This tea lives up to its name. There are so many dried berries in the dry leaf it is more like trail mix than tea. Currants and rose hips galore! The blend is jazzed up with little magenta raspberry pieces as well.
The other amazing part of this tea is that it is a fruity herbal blend without hibiscus. Love it, hate it, hibiscus can sometimes be a deal breaker for tea drinkers. Rest easy and brew this berry blend instead.
The tea brews up a golden color and smells like berries and damp grass. The blackberry leaves add a softer foliage flavor beyond the fruitiness. This helps the berries taste more natural, rather than candy-sweet.
The raspberries play a bigger role in the flavor than I expected, their red berry jam flavor coming through first, followed by the deeper tart tones of the currant.
The currant seems like a formal, adult flavor to me, but if you make this tea into a sweetened cold brew it could be the hit of a kids’ summer party. Or keep it straight-laced and drink it hot from a traditional teacup to help ease into the evening.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Simpson and Vail
Description: This flavored tisane explodes on your taste buds! The exceptional blend is a huge hit with young and old alike.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Chalmun’s CanTeana from Geeky Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Geeky Teas
Tea Description:
Beware: you may find yourself buying the death star steeper and watching your boyfriend drink your entire stash in his Darth Vader mug before you’ve had your third cup.
What little I’ve managed to steal back from him has been excellent. Any tea with rose gets a high five, and the inclusion of apple pieces is a rare (delightful) find.
Taster’s Review:
Geeky Teas is one of my favorite places to go on the internet. I am so sad that I live so far away from Donna’s actual store. I swear I would be there all the time. But at least I get to visit online and enjoy the fandom geeky love that is being offered to geeks like myself in the form of tea blends.
I’ve reviewed Geeky Teas before both on SororiTea Sisters and CuppaGeek. The teas are either hit or miss for me, but when they hit they are marvelous and typically when they miss, with a bit of tweaking they would be superstars. But let’s start by saying this- Donna’s love of tea and of her clients makes her one of my favorite companies to purchase products from. I can’t get over how much she has listened to my comments and made slight changes here and there. She has really taken what I’ve said (& others) to heart and made huge improvements. You can’t ask for a better company to work with than Geeky Teas.
Let’s chat about the blend. I love my Star Wars. Anything with Star Wars I’m all over. When my son told me he wanted to be Jango Fett (yes Jango!) I felt I had done well as a parent. (Ha!) So when I came across this blend, I couldn’t wait to pick up a sample and see what it was all about.
Brewed up like an herbal tea, this herbal concoction has quite an array of inclusions. The dry mixture didn’t have much of an aroma to it. I steeped the tea in my Death Star Infuser (yep, told you. Love Star Wars). I allowed the tea to steep for about 6 minutes in fresh boiled water. As I was about to take my first sip, I was hoping I would get a marvelous herbal aroma from the fresh brewed tea, but I still didn’t really pick any one particular note.
Took that first sip and sad to say, this blend just doesn’t do it for me. I really didn’t pick up any one particular flavor profile or not. I mainly noted a muddy like herbal flavor. I could get a hint of a flavor here or there but by the time I noted it, the flavor has faded. Sadly this blend may not be for me, but to be fair- I did get a sample of this and the pieces looked to be pretty small. I’m wondering if maybe my tea sample was crushed by being in my tea stash, which could explain the muddy flavor. I have a feeling that is what happened. I would be more than willingly to try the tea again. I think it has the promise to be fabulous. Just need to work thru a few more teas before I can make an order.
If you haven’t checked out Geeky Teas and you are a fandom sort of person, I encourage you to check out Geeky Teas’s offerings of over 40 different fandom teas!
Yogi Berry from Yellowstone Tea Co
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Yellowstone Tea Co
Tea Description:
This Berry tea is great iced and full of antioxidants for flu season.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I have been neglecting my herbal teas as of late. I’m sorry herbals! I’ll try to keep you more in sight ;).
This tea is from Yellowstone Tea Co, an Etsy Store. I have tried a few of their teas in the past so when I saw this poor neglected fellow in my tea basket, I knew it was time to try him.
Into my tea pot the sample went along with 1 cup of water at 212F to steep for 5 minutes. The tea produced a gorgeous dark red liquid. So very pretty!
What is so nice with this herbal is the different and unique flavors that have been added in. There are apples, orange peel, elderberries, hibiscus, rosehips, carrot flavors, orange slices, lemongrass, beet powder, raspberry fruit powder, and freeze dried grapes. I can’t say that I’ve ever had a tea with carrots or beet powder. I was excited to see what these flavors would produce.
The first flavor that hits me is the tartness from the hibiscus but it is nicely contrasted with the lemon from the lemongrass and the sweet flavor from the grapes. The other lovely flavor is what I’m assuming is the beet powder. There is a really nice sweet yet I swear there are hints of an earthy flavor there, maybe I should describe it more like a tangy note. Last but not least are the orange peels. They are probably my favorite part. The citrus flavor that is added in really kicks this tea up a couple notches and really balances out the flavor.
This tea iced is even just amazing. So many flavors going on. Each sip is different from the next. An explosion of flavor with each taste.
Such a fun herbal to end my day with.
Skinny Minnie’s Ginger Hibiscus Herbal Tea from Mountain Witch Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Mountain Witch Tea Company
Tea Description:
This special herbal tea combines the powerful goodness of ginger and hibiscus flowers for a potent herbal brew with a tart, spicy flavor. Made with hibiscus petals, chopped ginger root.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I am not a huge fan of hibiscus but it also doesn’t scare me away from blends like it does other tea drinkers. I sometimes enjoy the tart taste that it gives a blend but I do not care for the unsweetened kool-aid like flavor it can give others.
I was a bit hesitant when I saw this blend on Mountain Witch Tea Company’s site but just about everything I have had from Kelly has been dynamite. So if anybody can do a hibiscus blend right, it would be her. I was also nervous with the ginger that was in the blend. There were some pretty large chunks of ginger in the sample bag she sent me. I’ve never had a blend where these two elements are together. Wasn’t sure how this was going to play out.
Steeped this one up like a traditional herbal and starting getting nervous when the water started to turn that deep red color. I took in a whiff and was shocked when I wasn’t over taken with the smell of ginger. Took my first sip, and I am impressed. This is really tasty. The two ingredients actually compliment each other and give this blend a tart semi sweet spicy profile. I can’t really describe this any other way. This is a unique blend for sure.
I know how that flavor profile sounds, but I really like this. So much so that I plan to pick up a 4 oz bag of it the next time I’m making an order with Mountain Witch Tea. I didn’t try this iced but I can’t wait to. I want more of this one and am rating this one pretty high.
Mountain Witch tea Co has done it again. Kudos Kelly!