Strawberry Lemonade

Kiki says hi.

“Oh, it smells good.” I can smell it in the middle bedroom from the living room.

“Hibiscus. Strawberry. It tastes good like strawberry, like hibiscus, vanilla. It’s got that astringency like hibiscus. It’s sweet and tart. burrrp BURP Kinda floral, blueberry. 8, 8, it’s a good 8. 8, 9, 8 and a half. Thank you Cameron!”

(#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #5)

I finished this cold-brew pitcher yesterday 1/3. This is my tea method by default as it is so forgiving and easy to transport (I have 2 pitchers usually going between work/home, and I’ll transport back and forth as a I drink/start new ones). It was pleasant enough; I think I have more of this tea in my B&B section of my stash.

#tiffanydrinkstea #tiffanys2021 #tiffanysfaves #tiffanyinthe614 #tiffanysteasipdown #sipdownchallenge

This absolutely tastes like a strawberry lemonade. There’s a vibrant sweetness from the strawberry, and a distinct bright lemon flavor. The hibiscus here is appropriate, and brings a zingy tartness.

Received this as a free sample in an order. I never order lemonade type teas, so I don’t have much to compare this to. It tastes all right cold. Not something I would order, but it’s decently refreshing. It has a little bit of sourness, some red fruitiness, and also a little bit of strangeness. Definitely prefer their other strawberry teas. It’s not sour enough to really be lemonade. I feel like this one needs to be tweaked a little.

Sipdown! 231/365!

Free sample with my previous order, thanks B&B! This is a tea I was curious about, because I love strawberry teas and lemonade, but often, the hibiscus is just too much. So I usually just stick with what I can get from Davidstea, since I have the advantage of being able to sample them in smaller amounts first.

This tea steeps up fairly purple, so I was wary of the hibiscus, but it’s not actually too strong, just a bit of tartness. However, I’m really not picking up any strawberry at all. Just a vaguely fruity, somewhat tart blend. Which is not bad, just not strawberry lemonade. I brewed this up hot, and am now going to stick the remainder in the fridge to try cold and see if there’s any change in flavour. I’ve been downing iced teas like crazy lately and can’t keep my fridge stocked. I really can’t believe I didn’t make them as much before (but I guess I a. wasn’t home during the summer and b. didn’t have the fridge room when sharing with roommates. And last summer, I was heavily pregnant and did basically nothing, haha.)

Tentative rating of 70; will see if drinking this cold, as it probably is meant to be consumed, changes that.

ETA: Nope, no change. More refreshing cold, but same flavour. Second steep, consumed cooled, had much more lemongrass/lemonade flavour, but still not much strawberry.

Bird & Blend Tea Advent Calendar – Day 7

Hmm, a hibiscus fruit tea. Well, at least I know somewhere Mastress Alita is perfectly happy with this one. ;)

It definitely has too much hibiscus, in my opinion. But it’s not so sour that it makes my face pucker. I do taste the strawberry, which reminds me of strawberry jam. There’s some pineapple as well. I think the lemon is too close to the hibiscus in flavor, so I can’t really pick it out specifically. There’s a bit of sweetness coming through which helps.

It’s not for me, but it does taste similar to strawberry lemonade, so points for that! For what it is, it’s fairly tasty.

Holiday Tea-son! My Bird & Blend advent tea today was one I have reviewed before, Strawberry Lemonade, and honestly, I’m just not one of those people on Steepster that reviews a tea more than once, unless my opinion of it changes, for better or for worse. I did try it iced this time (I typically never make something iced when I only have a single teabag, but I wanted a different experience than I had back in October with that sampler teabag) and I tend to prefer hibi-hip fruit teas iced anyway, so I cut the teabag open and cold-steeped the leaf in 350ml water while I was at work.

I’m pretty much getting the same flavor experience as before (strawberry/red berry fruity flavor followed by a sweet apple/pineapple sweetness) but in the warm cup I wasn’t getting much citrus to come through in the taste, only the aroma, and here I can definitely taste a defined lime note toward the end of the sip. Whether that is the result of the iced cold steep or luck of the sampler teabag, I have no idea! If I had this loose leaf, though, I’d definitely choose to brew this iced over warm, and also leaf this a bit more heavily than I had the option tonight only having a single teabag.

Increasing the rating by a point for the new lime note, but mostly my opinion on this one lines up with my initial review, which you can read here: https://steepster.com/mastressalita/posts/381479

Sipdown (640)!

This one was really disappointing to me. I’ve been drinking the Strawberry Lemonade from DAVIDsTEA a fair bit this summer and I was really excited to see another company’s take on the flavour profile but I have to say that I drastically prefer the DT version, and to be honest I don’t even REALLY like the DT blend a whole lot…

I just thought that this came off as pretty dull in terms of flavour without much strawberry at all. In fact, the two strongest flavours in the blend were hibiscus and lemon. So, it was a very tart cup all in all. There was also an ingredient in this that was bugging me a little bit – I thought it might be lemongrass, but looking at the ingredients list I don’t think lemongrass is actually in this blend!? So I’m not totally sure what it was; but whatever it was tasted very lawn-clipping like to me.

Just not my favourite, but thanks for sharing VariaTEA! ‘Cause you never know how you’ll feel about a tea until you try it!

Strawberry lemonade sounds nice, especially to be enjoyed when the weather is nice. It was a free sample from my last order, so I waited for a lovely spring day to try out this tea. In nose there are hints of strawberry, but the hibiscus is very present, and it smells natural (which isn´t always the case with hibiscus) and the elderberries are dominating, especially in length. Brewed for 4 minutes, as indicated on the tea bag, it tastes primarily as a fine hibiscus infusion (in hindsight, it´s probably the combination of hibiscus and elderberries which gives it a finer appearance)…nothing much going on for the rest though, and I definitely cannot make the link with a strawberry lemonade, as the citrusy aspect is very subtle (it might be more present when taken cold).

Sample from VariaTEA – this isn’t really strawberry or lemonade to me… it’s just kinda coming through like a sort of sweet but tart brew. it’s not bad but it’s not really what it’s claiming to be for me.