Bavarian Wild Berry

I’m at my fiancé’s place and starting off the day with this tea. I was very surprised with this tea. It has a very tasty berry flavor. The aroma is almost like cobbler. I love that you can get multiple steeps out of this. Well done Lipton!

Had some this morning. I received it as a gift, and since I’m not terribly crazy about it, I’m really only drinking it to free up some space in the cupboard. It’s alright, but it really doesn’t compare to loose leaf tea. Like others have said, it tastes more like a fruity herbal infusion than black tea with fruit. I wouldn’t discount this line entirely, though; Lipton’s Island Mango and Peach white tea is much better quality.

After finishing a cup of Mighty Leaf Wild Berry Hibiscus, I was in the mood for more berry so went straight for this gift from Mastress Alita.

The dry sachet smelled like a berry and spice scented candle but it was very pleasant. The brewed tea smelled very berry leaning artificial strawberry. It was complex beneath that with hints of some of the other ingredients like orange, cinnamon and chicory. The liquor was medium-bodied and tasted mostly of a tart 3-berry flavoring (strawberry, blueberry and blackberry) with a typical Lipton base flavor. It was pretty good until I got close to the bottom of the cup when it became biting in the throat and left a weird feeling on my tongue, maybe from the food starch. Not bad but too artificial for my tastes. It did, however, fill the very berry void.

So, I had a Mason jar of iced tea in my fridge, and couldn’t remember for the life of me what I had actually made. With my migraines memory loss is a persistent problem. I could tell from looking at the jar it was a black tea, and sniffing the tea, it smelled a bit like berries, particularly it sort of had a grapey aroma or black currant, but I definitely didn’t remember making my Black Currant Black iced, something I keep telling myself I should do. Finally I started looking back through my massive tea catalogue Excel file hoping a name would jog my memory… but that actually worked. Wanting to get more boxes of bagged tea out of my cupboards that I hardly ever drink, I decided to make an iced tea batch of some bagged Lipton I had been gifted ages ago by a former volunteer in my department of the library.

Oh boy, bagged Lipton… and this one is discontinued now, too.

I will say I was pleasantly surprised that it was in a sachet, not the stinky paper bags that I usually have to cut open when dealing with bagged teas because I will actually taste the paper otherwise, and it actually did smell… nice? There was a really pleasant fruity scent from the tea, and there still is with this finished ice batch, and that is probably why I would never have guessed that I had a Mason jar of Lipton tea sitting in my fridge.

It… tastes okay, I guess? Mostly, it just still tastes a bit weak to me, so if anything, I still think the base of the tea is the main problem. I used a teabag per cup of water (4 bags per 4 cups of the quart) but it just feels a little dull. That said, it isn’t unbarably bitter either, which is my usual response to bagged Lipton, so there is that. It’s actually drinkable, and does have a fruity note, it just isn’t nearly as pronounced in the actual tea as I’m getting from the aroma. It’s more like a muted berry flavor than any particular fruity flavors… where is the strawberry I was smelling? Or the grape? Or the black currant? Amazing how lackluster it all turns in the glass. But the best by date on this was April 2018, so maybe age has something to do with it, too.

Ah well, I still want to sip this down (really need to free up the space from these old gifted bagged teas…), so I still need to try this warm, and next time I make another batch of this iced, I’ll try overleafing it a smidge and seeing if that helps.

Surprisingly drinkable for a Lipton, and probably being fuller leaf in sachets has a lot to do with that.

Very tart and fruity. Never attempt this as a hot tea, it would given you acid burns. It is ok iced, but much too acidic (hibiscus!) for me.

How i got it: Got a bag from my parents’ house

Experience: Surprisingly, this tea’s aroma is less berry-er than other similar blends, giving a little more room to the tea’s aroma. Very similar to La Teteria’s Blue Shadow or Basilur’s Winter Tea in this respect, the main aroma could be defined as cranberry with some raspberry, with the addition of herbal hints, almost mint-like. Quite natural. Its flavor is rather smooth and less acidic than other berry blends, and follows the usual premise of “berry scent first, tea in the background” with the cranberry as main player. What i enjoy is the lack of the tipical acidity present in so many berry teas, but i also miss the complexity and richness of, say, Basilur’s Winter. Mild intensity, duration and definition. Slightly above average

Would i buy it?: Maybe to mix the usual menu, but i’m more inclined to the ‘no’ answer

Saw this at my in-laws’ and decided to give it a whirl since I’d never tried it before. Unsurprisingly, I was unimpressed. The base tea was uninspiring, and I could barely taste the berry flavor. I won’t go out of my way to drink this again.

I cold steeped this for about 18 hours. I like this tea hot, but it is underwhelming cold and I am not sure why. The berry flavors are prominent both hot and cold, but I think the black tea flavor is stronger when it’s prepared hot. Even steeped for so long, the color is pretty pale for a black tea. I think I’ll stick to having this one hot, or maybe pair it up with a plain black teabag for a bit of interest.

Good but not outstanding. Very fruity – more fruit flavor than tea flavor.