Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Southern Boy Teas
Tea Description:
Premium Organic green tea with organic flavors. Each 14g teabag will make one 2-quart pitcher of DELICIOUS iced tea. Re-steep the teabag and you can get a full gallon out of each one.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
Mmm! OK, it was pretty much a given that I’d LOVE this flavor of iced tea from Southern Boy Teas. I love the original 52Teas version of Cotton Candy, I loved the Cotton Candy with the White Tea Base. And of course, I loved the Cotton Candy Black Iced Tea from SBT which was part of their original series of iced tea pouches. So, I was really confident before I even poured the first glass of tea that I’d love this too.
And I do.
It is sweet and refreshing. The lighter base of green tea is perfect for the Cotton Candy flavors which tend to be on the delicate side. The Cotton Candy notes are able to shine through nicely. And the buttery notes of the green tea work really well with these flavors.
I find myself emptying the glass of iced tea almost as quickly as I can refill it! It just tastes so good, but even though it’s crafted as an homage to one of my favorite carnival treats, it doesn’t taste sickeningly, sticky sweet. It’s sweet, certainly, and those of you who don’t like sweet beverages might find this to be a bit cloying, but for those of you with a sweet tooth, this cold drink might be right up your alley.
To brew this, I hot brewed the sachet in 1 quart of freshly filtered water that was brought to 170°F. I steeped the sachet for 1 1/2 minutes, and then I poured the brewed tea into my iced tea pitcher. Then I repeated the process – same amount of water and the same temperature, but this time I steeped the sachet for 2 minutes. And what I LOVE about the green teas from Southern Boy Teas is that you can resteep it for another half gallon of tea! I just stash the sachet in the fridge in an airtight container, and then I resteep the sachet at the same temperature (170°F), 2 1/2 minutes for the first quart and 3 minutes for the second. I get a full gallon of delicious iced tea out of this.
It tastes fresh and light and it’s a very invigorating glass of refreshment. This one is definitely one I’ll be reordering in the future. With the next one I buy, I want to try cold-brewing the sachet to see how it fairs!
I like it a lot!
Cinnamon Orange Flavored Iced Honeybush Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
Premium organic caffeine-free honeybush with organic flavors.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Before I start this review, I wanted to update you with some news about 52Teas/Zoomdweebies/Southern Boy Teas!
Recently, they launched a whole new website and along with the new website came some exciting changes to the way they sell teas! They are now offering their teas in .5 ounce size pouches rather than the 1 – 2 ounce size pouches and what this means to those of us who subscribe is this:
- No longer will I be receiving 1 – 2 ounces of tea per week to add to my overwhelming stash. This is a good thing. I’m a taster. I like this small size because if I find a tea that I really like enough to add it to my stash, then I can buy more of the smaller size. This means the tea stays sealed and fresh until I want to use it!
- Savings! I am now able to subscribe not just to the 52Teas/Zoomdweebies “hot tea” blend but also the Southern Boy Teas weekly blend for about the same price as I was paying for just the hot tea blend from 52Teas. I am getting more flavor for a lower price. OK, sign me up! Here’s where you can subscribe!
Now … on to the review!
When I first read the name of this tea – Cinnamon Orange Iced Honeybush Tea – I thought it would be what I consider a “typical” cinnamon orange type of tea. That is, one of those red-hot, spicy-sweet cinnamon-y teas with notes of orange in the background. They are usually sold as “hot cinnamon” or “holiday” blends. But this iced tea doesn’t taste at all like I expected it to!
And that’s a good thing!
Oh sure, I enjoy those red-hot, spicy-sweet, candy-like teas. They’re one of those guilty pleasures of mine. But I was not too sure about that spicy-sweet flavor for an iced tea. Iced tea should be something very refreshing and cooling for the palate, and while I do enjoy those spicy-sweet teas, they aren’t really very cooling for the palate. I think it’s because of the spicy thing.
But this isn’t spicy-sweet. The cinnamon tastes sweet and it’s gently spiced and smoothly flavored. It doesn’t impart a warm flavor on my palate. It’s sweet and a little savory, but it isn’t hot or spicy. The orange is bright and juicy tasting. And it is a very refreshing taste.
The honeybush is a little sweet and nutty, and the earthiness of the honeybush brings out the earthier, sweeter flavors of the cinnamon without emphasizing it’s spicier side. The orange is sweet and vibrant.
A really tasty iced tea. I wouldn’t call it my favorite iced tea selection from Southern Boy Teas, but, I am really enjoying it and will have no problem finishing the pitcher. I might even buy another pouch or two in the future. It’s a good one.
Peach Cobbler a la Mode 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:
This is delicious and refreshing. I don’t know if I’m tasting peach cobbler a la mode or not … but I definitely am tasting the peach cobbler. And it’s really yummy.
Peach cobbler is one of my favorite desserts. There are few desserts out there that say “summer” quite as clearly as peach cobbler! Sweet, fluffy, golden-browned biscuit atop sweet, juicy peaches and their juices. Mmm!
To brew this tea, I went with the hot-brew method. I brought 1 quart of freshly filtered water to a boil and then tossed in the tea bag and let it steep for 90 seconds, removed the bag and then poured the tea into my favorite tea pitcher. I repeated this process – bringing another quart of water to a boil, this time steeping the same tea bag for 2 full minutes, removing the bag and pouring the hot tea into the tea pitcher to combine both infusions.
