Bird & Blend Tea Co.

I don’t know why I don’t drink more mate, I like the kind of mellow alertness it tends to leave me with, different than the buzz I tend to get from coffee or strong tea. I suppose It has to do with a bad experience I had with a jarring tasting lemon mate I had once, where it tasted harsh and unpleasant. However my other experiences were positive. My first experience with mate was at the debriefing after a contract I had in Ecuador. One of the other people I was with had been in Rosario, Argentina and she shared a pleasant sweet tasting mate with us while sharing stories of riots in the streets after the bank collapse there. In Ecuador I had very little tea but I did have some great coffee, even the chain coffee was great. Anyways that first experience was pleasant and mate is a really nice tea to share among friends.

Anyways, I think this tea has helped to cure me of my mate aversion. It is really quite a pleasant and balanced tea. Once brewed the tea has a scent of green tones from the lemongrass and the mate, and hints of ginger, lemon, and of something floral from the calendula. It brews to a nice light amber yellow.

Flavour wise it has top notes of lemongrass and lemon (creating a toned down baked lemon flavour), and ginger. There is a sweetness provided by the mate and calendula. These notes are all over a sweet and savoury vegetal note. Everything is done to a nice balance, neither the ginger, nor the lemon or the mate over power each other. Ginger provides a light bit of warmth but not too much heat and the lemon and mate help to create a sense of alertness and clarity. I am quite enjoying this cup and it would probably be nice cold as well.

I’ll start this tasting note by saying that I love the name of this tea. So great! Onto the tea itself.. the dry leaf smells of rooibos and tart raspberry. After water has been added, the raspberry scent still remains.

Sipping… this tea is surprisingly creamy! I was expecting there to be more rooibos + plain old raspberry, but this is more of a raspberry dessert tea. It might just be the characteristic of the rooibos… it’s not terribly woody, but creamy and sweet instead. A great pairing!

I think that I like the birthday cake blend a bit more than this one, but this is certainly yummy. Thank you, Bluebird Tea!

This is a really nice banana flavoured black tea that avoids the traps of
tasting artificial or overly sweet. Throughout the cup it tasted of green fresh bananas, a banana smoothy and a good quality banana muffin. It’s really tasty, but still lets the qualities of it’s base shine through. Thoroughly enjoyable.

A more thorough discussion of this tea is below.

The dry leaf is black and wiry with pieces of fruit and some pieces of calendula petals. It smells lightly fruity, but not of distinct banana, and has an almost chocolate like smell.

I steeped this tea for around 3 minutes.

Brewed tea is a copper colour.

There is a scent of chocolate, a slightly savoury spice like rosemary from the calendula, and dried banana.

At first sip there is a taste close to slightly green fresh bananas, or the flavour of a banana smoothy, or good quality fresh banana chips. It is not artificial tasting and not overly sweet. The tea base is smooth, sweet, with a faintly vegetal undertone melding into a taste of a semi-sweet chocolate. The calendula lends a brightness and a spicy taste to the tea and makes it taste like fresh banana. The tea has just enough tannin to give it some body. It leaves a slightly drying feeling in the mouth but is not overly astringent. The flavour compliments and blends well with the tea but does not overpower it. There is a hint of raisin and biscuit in the base. It tastes a little bit like really nice banana muffins towards the end of the cup.

The re-steep has an indistinct sweet baked good flavour with a hint of floral, and chocolate. Pleasant but not really banana. The base looses its astringency.

Tasty.

Thanks yet again to Bluebird Tea Co. for another free sample :)

So one thing that I’m very thrilled about with this tea company is that none of the three teas I’ve tried so far taste anything like a tea I’ve previously had. They taste unique, which is great (but also terrible) because that means that I’m eager to try out more of their flavours, particularly ones I dismissed as likely being “too similar to other teas I’ve had before”.

So this tea? No exception. I was expecting generic chocolate/florally rose black. Nope, not here. Yes, there’s certainly some chocolate. Dark chocolate. But it’s unlike any chocolate flavour I’ve previously had in tea… darker and more satisfying. And there’s rose, a bit of fruit (strawberry?) and a sort of creaminess…. this kind of is tasting to me like a gourmet truffle of some sort. Like… a truffle I would like more of. There’s almost an alcoholic taste here as well, like a liqueur-filled chocolate… but not too intense that it puts me off.

