Strawberry Cream

So I made this one as a cold brew. Not remembering that I made it as a cold brew back in February. And re-reading my old tasting notes, I didn’t like it then. And guess what, I don’t like it now. Ha ha.

I brewed it for about 10 hours. I did not notice until I stopped brewing it that the first ingredient in the tea is hibiscus. I do not favour hibiscus, but it really depends on the blend. I do not like hibiscus hot, but I really do not like it cold brewed at all.

This one turned out a beautiful red hibiscus colour. At first it was extremely tart, I couldn’t taste anything other than fruity tartness. I added a whole bunch of sugar. I didn’t measure, just dumped it in from the sugar bowl. That definitely helped. Still tart, but quite toned down with the sugar. The sugar did not make it too sweet because there was so much tartness. There is a strawberry taste to it, but not a sweet strawberry, like a tart, not quite ripe strawberry. It is not as creamy cold as it is hot. Like I said in my previous tasting note, which I forgot about, I prefer this one hot.

So this was one of the Teavana teas that ActUALLY arrived from my last order.
I nearly wish it hadn’t. :P I forgot about the hibiscus when I steeped it and now it’s just a little too tart. But it smells like strawberry cream. Beautifuly, tantalizing strawberry cream….

I’m hoping that a shorter steep time will tame the hibiscus. If not, then cold-steeping. I don’t have too much of this at least.

I was scared to try this tea due to my lack of success with other Teavana teas. This is the last tea out of my teavana purchase 6 weeks ago that I am trying, it didn’t excite me even before I purchased it, I only bought it because it was on clearance.

This tea is heavy on the fruit, I am not seeing a lot of tea in my bag which really bothers me, because their prices don’t reflect the lack of tea. The flavour is good, but artificial, which is not surprising coming from Teavana. I also cannot taste any of the base at all.

Although this tea is enjoyable, I would not purchase it again because there are far better strawberry teas out there. I don’t think I’ll be purchasing any tea from Teavana again because I find their teas have very little actual tea, their flavours are artificial and you can’t purchase less than 50 grams of a tea.

I love strawberry teas and this one from Teavana does not disappoint. It is still not as good as the Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait from Davids but still good. It has a sweet cream flavor that I rather like. It tastes like a warm strawberry yogurt. Again not as good or as cheap as the tea from DT so changes are I won’t be buying it again, but I was pleasantly surprised with this one.

This tea is… decent.
I am not particularly a fan of hibiscus teas so I had a hard time convincing myself to give this one a try because the first ingredient on the ingredients list is “hibiscus flowers,” which is too bad since it’s a white tea. I can’t say I was too happy about that but I eventually did end up buying a 50g bag for myself, considering the list of ingredients mirrored the list of my favourite strawberry tea (Teaopia’s Strawberry Fields) almost perfectly.
The smell of this tea dry is just heavenly. It smells like fresh strawberries topped with a huge dollop of cream, but there was a faint apple scent as well. Once steeped, the smell becomes a lot more syrupy/sugary. It smells… artificial. This was a big letdown but I decided to base my judgment on the taste test and not the smell. And that’s where the true letdown happened.
Hibiscus. Hibiscus everywhere. Hibiscus really took the wheel with this tea and almost completely overpowered the fruity notes. It is definitely less pronounced when cooled down, but the strawberry flavour that comes through then is definitely not as Pow! Fresh In Your Face Strawberry! as I had hoped. It’s quite artificial tasting. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I can see this tea being quite wonderful brewed with a lemonade or with a few shavings of frozen lemon added to it (which I will try next) but a substitute/rival to Strawberry Fields it is not. Someone on the Teavana site mentioned that cutting down the tea to around 1/2 to 3/4 a teaspoon greatly reduces the artificial flavour so I’m not giving up on this tea just yet.
This tea is not as delicate and light as I would expect from a white tea, which is disappointing considering the price tag, but I think there’s a great tea hiding here, just maybe a little fussy.

I really liked this one. Mooched it off a coworker yesterday. There are real chunks of strawberry in it and it smells like candy once it’s steeped. The liquor is a gorgeous bright pink color. We used a very cool water temp (appropriate, because it’s a white tea base) and it came out very mild and sweet.

Note-wise, it’s not very complex. Basically I get vanilla, strawberry, and a bite of tartness from the hibby. About what you’d expect. Good nonetheless! Felt like dessert, without being laden with calories and regret.

Quite tart with an artificial strawberry flavour. That being said, I think it would make a nice iced tea with a bit of sweetener. My main issue with it is the back of creaminess. I like really creamy teas, so this was a disappointment.

I like that it steeps a pinky red colour.

This tea smells good dry leaf – but its very tart and all I can really taste is the hibiscus. Which in turn kind of makes it sour. Glad this was a sipdown of my last cup.

Vom. This is one of the worst teas I’ve ever tried. Smelled like butter and somehow tasted neither like strawberries or cream. Super sour. So unpleasant.

Ugh. another tea ruined with too much hibiscus. Just my opinion, but I think a lot of tea blends go overboard on the hibiscus, especially fruity teas, this is no exception. I do like the creamy aftertaste of this, but the hibiscus just overpowers all the other flavors.