Then I let the pitcher cool down a while before stashing the tea into the chillbox and refrigerating for a few hours. Mmm! Frosty, delicious iced tea!
The peach notes are sweet and I can taste notes of buttery, biscuit-y pastry that’s been caramelized. These flavors are evenly matched with the brisk-tasting black tea. It’s sweet and fruity, but not too much. The black tea balances out these flavors. The black tea isn’t bitter, and I like that it’s a rich, solid tasting black tea.
This is SO MUCH better than one of those ready-to-drink iced teas that you can buy in the grocery store that are mostly sugar. I can taste the black tea here. This isn’t an overly sweetened, overly flavored tea. It’s just a really refreshing, smooth-tasting, flavorful drink that tastes more like tea than a bunch of flavors and sugar … and it quenches my thirst on this hot summer day. I like it.
Cherry Cola Flavored Iced Black Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Learn more about Southern Boy Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
I don’t drink a lot of soda, but on the rare occasions that we go out to eat and the iced tea available at the restaurant is questionable, I usually ask for a cherry cola.
So I was excited to try this iced tea flavor from Southern Boy Teas, because it’s a flavor that I enjoy and would be able to identify and also because in the past, I’ve been impressed with the cola flavored teas that 52Teas has offered. They really do have a bubbly, effervescent taste of soda pop, which is a little weird when I would drink the hot tea. Weird, but in a wonderfully weird sort of way.
To brew: The Southern Boy Teas are a “bagged” tea, sealed in a large tea pouch that makes it easy to cold-brew (put it in a pitcher with a half gallon of freshly filtered, cold water and then stash that into the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, take out the sachet – and save it to resteep later! – and enjoy) or to hot brew.
I do have another pouch of this tea and I plan to cold steep it to see how that turns out. I’ll have to come back and comment on this review to let you know how that turns out when I do that.
I usually hot brew all these iced teas for the first tasting, because I feel like I’m getting the true, intended flavor that way and since I want to write about the experience, I think that this is the best way to do that.
To hot brew this, I start with a quart of freshly filtered water and put it in my kettle and heat it to boiling. Then I just toss the sachet into my kettle and let the tea steep for 2 minutes, strain the tea into my favorite iced tea pitcher, and then I repeat the process, pouring another quart of water into the kettle, heating it to boiling and then resteeping the pouch, this time for 3 minutes. I let this come to a room temperature cool before I put the hot glass pitcher into the cold refrigerator. Then I let it chill for several hours (or overnight).
This is a tasty glass of cold refreshment. I can taste the notes of cherry and cola. And I can taste the black tea flavor too. It’s a bit like someone poured some flat cherry cola into my iced tea.
Yes, I’m still getting some of that aforementioned bubbly taste from this, but, it’s not as bubbly or effervescent as you’d get if you were drinking a straight soda pop. Nor should it be. This is tea, not a carbonated beverage. However, you can make it a tea soda.
I can taste that bubbly sort of flavor that I’ve experienced in the past with 52Teas soda flavors, although for some reason (I’m not sure of the reason) and this is something that I’ve noticed with the other cola flavored iced teas from SBT, the “soda” or “cola” flavor doesn’t shine through quite as copiously as it seems to when I sip on a cup of hot soda flavored tea from 52Teas. As I said, I’m not quite sure why this is.
That said, this is still really tasty. It quenches the thirst and it tastes great while it’s quenching the thirst, and that’s what I look for in an iced tea.
Chocolate Malt Flavored Honeybush Iced Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Learn more about Southern Boy Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
I wasn’t sure about this blend. I mean … you know me, I’m a chocoholic, so I LOVE chocolate, and chocolate teas are some of my favorite teas to be tasting. But, I have been kind of on the fence about iced chocolate tea. I don’t know why.
But wow! This is yummy!
It really tastes very chocolate malt-ish … but without the thick, rich ice cream-y texture of a chocolate malt. But the flavors are all there. It’s like sipping on a very thin chocolate malt.
It’s got a strong chocolate flavor (I like that!) and I can even taste the notes of malt. The natural nutty notes of the honeybush seem to accentuate the malt flavor. And I can even taste subtle notes of vanilla in there. It’s sweet and chocolate-y and just … so very yummy!
I like this a whole lot more than I expected I would.
To brew this, I brought a quart of water to a near boil: 195°F. Then I dropped the large tea bag into the vessel and let it steep for 9 1/2 minutes and strained the brewed liquid into my favorite glass 2 quart tea pitcher. Then I brought a second quart of water to 195°F and resteeped the tea bag for 12 minutes.
Remember, with honeybush, you can steep the leaves longer than you would steep the leaves of Camellia Sinensis because there are very little (if any) tannins in the honeybush leaves. You won’t get a bitter brew! The reason I go with a slightly below boiling temperature with honeybush (and rooibos) is because I find that if I go with a boiling temperature, I end up with a sort of ‘sour wood’ sort of flavor that I don’t enjoy. The slightly lower temperature eliminates this funky flavor. This little tip has helped me to enjoy honeybush and especially rooibos a lot more than I used to.
And I REALLY am enjoying this Chocolate Malt Iced Tea. It’s awesome!