I’ve decided to hot-brew the rest of the iced teas for this countdown. I figure it would be the best way to capture the flavors as they were intended by the blender … plus there’s a little less wait time! I now only have to wait as long as it takes to hot brew the tea (much faster than cold-brewing!) and then the wait time to let the tea cool. A couple of hours in the fridge will do the job.
I hot-brew this like so: I drop the pouch in 1 quart of boiling water and let it steep first for 2 minutes. Then I bring another quart of water to a boil and re-steep the pouch for 3 minutes. This produces a very flavorful half-gallon of tea. I probably could get away with adding 1 quart of ice or cold water to the first 1 quart of brewed tea and still have a flavorful pitcher of iced tea, but, I feel like I’d be missing out on a lot of flavor that way. When prepared this way, the flavor is strong but it isn’t too strong either.
Root Beer Float Iced Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Learn more about Southern Boy Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
As some of you are probably aware, I’ve already tasted and reviewed 52Teas “original” Root Beer Float flavored black tea, but this tasting is my first of the SBT iced tea version.
This is good. I think that the aforementioned original Root Beer Float tea is a tad more … something. Perhaps it’s the marshmallow root that is in the 52Teas version that I don’t think is in this that is making the difference. This still tastes root-beer-ish and there is a certain creamy element to the taste here, but, it isn’t as creamy and “fluffy” as the 52Teas version.
However, this is very tasty. I am getting a delicious root beer flavor. I even taste notes of “carbonation” in the taste, where I can taste the ‘bubbly’ taste of a root beer. And I do taste a light creaminess to this as well, giving it a sort of “float” type of taste. And yes, I can taste the black tea in the background too.
Overall, this is a very refreshing, delicious tasting iced tea.
On The Fifth Day of Christmas, Southern Boy Teas Edition!
New Year’s is right around the corner. Do you still make resolutions for the new year? I pretty much stopped because I never kept the resolutions so I didn’t see the point in going through the motions. Good intentions, yeah … maybe.
Maple Bacon Iced Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Learn more about Southern Boy Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
OK, I’ll be the first to admit it, as much as I do enjoy the bacon flavored teas from 52Teas, I wasn’t too sure about this one. I mean, it works on a certain level for the hot tea, but I’m not so sure how good this is going to be iced. It kind of sounds weird. When bacon gets cold, you get congealed fat. And even though this is vegan bacon flavor … the thought of cold bacon just sort of … evokes those thoughts for me.
And as I’m sipping this … yeah, it’s weird. It’s … alright. It’s not horrible, but it’s still really weird. And I can’t say that it’s my favorite iced tea flavor, because it isn’t.
That said, Frank (chief zoomdweebie at 52Teas and Southern Boy Teas) nailed the maple bacon flavor. This tastes like bacon. I taste notes of maple (although, I wouldn’t complain if there were a little more maple-y notes). I even taste the brisk black tea in the background.
To enhance the salty notes of the bacon, I added about 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt to the hot-brewed tea (yes, I hot-brewed this pouch this time. I don’t know why, but something inside just told me that the bacon flavors needed to be extracted via hot-brewing). And I think that the 1/4 teaspoon adds just the right touch of saltiness to this iced tea that’s needed to bacon-ize this tea.
Yeah … it’s still weird. I can’t see myself actually wanting this tea again … you know, craving it? That said, I’m not hating this. I just don’t think it will be a tea that I’d order again, because I find myself more refreshed with Southern Boy Teas’ fruit-flavored iced teas.
I didn’t love this tea but I didn’t hate it. However, there are so many other successful flavors of iced tea out there and this one is just sort of misses the mark for me. I like the original maple bacon tea from 52Teas served hot much better, and I guess it goes back to what I was saying at the beginning of this review: I don’t think that maple bacon flavor works for an iced tea flavor. Not for me, at least. And it pains me to say that, because I love bacon.
On the Fourth Day of Christmas, Southern Boy Teas Edition!
One thing that I like … that’s different about the 52Teas and now the Southern Boy Teas 12 Teas of Christmas countdown packages is how the teas are packaged. Previously, the labels for the tea were stashed in the package with the teas so that you wouldn’t know what the tea was until you opened it and could remove the label to put on the sample package. However, Frank seems to have implemented a “scratcher” type of reveal system now, sort of like the scratcher lotto tickets. You scratch off the silver coating from the label, and it reveals to you what the tea of the day is. Pretty cool!
Key Lime Cheesecake Iced Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Learn more about Southern Boy Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
Given the success that I’ve had with the previous “Lime” flavored iced teas from the SBT collection – Lime Jello and Lime Cola – I was pretty confident that I’d enjoy this Key Lime Cheesecake iced tea too.
And I am enjoying this Key Lime Cheesecake from Southern Boy Teas quite a bit. The flavor is very bright with the flavor of lime: tart but not so tart that I’m puckering when I take a drink. I can also taste the creamy, tangy note of the cream cheese peaking out beneath the lime flavor. The black tea is not completely hidden behind the flavors, and I appreciate that. It has a brisk flavor that refreshes and invigorates.
