Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Southern Boy Teas
Tea Description:
Our awesome premium organic Iyerpadi black tea blended with organic pumpkin and cheesecake flavors.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
Mmm! This is really yummy.
I’ve tried 52Teas version of Pumpkin Cheesecake tea previously and it was yummy too. Rather than being a blend of black teas, though, this appears to be a single type of tea blended with the flavors. I like the black tea base, it’s smooth and rich and provides an enjoyable and solid background of flavor for the flavors of pumpkin and cheesecake.
I like the combination of pumpkin and cheesecake especially because the creaminess of the cheesecake flavor really enhances the pumpkin. I’m a fan of squash and I think that it just tastes better when there is a creamy element added to a winter squash dish, even if it’s a bit of browned butter that has been added to the squash mash. That little bit of creamy really elevates the dish.
And the creaminess of the cheesecake flavors elevates the pumpkin here too.
This is sweet and there are hints of spice. I taste subtle notes of cinnamon in the background. Not a strong flavor – it doesn’t intrude and become a focus of the tea, but it’s enough to add just a little warmth to this autumnal iced tea. The black tea is a rich, robust flavor that doesn’t get overwhelmed by the flavors. The cheesecake is sweet, creamy and tangy. The pumpkin is sweet, rich and savory. It’s a really delicious combination of flavors that is very well rounded on the palate.
Really good!
To prepare: I used the hot brew method for this, heating 1 quart of water to 212°F and then steeping the teabag for 2 minutes and pouring the tea into my glass iced tea pitcher (temper it first so that it doesn’t break from the shock of the heat). Then I repeated the steeping process, resteeping the teabag for 2 1/2 minutes in a quart of 212°F water and adding that quart to the pitcher to make a half gallon of iced tea. Delicious!
Birthday Cake Batter Flavored Iced Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
Birthday Cake Batter flavored … iced tea? Wow! OK, I really wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. The idea of cake batter flavoring and tea sounded just a little weird. OK, it sounds a lot weird! Am I right?
But it didn’t sound so weird that I wasn’t going to try it. I had to try it. I love cake batter. (That’s the best part of making a cake!) And I love cake batter flavored things. Specifically, I’m a huge fan of Cold Stone’s cake batter flavored ice cream. I don’t go to Cold Stone often, but on the occasions that I do go, I do try other flavors but none that I’ve tried have managed to lure me away from that cake batter flavored ice cream. It’s just too good.
But iced tea? Hmm. I hoped for the best as I brewed it. I went with the hot brew method, bringing 1 quart of freshly filtered water to a boil and then I dropped the tea bag into the water and let it steep for 2 minutes. Then I poured the tea into my iced tea pitcher and started the process again, this time steeping the bag for 2 1/2 minutes. Then I let the pitcher come to almost room temperature before I stashed it in the ice box. Today, I have a pitcher full of cold, refreshing iced tea that tastes like … well, it tasted like cake batter!
Imagine that! This really does taste like cake batter. I’m amazed at how well Southern Boy Teas NAILED this flavor. I taste the sweet, creamy, lightly buttery flavor of cake batter. All that’s missing is the texture!
And I do still taste the tea. And together with the cake batter flavor, it’s a really smooth and well rounded flavor that is rich and sweet and decadent. It tastes a little bit like I’m sipping on dessert rather than iced tea! And I’m not opposed to that at all!
This might be my favorite flavor yet. I’m glad I have another pouch of this flavor because I want to try cold brewing it next time!
Cherry Chocolate Flavored Iced Black Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
Occasionally – perhaps more often than ‘occasionally’ – Southern Boy Teas introduces a flavor that I’m not too sure about. I find myself wondering how well those flavors will meld with iced tea.
I’ve tried 52Teas (Southern Boy Teas parent company) Cherry Cordial Black Tea as well as their tribute to one of my all time favorite ice creams: Cherry Garcia. I enjoyed both of those. So I didn’t have a problem thinking that the flavors of chocolate and cherry would work with black tea. But how would this taste as an iced tea?
Well, it tastes like what the name of the tea suggests: It tastes like a chocolate cherry flavored iced tea!
To brew this, I used the hot brew method, heating 1 quart of water to 212°F and let the “jumbo tea bag” steep for 2 minutes. Then I repeated the process, letting the second quart steep for 2 1/2 minutes.
With my first few sips, I found myself looking for the chocolate flavors. You know me, I’m all about the chocolate! By the time I was finished with my second glass of the tea, I realized that even though the chocolate flavors are a bit lighter here than I would like them to be, the balance works. It works so well that I didn’t want to stop drinking it!
Right about here is where I’d say something like more chocolate = better. However, even though the chocolate notes here are not quite as chocolate-y as I would normally like, I find that as an iced tea, the lighter chocolate flavor works. If this was a hot tea, I’d want more chocolate, definitely.
