Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
Yerp, I’m going to say it: I’ve found my thrill… and it’s Blueberry Hill Shou Mei. This is a crisp, refreshing shou mei white tea blended with real freeze-dried blueberries and organic flavors. No, it’s not as far out there as some of our blends. It’s not peanut butter, bacon, tuna fish sandwich on rye flavored tea. Just delicious, amazing blueberry flavor in our lovely hay-like shou mei.
Learn more about this blend here.
Learn how to subscribe to 52Teas’ Tea of the Week program here.
Taster’s Review:
Yum!
Yeah, I’ve had a few blueberry teas. Blueberry teas are not as popular as say, strawberry teas, but there are still quite a few blueberry teas out there and even some blueberry white teas and I’ve tried a few of them. But that doesn’t make this Blueberry Hill Shou Mei any less tasty!
One of the things that I enjoy about a 52Teas blend is the fact that there are (usually) chunks of the thing that I’m tasting in the blend. Like for this blend, as I was scooping out the tea into my Breville One-Touch tea maker, I found a couple of freeze-dried blueberries. Not just one little tiny berry. These are large berries and I must have scooped out at least three in the 2 1/2 bamboo scoops of tea that I measured into the basket of the Breville. (I generally use a little more leaf when it comes to white tea because the leaves are bigger and create more “space” in the scoop when I’m scooping it out.)
My settings for the tea maker: 500ml of water into the jug, 170°F and 3 1/2 minutes steep time. Delightful results!
This tastes just exactly how I hoped it would. Sweet blueberry-ish goodness with pleasing white tea notes of hay. The white tea is crisp and refreshing and doesn’t hide behind the flavor. The blueberry tastes sweet and a little tart and it tastes true to the fruit.
It’s a really enjoyable cup of tea that tastes wonderful served hot and even better iced. The tea can be resteeped and it still tastes wonderful. This is a win – even if it isn’t one of 52Teas more unusual creations. Sometimes simplicity is just plain tasty!
Very Big Hill Dew 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:
After trying the Very Big Hill Dew Honeybush from 52Teas, I was very interested in how the black iced tea version from the Southern Boy Teas line differed from the aforementioned tisane. I really enjoyed the honeybush, so I was anxious to try this flavor in a black tea!
And it is really tasty. I do think that with these particular flavors, they work better with a lighter base like the honeybush, but it’s still a really tasty, refreshing black iced tea. The sweet, lemon-y, lime-ish taste shines through in this glass of iced tea, but, I don’t notice quite as much of the effervescent soda-ish taste that I experienced with the honeybush. I do still get some of that soda-like flavor, but, here, it’s less apparent.
The black tea is brisk but not overpowering. I like the way the bright, lemony flavors add a really uplifting flavor to the iced tea. It’s a very refreshing drink, and it’s one that I will probably be ordering again, especially with summertime coming up – this is one that I’ll want to drink on a hot, summer day.
A really good tea from the Southern Boy Teas line.
Very Big Hill Dew Honeybush Tisane from 52Teas
Tisane Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tisane Description:
Several people from our Southern Boy Teas Kickstarter campaign requested that we make a Mountain Dew inspired iced tea. I was thinking about how I would do it, and I kept thinking how good this would be as a honeybush blend. So here we have caffeine-free African honeybush with lemon balm, lemon verbena, lemon myrtle and organic flavors. This is YUMMY. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Learn more about this tisane here.
Taster’s Review:
OK … I cracked up laughing when I read the name of this honeybush tisane from 52Teas: Very Big Hill Dew. Maybe I have a twisted, whacked sense of humor. Because when I shared the name of the tisane with my husband, he didn’t think it was funny at all. Maybe his sense of humor is whacked.
Regardless, this is a really tasty tisane. I don’t drink a lot of soda, in fact, I can’t tell you when the last time was that I had a Mountain … err … soda by which this tisane was inspired. It’s been a long time. So, it would be difficult for me to say with confidence that this tastes like that soda. I do know that when I opened the package, it smelled like the soda, and that I know because my husband does drink it (well, the diet version of it), so I’m familiar with the aroma.
And this does have a soda-like taste. I can taste that bubbly, effervescent sort of taste. It’s light and refreshing. And there is a lot of lemon-y, lime-ish like flavors dancing on my palate. It’s very tasty.
The honeybush adds a sort of sweet, honeyed flavor to the cup, as well as a slight earthiness. Not exactly “nutty” the way I usually taste from a honeybush tisane. It’s just more of a slight earthy flavor that complements the lemon-lime notes in a really pleasing way.
It is sweet, a little bit tart and tangy, and very enjoyable. I drank a cup of it hot, and then I chilled the rest that I brewed and drank it iced. It’s better iced (it is a soda-inspired tea, after all), but, it’s still tasty served hot too. I found it to be a calming, relaxing cuppa – nice for the end of a busy day.