Just as I have been doing with the other iced tea pouches, I cold-brewed this pouch, and I’m very satisfied with the flavor. In every sip, I get lime, I get cheesecake (although I don’t really taste a lot of pastry or crust here, I do get a hint of a buttery note every once in a while if I really focus on what I’m tasting), and I get black tea.
After I finished my pitcher of cold-brewed iced tea, I resteeped the pouch by hot-brewing it. I found this second pitcher of iced tea much more flavorful. The key lime was slightly softer, but there were still plenty of sweet-tart notes from the citrus fruit, and I could taste more of the tangy cream cheese and even more of the crust notes. The black tea was slightly less apparent in the second pitcher, but it was still discernible.
Overall, I enjoyed the Key Lime Cheesecake iced tea, although I think the Lime Cola and Lime Jello flavors are much tastier.
On The Third Day of Christmas, Southern Boy Teas Edition!
This countdown is a bit more difficult for a couple of reasons. First, it’s iced tea. I don’t drink a lot of iced tea, especially in the winter, although I certainly do drink some. But, drinking a whole half a gallon in a day? No, I don’t usually drink that much each day.
It’s also a little more difficult because it takes a little longer to produce a cold-brewed pitcher of iced tea. It needs to sit and brew for at least a few hours to get full flavor out of the tea when it’s cold-brewed, and I usually leave the tea in the fridge overnight. So, the difficulty becomes … waiting for the tea to brew.
Butter Beer Iced Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Learn more about Southern Boy Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
When 52Teas/Southern Boy Teas first introduced this tea as an iced tea, I got very excited, because the original Butter Beer Tea from 52Teas is one of my FAVES from 52Teas. Partly because I asked Frank from 52Teas to create a butter beer-ish sort of tea (yeah, I’m a Harry Potter nerd), and part because it’s just so dang good. So, I was very happy that he decided to add this to his iced tea line.
Cold-brewed, the flavor is a little underwhelming with this tea. Perhaps the issue is that I loved the original Butter Beer Tea so much that maybe this just isn’t living up to that. But I remember that tea being so much more … Butter Beer-ish.
It’s still good, but, it’s a little less than what I envisioned. The black tea base tastes nicely round, and I can taste a butter-scotch-y sort of taste with the flavoring. I’m not getting a whole lot of the chicory notes that were in the original, and I don’t taste a lot of licorice either. I taste hints of root beer, but this tastes more like a cream soda flavored tea than the Butter Beer Tea that I remember.
The hot-brewed, re-steeped tea pouch produces a much more flavorful pitcher of iced tea than the cold-brewed first steep. This tells me that this particular flavor (just like the pink lemonade flavor) should be hot-brewed instead of cold-brewed. But, based on this re-steep, I would say that it’s certainly worth it. This is more of the Butter Beer flavor that I was looking for. I still don’t taste much of the chicory, but, I do get a lot of the butter-scotch-y notes and hints of root beer-ish notes. I find myself still looking for some licorice and the chicory.
When I get around to hot-brewing my second pouch of this tea, I’ll be sure to update you on how well that comes out. In the meantime, this one is good, but, I think that the original was better.
On The Second Day of Christmas, Southern Boy Teas Edition!
OK, it’s day 2. And I’m happy that today’s iced tea from the SBT 12 Day of Christmas countdown is a tea that’s “new to me.” Well, kind of new to me, anyway. You’ll see what I mean in a second …
Blueberry Cream Cheese Danish Iced Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Learn more about Southern Boy Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
Well, as I said, this tea is sort of new to me. I have tried the Blueberry Cream Cheese Danish Black Tea blend that 52Teas as well as their more recent Blueberry Cream Cheese Danish Green Tea blend, I feel that I’m somewhat familiar with this tea, although the SBT iced tea version is still “new to me,” and one I definitely wanted to try, so I’m glad to find it in this collection of 12 iced teas of Christmas.
This is really yummy. I cold-brewed the tea overnight, the way I typically do brew these extra-large tea bags from Southern Boy Teas. The flavor is nicely balanced between black tea notes and blueberry flavors, with a hint of tangy cream cheese that is especially noticeable toward the tail and in the aftertaste. Every once in a while, when I’m really focused on the sip, I can taste the buttery taste of a flaky pastry in there, but that flavor is a little less discernible than the blueberry, cream cheese and black tea flavors.
The aftertaste with this iced tea is noteworthy, because I find myself enjoying a delicate taste of sweet-tart blueberry and tangy cream cheese that continues to linger on my palate long after I’ve finished the glass of iced tea. I don’t recall another iced tea that has had such an impressive aftertaste as this one. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t experienced another tea with as strong a presence in the aftertaste, it just means that I can’t remember one.
This is quite a treat!