Product Information:
Product: Ready-to-Drink Black Tea Beverage
Where to Buy: Cheribundi
Product Description:
We made our name with juices that pack 45 tart cherries into each bottle. Though we love these products, one gets the urge to spread their all-natural-juice-loving wings once in a while. This time, our juice makers looked east. To the far east, to be exact.
To the source of fine black tea. The range of benefits in black tea have been touted for centuries. It’s the perfect partner for the nutrients in our cherries.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I love summertime. I love the longer days, the hot weather, the chance to dip my toes in the ocean, and the visits to the Farmer’s Market. Going to my local Farmer’s Market might be my favorite thing, especially when the cherries arrive. For a few short, wonderful weeks there is a plethora of lovely bright red cherries at many of the stalls, and I buy several bags of them for my family to enjoy. In my opinion they are one of the perfect summer fruits. Unfortunately, cherry season is very short here, so I’m often left looking for something with a real cherry taste that I can continue to enjoy throughout the summer. Thanks to Cheribundi I’ve found not only a great cherry drink, but a great cherry tea. Win!
Cheribundi’s Tart Cherry Black Tea Refresh is made from fresh pressed cherries and fresh brewed black tea. The flavor is simply amazing. The cherry juice and tea are well balanced. The tea is brisk while having some depth. There’s a bit of a malt flavor that pairs well with the cherry. The cherry juice gives the tea some sweetness, but since tart cherries are used it’s not an overly sweet flavor. I enjoyed the balance that Cheribundi managed to achieve with this drink. I like that I was drinking a high quality black tea with a super fruity cherry kick. This is so much better than many of the cherry teas I’ve tried that either ended up tasting like cough syrup (yuck.) or highly artificial and candy-like. Having real cherry juice in my iced tea is an absolute yes for me. Now that I’ve tried it I can’t believe I haven’t been drinking this for years!
If you are a fan of cherries then I highly recommend trying this drink. The quality of the tea is top notch, and the added cherry juice adds a refreshing twist on an already tasty beverage. Well done, Cheribundi!
A-Tisket A-Tasket Green Tea by Adagio
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Adagio
Tea Description:
A sunny, citrusy green tea, with a hint of delicious vanilla. Contains green tea, lemongrass, sunflower petals, citrus peels, and lemon and vanilla flavor.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Over time, this has become one of my favourite Adagio teas, and it takes a lot for me to say that. This is a green tea blend, part of the Sunlit Blooms collection, containing lemongrass, citrus peel, and lemon and vanilla flavourings. The dry leaf is primarily green tea, and the leaves are medium to dark green, fairly long and folded. No specific variety is given, but I’d say Dragonwell as an educated guess.
There’s also a generous scattering of sunflower petals, which I assume are there to carry the lemon and vanilla flavourings. Lemongrass and citrus peel are less in evidence, although it’s possible to find the occasional piece if you stir the leaf up and look hard. This hardly sounds encouraging, but as this one actually turns out to be a great tea I’m going to refrain from further comment.
I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 2.5 minutes in water cooled to around 180 degrees. The resulting liquor is a bright golden yellow, and smells mildly citrusy. To taste, it’s a different story entirely. Lemon cream, in the best bakery sense of the words! Although the green tea is a large proportion of the mixture, it’s completely unobtrusive in the finished cup, and super-smooth to boot. This means that the flavours really shine through, with lemon the first flavour to emerge, followed by a wash of vanilla and cream in the mid-sip. It’s truly wonderful, and sipping on this is putting me in mind of a huge lemon sponge coated in light, fluffy vanilla buttercream.
The lemon here is candy-like and a little tart, which works with the sweet, desserty vibe of the blend overall. Personally, I could probably take a tad more sharpness with all the creamy sweetness, but it’s so great I can’t say I’m all that concerned. This is lemon cream in tea form! A dessert replacement if ever there was one!
Adagio can be hit and miss in my experience, but this one is a definite hit. It’s just so perfectly put together, with really well balanced flavours. This is a must-try blend for anyone who appreciates a good dessert tea. I don’t think there are many that can match this one for pure lemon creaminess. Spectacular!