But I’m enjoying this as it is! I think that a stronger chocolate flavor – while it would be awesomely delicious – it wouldn’t be as “refreshing” and “thirst quenching”. I think that a stronger chocolate note would be heavier on the palate. Here, the chocolate is strong enough to be tasted and enjoyed, but still light enough to be an iced drink that refreshes me.
The cherry is a sweeter cherry note. Because it melds with the black tea and chocolate notes in a harmonious way, it doesn’t come off as tasting cough syrupy to me. It is just a light, sweet, fruity note that accentuates the chocolate and black tea.
The black tea is a brisk, invigorating tea that doesn’t overpower the chocolate notes. Instead, I think that the chocolate and black tea play together very well, creating a slightly creamy, decadent, bittersweet chocolate flavor that melds with the black tea notes seamlessly.
A really tasty iced tea.
Apple Jack’s Apple Harvest Shou Mei from 52Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
YEE HAW! Listen up, everypony: this tea is a delicious blend of hay-like shou mei white tea, freeze-dried red-delicious- and granny smith- apples and organic flavors. This tea tastes like heaven and is great hot or iced. Don’t be surprised if drinking it leaves you uttering strange phrases like, “What in the hay is going on?”
Learn more about this blend here.
Taster’s Review:
OK, when I first saw “Apple Jack’s” in the name, my thoughts weren’t of ponies but of breakfast cereal. I love Apple Jacks. And that would be a really good tea flavor … don’t you think? Maybe a green tea, apple, cinnamon, some barley or malt for the grain-y/cereal-y flavor. Yum.
But this tea isn’t that tea. This is a apple flavored white tea. No cinnamon or grain flavors. And it’s been named after one of those ponies. My daughter used to be into those, but, she’s outgrown them. We recently took a bunch of them to the thrift store as a donation. Hopefully someone will love them as much as she did.
Moving on to the tea that is in my teacup at the moment, eagerly awaiting me to take a sip…
The dry leaf smells delicious – like apples! The aroma of the brewed tea is much softer but I’m still able to pick up some delicate apple notes.
To brew this, I brewed the tea in my Kati tumbler. I put about 1 1/2 bamboo scoops of tea into the basket and poured 12 ounces of 170°F water into the tumbler. Then I let it steep for about 3 1/2 minutes.
The flavor is very apple-y! It is definitely like an apple harvest in a teacup. There are both sweet and tart apple notes and I appreciate that there seem to be more sweet notes than tart. Just enough tartness to offer contrast without making me pucker.
The Shou Mei base is ideal for these flavors, I think, because the flavor of apple is on the delicate side and the light flavor of the Shou Mei allows for a good balance of both white tea and apple flavors to shine through. I taste the sweet, hay-like notes of the Shou Mei and the natural fruit notes of the white tea elevate the apple notes.
A really delightful apple tea that will provide you with several delicious infusions. I infused the leaves three times. I got a nice apple flavor in all three, but I noticed that the flavor was starting to drop off a bit by the third cup so that’s why I stopped there. A really tasty tea that tastes great hot (cozy and autumnal!) or iced (sweet and refreshing!)
Caramel Peanut Iced Honeybush Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Premium organic caffeine-free honeybush with organic flavors.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
OK, I have to admit that I was just a little bit weirded out by this flavor before I tried it. It’s been a difficult road to get me to embrace the idea of peanut and peanut butter flavored teas. I don’t know why it sounds so weird to me given all the weird flavors that I’ve tried up to this point but something about tea and peanut butter just didn’t sound all that appealing to me. And while I have come around from that way of thinking and I have enjoyed quite a few peanut and peanut butter flavored teas, the idea of a caramel peanut flavored ICED tea sounded weird. The peanut … worked OK as a hot tea but I was less convinced of an iced tea actually tasting good.
But this is really good. The caramel and peanut flavors work very well together, both accentuating each other in a really pleasant way, and the honeybush seems to elevate these flavors in a very tasty way. The natural nutty tones of the honeybush lend some depth to the peanut flavor while the sweet honey notes highlight the caramel notes.
To brew this, I used the “hot brew” method, bringing 1 quart of freshly filtered water to 195°F and steeping the sachet for 9 minutes. Then I repeated the process for the second quart, resteeping the sachet for 12 minutes. Then I chilled it overnight and now I have a pitcher full of ice-cold, naturally caffeine-free honeybush tea!
I’ve tried a few of the honeybush iced teas from SBT at this point and I think that this one is my favorite so far, which really surprises me because as I said in the first paragraph, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from this blend. But this one definitely gets two enthusiastic thumbs up from me.