Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Fruit Tisane

Where to Buy:  Tea Desire

Tea Description:

Ingredients: base fine cut, beetroot, blueberries, cornflowers, barberry, flavour.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

Grabbed this one in store iced; the sales associate actually kind of warned me against it saying it’s probably the worst fruit blend the store caries and her least favourite and, well, for me that’s basically like issuing a challenge. I just had to try it and really see for myself.

Admittedly, the dry leaf really doesn’t seem promising; it’s very intensely tart and sour and I’m struggling to see how the blueberry or cream are going to be playing into this. I actually couldn’t believe there isn’t hibiscus in this; the smell seems so hibiscus-like!

The taste is actually better than I was led to believe it would be though it’s not really ideal either; it’s like sour blueberry candies. For me that’s a negative; I’m not into blueberry unless it tastes very natural, and to make that claim about this flavor would be a stretch. It’s got such a sharp, tart taste, as well as some rather apple-y notes. I still don’t get how there can’t be hibiscus in this blend – the taste is there! The colour is even indicative of hibiscus; it’s got that bright redish pink hue. To be fair, it is pretty obvious that’s from the beetroot though.

There’s something else that’s off about this blend; for a blend which has ‘cream’ in the name that flavor is very absent. Even looking at the ingredients list, there isn’t really a single ingredient that could be construed as creamy. I also think it should probably be a rule that when you’re trying to make a creamy tea you DON’T include beetroot. Unless, of course, it’s a ‘beetroot and cream’ tea, in which case the beetroot is probably pretty essential to accurately capturing the flavour.

The name of this blend is simply, and painfully, inaccurate. The taste itself could be worse; but there’s lots of room for improvement, and alongside a bad name it’s just a bit of a flop.