Uh… so this one’s really good… debating just drinking up the other sample of two I have of it that were technically supposed to be for other people… (I kid… kind of… :P)

ETA: Like Tealizzy, I didn’t see any candy hearts in my sample – but I would really prefer it that way, as I dislike their presence in tea. The rose petals make this one pretty enough!

additional notes: I’m really enjoying this one and then remembered that it’s one of the blends that B&B took out of their rotation. Dang it. Why. I remember they culled so many of my favorites back then, and I’m less thrilled with the blends that have stuck around on the tea wall. meh. I guess David’s blend is quite similar to this, and I do have some of that left.

Additional notes: My sipdown of this one was so tasty, I just had to restock on my last order. Couldn’t help it. I was a BIT worried it wouldn’t be the same after so many years, and I’d say the coffee isn’t quite the same. Even upon opening the pouch, the aroma was more like a bitter, older coffee already, rather than the old blend which somehow seemed more sweet? Maybe I’m confused as to what “old” coffee smells like, because this is certainly fresh from B&B! It was probably more of an artificial coffee flavor that was used in the old days, especially as it never seemed to age, but I liked it for what it was. The pu-erh also seems to have some lighter coloring to the leaves now. Much more golden than before! The flavor is still good though — three solid steeps with only one heaping teaspoon. I just wish it could capture that perfect coffee flavor from before though.

Additional notes: Sad sipdown! This is a five year old blend and tastes brand new (somehow with COFFEE BEANS??) and I just love this mix of flavors. I really would like to buy more. Oh the trick of having sipdowns not lead to more orders… It’s dark yet sweet and not a gross sort of coffee. This is the perfect coffee puerh and so happy it ages so well. If a reblend is like this, I will be impressed. Raising the rating from 93 for consistency alone.
Edited to add: Also, previous steep sessions have had at least seven coffee beans in the infuser, and I only see ONE coffee bean this time… so all of that lovely coffee flavor must be a flavor addition of some kind? I guess I like that much more than real coffee.
2020 Sipdowns: 60

Additional notes: I woke up thinking of this one and sadly I’m almost out. It’s a very solid tea that is almost like a flavor combo of dark pu-erh, black tea and coffee and I really crave it sometimes. This is way better than coffee. I’m very shocked it is so tasty still, with these coffee beans included. It’s still very delicious! I wouldn’t mind more vanilla… can’t really taste it. I’m glad Bird & Blend keeps this one in stock. (Though they should also keep others in stock… like Jelly & Ice Cream!!) I was able to enjoy two and 2/3s mugs. It’s all in the temp/time of the steeps!
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for mug // 10 min after boiling // 3 min steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 min steep
Steep #3 // 2/3 mug full of tea just boiled // few minute steep

Additional notes: I’m sipping this one again. I haven’t had it in a while, as I had a sample years ago! Split a little bit in the Bluebird sale a while back. This is still very good, but maybe not as scrumptious as I remember it. Maybe the vanilla wasn’t mixed in enough with my scoop. But there is certainly coffee flavor and pu-erh flavor. Otherwise I love coffee in teas… but not coffee. Hmm.

thanks again, Bluebirdteaco.com for the samples! There are plenty of coffee beans in the mix here! After steeping for four minutes, the fragrance is telling me it’s a pu-erh but the flavor is a delicious coffee! It’s such a nice change. I’d say that coffee beans like this could turn me into a coffee drinker, but I love my tea too much! A fine example of a pu-erh and a good one to start with if you want to try one, since it is also mixed with black tea. It’s a nice mild pu-erh but you can tell it’s a pu-erh and it blends very well with the coffee. The second steep went for six minutes but there is less of a coffee flavor this time around. Very happy with this one. I’d buy this one as a tea-that-tastes-like-coffee tea. It’s like a triple threat: pu-erh, black tea and coffee!

Any tea with a cake aspect (especially a rooibos blend) jumps right into my shopping cart. I don’t really know what my fascination with cake flavored teas is.. it could be that cake is one of my favorite things to eat! Yellow, white, fruit, angel food, shortcake (I’ll pass on the chocolate, though) – CAKE CAKE CAKE!

The photo of this blend first caught my eye because of the adorable star-shaped sprinkles. It also seemed like a great new version of a cake tea.