Blueberry Cream Tisane from Tea Desire
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.
Rooibush Panna Cotta Rhubarb Cream from TeaGschwendner
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Rooibos
Where to Buy: TeaGschwendner
Tea Description:
Dessert in a teacup! The dazzling combination of Italian Panna Cotta, tart rhubarb and sweet cream combine for a flavor as delicious as the aroma.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Rooibush Panna Cotta Rhubarb Cream is probably the longest tea blend name ever…
Well, not really. It is pretty lengthy, though. And tacking on the “TeaGshwendner” certainly doesn’t help.
Ok; starting off with a confession: Not only have I never had Panna Cotta, but prior to trying this tea I didn’t know what it was either. I most certainly had to do an internet search, but now that I do know what it is I’m actually kind of embarrassed I didn’t. What originally caught my attention with this one was absolutely the rhubarb; I’ve been on a bit of a personal rhubarb kick lately: beer, pie, jam, yogurt and of course tea.
Dry, there isn’t a whole lot to this tea. It has a very, very mildly fruity scent but nothing super characteristic of rooibos and apart from one small little piece of cube shaped rhubarb my measured out leaf is all fine pieces of rooibos. As the tea was steeping, it started to smell a little bit stronger but still mostly maintained a predominantly rooibos only sort of scent.
The taste thankfully delivers some flavour although not nearly as much as I’m wanting. The whole front end of the sip is straight rooibos – albeit a pretty good one without any medicinal or woodchip kind of notes present. That said, people who dislike the taste of rooibos, good or bad, will want to steer clear of this one: trust me, you’re going to taste a lot of it. The other flavour kicks in the end of the sip and the aftertaste. And it’s pretty subtle; a bit of sweetness and a little bit of tang similar to the natural tartness of rhubarb. It’s also a little bit apple-y. I’m struggling a little bit to pick up the cream/custard of the ‘Panna Cotta’ but there is something about the tartness of the rhubarb that reminds me a little bit of Greek Yogurt, so perhaps that’s more derived from the panna cotta.
I don’t sweeten my teas, but I could possibly be inclined to add the tiniest pinch of sugar to this one because I just have that gut feeling that it’d make a world of difference. However, without the sugar the flavour of this one is definitely lacking. However, this could be a winner for someone who doesn’t mind rooibos and who is looking for something subtly flavoured.
Raspberry Lemon Tart Bliss from theBeesTeas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: theBeesTeas
Tea Description:
Black tea perfectly blended with raspberry, candied lemons, chocolate, and vanilla (although raspberry & lemon flavors are more prominent). This blend also contains sumac, which adds a tart lemon-like flavor while also adding great health benefits (antioxidants) . This is a sweet and tangy blend that can be enjoyed hot or iced, but is better served hot. Black tea is caffeinated more than white tea or green tea, but considerably less than coffee.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I love playing around on Etsy. Its one of my favorite things to do when I have a few minutes to unwind. The teas that I have ordered from the different shops haven’t all been that great. Some of them just didn’t have a whole lot going for them. But that is not the case with this tea.
When you open the bag and smell the dry leaves, you are greeted with a delightful raspberry lemon smell. Very bakery like. There are huge chunks of raspberry and candied lemon pieces. The tea looks exactly like the picture on the site. That doesn’t always happen.
Once brewed up, you have yourself a delightful cuppa of a tea that tastes exactly like its name. This tea tastes like a raspberry lemon tart!!! Fresh, creamy, tart, berry, lemon goodness. Yum!! This is a beautiful dessert tea. The vanilla adds sweetness to the tea and there is a very tart like flavor that lends itself to a fresh bakery taste. The black tea base gives the tea a rich background for the rest of the flavors to play off of. I don’t pick up the chocolate flavor but in the description of the tea, it said that the raspberry and lemon were the most noticeable flavors.
I’m extremely impressed and pleased with this tea. This tea isn’t going to last long around me.
Well done theBeesTeas. Well done.
