier Organic . . . . .
I’ve really been looking forward to this organic Kukicha touting the same blueberry green flavor profile that got me through finals week. This kukicha style of tea includes twigs from the tea plant so it’s a bit lower in caffeine and usually a bit more woody tasting. To be honest I’m a little judgy about low caffeine teas, I have an assumption that they’ll be less flavorful but I’m more than willing to test my hypothesis, especially since this is my comfort flavors! The stars of this blend are plenty of flat greens (I’m guessing it’s Dragonwell tea / longjingcha) dotted with teensy dried blueberries.
As it brews, it smells earthy but pleasant and delicate, like walking through a forest in the summer, with teases of juicy berries begging to be eaten. Not getting as much lemongrass scent, though I see it. The different components stratify themselves by weight in my gravity strainer, producing a really neat effect in the deep caramel-colored infusion. You can blame my geology profs for that last observation 😉
The complex taste of the green tea seems to expand past my mouth! It makes a single sip seem impossibly full of flavor. It’s unexpectedly rich, and then the sweet berry aftertaste lingers for a nice long while. The lemongrass is hiding somewhere in all this, but it’s not undetectable, just subtle. My second steep included rock sugar, which eased the flavor intensity a bit and made it more my taste.
I have to say, despite my bias I’m impressed with how well this low caffeine tea passed my taste-tests. Each flavor amplified the others, but nothing is overpowered. Since I’m already committed to nerdy buzzwords here, I’m going to call this a synergy blend, where the end product is more flavorful than the sum of its parts alone. Yum!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green Tea
Where to Buy: Frontier Co-Op
Organic and Kosher loose leaf Kukicha
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Wild Blueberry Green from Fava Tea. . . .
Sometimes it’s nice to go back to basics. There are so many funky and unique tea blends when it comes to flavored tea that sometimes I crave something simple. In this case it’s blueberry green tea. Sencha, gunpowder green, white tea, and elderberry, eucalyptus leaves all come together to form this blend. In truth I was nervous when I saw two ingredients. Can you guess which? Eucalyptus leaves and gunpowder green! Eucalyptus can taste kind of medicinal sometimes and the last time I had gunpowder green tea I thought it tasted and smelled like old cigarette smoke. Weird, I know. So I was a bit hesitant but I forged on, curiosity peaked.
I’m telling you, if I hadn’t read the ingredients I wouldn’t even had known that my two “scary ingredients” were in this. In fact, I wouldn’t even have know that this was a blueberry flavored tea. The main quality I noticed in both smell and taste was vegetal sencha green tea. Through and through that’s what I got from this one. That’s not to say that this was a bad blend, the green tea was delicious and would have been great iced! But as far as blueberry goes, it just wasn’t very present. However if you’re a fan of bold green tea, this one’s for you!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Fava Tea
Description
Enjoy the taste of fresh blueberries in your cup! This is a smooth, flavorful cup of healthy green tea. Delightful!
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