After water has been poured over the tea, I smell a rather strong rooibos with a light medicinal note. There is something like cake in the background, but I can’t put my finger on what KIND of cake it would be. Sipping…. Hmm.. this is very tasty! I was a little concerned that the rooibos would taste medicinal, but it’s actually rather light. There is a bit of almond flavor that when mixed with everything actually tastes a little bit like cake. It’s not really a very buttery or sweet cake, but something a little drier.. crumbly.. maybe like a cookie?

I’ll likely purchase more of this in a future order. It’s light, yummy and different than anything else I have in my tea collection. Big thanks to Bluebird Tea for a sample!

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms and would-be moms out there :) It’s my first Mother’s Day (yay!) and my husband made me the sweetest card from my little munchkin. I’m basically spending the day doing nothing of note, as it’s dreary outside and bonus – I woke up with a very sore throat. Sigh.

Anyhow, I brewed up a few teas today, this being one of them, and I just had to write about it right away. I don’t think I got the full flavour of this tea in the sample I had a few years ago, because it’s much tastier than I remember. Kind of like a sweet, mild apple cider (unspiced) type tea but with a strong (but not overwhelming) smokiness. Really unique, and really good. Definitely best to sip and savour, as the smokiness can get a little overwhelming otherwise. It’s good plain, but I feel like a splash of milk could make it a bit more easy-drinking, if one desired that.

Bumping rating from 73 to 83. Not a tea I’d be likely to keep around, but I’ll thoroughly enjoy it while I have it (and would perhaps add it into a future order if it was available).

Another free sample from Bluebird Tea Co.! Thanks!

Hmm. So this one definitely smells like toffee, and kind of tastes like it too (almost a toffee apple sort of flavour??), but I’m not getting any smoke, as I was hoping for. A little lapsang souchong would go a long way here to making this tea a bit more what it’s supposed to be! That said, it’s certainly not bad, and I actually rather like it. It doesn’t taste to me like your typical flavoured black. There is some astringency, which may be why drinking it with milk is suggested.

I do prefer the other two teas I’ve tried from Bluebird Tea Co., but I’m still pretty impressed, as none of the three teas I’ve had so far has tasted generic or overly flavoured, which is certainly good in my books!

ETA: I didn’t realize that there was supposed to be apple in here until just now, after reading the tea description. Go go tastebuds!

The dry leaf of this smelled like I remembered, but the taste wasn’t quite as good. Still some tanginess of the rhubarb and creaminess, but a bit more rooibos than I’d like. Still tasty enough, though.

Thanks again to Bluebird Tea Co for this sample!

Wow… does this one EVER smell creamy!! Yum. I love creamy blends; just hoping that the rooibos isn’t too overpowering here. I couldn’t really smell any rhubarb, to be honest.

Flavourwise… I think I can actually taste rhubarb?! Like, real, cooked, hot rhubarb! Crazy – definitely the first time I’ve tasted rhubarb in tea! And there’s definitely creaminess, which is quite enjoyable. I could certainly be convinced that it’s custard/pudding. The rooibos in here isn’t overwhelming either, which is nice; it blends quite well with and probably adds to the rhubarb flavour. As is typical with rooibos, my throat is getting a touch scratchy, so I’m not sure this would be a blend I’d pick again unless it had a honeybush base, but I’ve gotta say that the flavouring is absolutely bang on. Quite impressed so far with these first two samples from Bluebird!

ETA: Second infusion was less cream, more rhubarb. Definitely quite the authentic rhubarb flavour.

Had a bit of a scare (not really) with this tea last night – we were watching GoT and I’d brewed up a bunch of tea, and he brought two over to me… I thought he brought this and the new 52teas root beer tea over. It was obvious which one was root beer, so I assumed the other was this… but it was super astringent and tasted nothing like I remembered! Luckily, it turned out he brought the tea to the right of the root beer one (instead of the left), and it was a tea I knew I had oversteeped (see: forthcoming review on yet another oversteep).

Anyways, that was a boring story; unfortunately, this ended up being a somewhat boring tea. I think I underleafed or understeeped, as it was pleasant but I couldn’t really pick out any sponge cake or even any fruit flavours. Ah well. I’ll try again soon.

