Bear Trap

On the 7th day of sipdowns…

I had enough for two cups of this today but it was mostly just the little non-berry bits so it was a bit weak on the fruity flavor but eh. This time it still tastes like berries, blackberries, lingonberries or cranberries possibly, and a faint flavor of…currants? I like it but it’s been sitting in my collection for a bit too long and it was time for it to finally go!

This isn’t an herbal tea that I’d repurchase. I can’t quite put my finger on it but there’s something about this tea that I just don’t care for. Maybe there are too many berries in the blend? Maybe it’s the lemon verbena or the raisins? I can’t distinguish which flavor I don’t enjoy because there are so many ingredients in this blend. I thought this would be a go-to for iced tea this summer, but it just misses the mark. I’ve only tried it once, and I’ll be selling what’s left of my 2-ounce bag soon. There are too many other herbal teas that I’d rather keep in my collection.

A flavorful tea which was a birthday present from friends who have no clue as to what loose leaf tea is. I am not sure how they picked out this perfect fruit infusion tea but I am glad it is here! I love this tea for the fullness of flavor in it and look forward to it warming up and becoming a staple in one of my iced teas collections.

Books recommended for this tea are:
Tis by Frank McCourt, Always Running by Luis J Rodriguez, Chobits series by CLAMP

One of my favourite fruit based teas. I fell in love with the smell of berries in the store, and can completely visualize the reason behind the name – any bear would be attracted to the sweet smell of the dry tea! That said, I find that the sweetness doesn’t quite translate into the brewed tea, so this is definitely best drank slightly sweetened with honey or whatever your ‘poison’ of choice might be. It feels like its one of those teas where you might have to use more than the recommended dose to really satisfy. Overall, its a fragrant but girly tea – my partner did not like this in the least, but thats okay – best saved for girl talk occasions ;)

My roommate bought this last spring on a trip to NYC, she couldn’t drink it any more because it gives her migraines. I made it for the first time today and she gave it to me about a month ago…oops. I just didn’t know how i felt about this tea. I think I added too much sugar. The hibiscus in this tea tasted funky because of all the sugar.

Herbal TTB – I think this would be excellent iced. Hot, i get the feeling that some of the flavors are hiding. Very pleasant. I could see buying this from time to time. Currently, I am collecting quite the amount of tea! I am close to hitting the $500 I thought I was going to spend on tea in a year, crazy how quick it adds up!

Another Herbal TTB special, smelling strongly of strawberries, mostly. The taste is much the same. I wonder, though, how it would taste cold?

This is a very tart tea, I definitely recommend sweetening this one. Lots of berry flavor and is great warm or cold. Cute name too :)

So this was meant to be my “safe” tea pop because I fully expected to not like the Lapsang Souchong one (and I was right) and this seemed like a good fit for something tasty, plus I had never had it before so trying something new seemed appealing too.

Honestly, I really think that I may have liked the LS one better! I drank half the LS one but I don’t think I even cracked a third of this one. I just felt like gagging the whole time and I had the most difficult time placing why. I got distinct berry flavours from it; especially raspberries. And normally I’m really a berry fan, so what was the deal? Well I had forgotten that there are quite a few raisins in this which is WHY I’ve never had it before. I think that may have been why it was so unappealing to me.

I don’t know; it’s hard to explain. Now that I’m looking at the ingredients list I can see how nearly everything listed was noticeable: blackberry, elderberry, raspberry, apple, cherry, black current, papaya, etc. but I really found the whole thing muddled and gnarly when I was blindly drinking it. I don’t think the carbonation helped much either.

So this one isn’t for me and I think I pretty definitively know that now. It’s a shame; I’d like to like this one…

Iced tea sipdown!

I’m anticipating getting a lot of stuff in the mail soon – swap packages from others, plus my RiverTea order – so I’m trying to finish some one-offs. Up next was this tea.

I tried it first steeped hot, and that tasted really rosehippy, so I decided to do the remainder iced. It’s still quite tart, but the flavour is… deeper, somehow.

Also, I really wanted something cold after trying to force all of this hot tea down my throat. Need something a bit gentler.

I like this better as a coldbrew, so I’m bumping up the rating a bit.