Quick couple of reward notes for me. It’s all thesis-writing from now on…

Thanks to Bluebird Tea Co. for this free sample! :D

The aroma of this one reminds me of Butiki’s Raspberry Truffle. Must be something about black tea + freeze-dried raspberries? Anyways, it’s not a super fruity scent or anything, but enticing nonetheless. …oooh. So I’m drinking this warmer than I normally would just so I can write this and get back to writing other less-fun things, and… this is pretty darn tasty! It’s sweeter than Butiki’s blend, IMO, and while I can taste the raspberry, I’m also tasting an underlying flavour of what makes me think of Celestial Seasoning’s Raspberry Zinger… but very muted and rather pleasant, mixed with black tea flavours and a kind of almost chocolatey creaminess. Probably the vanilla.

Anyhow, this is pretty good! Kind of wish I had more than a sample of it, but then again… my cupboard just went up a few more teas, so probably for the best.

ETA: Second infusion in less water is reasonably tasty. Less raspberry, but still cream + black base.

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – March 2024 Tea #7 -March 14 – Pi Day and Einstein’s Birthday  

Had to go with a cake tea for all those Steepster bdays!  I hope everyone with a March bday has or had a great day!  As usual, I’m about a month behind on reading tasting notes, so probably won’t get to wish you well on your own day!   This tea is hanging on strong somehow, with a best by date of 2013.  Yowzers.   Next time will be a sipdown of this particular pouch.

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge – August Tea #2-A raspberry tea

VERY old from a Steepster group order but whoa, it’s still so good, even with the coconut. I love the raspberry. Just a great combination… though I suppose it isn’t QUITE like cake.. if I’m ignoring what this should taste like, it’s great. I’m glad B&B keeps this one in stock.   It was definitely time to finish this for the prompt and I’m glad I did!  I have a bit more around here anyway…
2022 sipdowns:  92

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge Saturday, July 31st: National Raspberry Cake Day Tea #2

I HAD to have this tea for raspberry day!  Somehow the pouch from 2017 is extravagant today, I’m so pleased, even with this coconut.  Very lucky on these flavors today.  Tea hoarding win today. :D 

edited to add: not sure why the steeps were so especially good… only difference is steeping it in a teabag instead of basket and using 1 1/2 teaspoons. Tastes like a fresh blend.

Additional notes: A BIG thank you to StarFevre for including some of this in the lovely package of teas! I’ve always loved this one from Bluebird’s /Bird & Blend’s beginnings. I was a little worried the coconut would be bad, but I really can’t even see the coconut pieces, so the flavor wasn’t changed by it. They must have went light on the coconut in this batch. This blend does seem lighter in flavor the older it gets, which is a shame as it already begins so light (I’ve had a handful of samples of this one over the years, both from awesome Steepsterers and B&B so I’ve had plenty of experience with various ‘harvests’) , so this is one of the teas I like to drink the freshest. And who knew I’d rate a tea with this many raspberry leaves so highly? The raspberry leaves don’t really seem to add or detract much from the flavor though. This tea is also currently B&B’s charity tea!

Additional notes: I love my Bluebird teas but so many of them have coconut that it’s tough to stock up on them… they are the ingredient in tea that goes bad fastest. I don’t see what the coconut adds to this tea anyway, but it already tastes off with the coconut. I wish Bluebird would consider not adding coconut to some of their teas. This one isn’t even that old! I luuuveee that there are a few whole raspberries floating in the infuser though.

Additional notes: I only wanted to buy a little of this one, since with the coconut in the blend, I know it goes by fast. I’m surprised Bluebird hasn’t really changed this blend at all since the first time I had it, since I wouldn’t really describe it as very cakey. The blend still looks exactly like the picture. It’s so LIGHT though. Even though there is an abundance of raspberry leaves here, it really doesn’t seem like it adds too much flavor. The raspberry pieces are gigantic and there is definitely a raspberry flavor throughout the cup. But the black tea is the lightest one yet. That’s fine, I can drink it late at night. :D

Additional notes: This is a different sample from the one I tried before. Before, it was straight from Bluebird so it was fairly fresh. I also gave it one of the higher ratings, looking through Steepster. This sample is from Janelle, thank you! I’m not sure how old the tea is, but even more taking a sip, I can smell that the coconut is on the older side. That is too bad, as I love this blend, I would advise anyone to drink this one up quick. Some coconuts just don’t age as well as others. I’m going to try Mowgli’s Chai later today as I know there is some of that coconut in it. Now, this tea is much different: not as much sweet raspberry. Still enjoying it, but I think I’m remembering what it once tasted like. Yes, I remember.. fresh, this tea is lovely.