Strawberry Lemonade

Sipdown 43

Just okay. The lemongrass was a bit too strong. I didn’t really taste any strawberry, just hibiscus. May be due to age, but it smelled fine and truthfully isn’t that old.

It annoys me when the first entry I locate when searching for a tea is the wrong one (aka, there’s a dupe of this under “David’s Tea”. Sigh.) Anyways, I hot-brewed and chilled this in the fridge. It was ok, but I was sad that the dry leaf smelled yummier than it actually tasted. Dry leaf has some delicious, fresh, sour lemony aromas, with a bit of fruit, but the tea was too sour, with fruitiness that didn’t blend in. No obvious strawberry. It occurs to me as I read the ingredients that I probably oversteeped it, and the hibiscus is at least partially to blame. Perhaps I’ll remember this when I brew up the last of it. Perhaps not.

I got this as part of a sampler. I wouldn’t buy something like this on its own. It’s pretty sour. It’s basically entirely lemon with no perceptible amount of strawberry except the pink color of the liquid. I like lemon teas, but this one is too bitter and artificial. It was slightly better cold, but still not too enjoyable.

I tried 4 of DAVIDsTEA’s newer (newish) iced teas all in one week, and I wasn’t really impressed with any of them. I didn’t add any sugar, steeped the tea as instructed, and then poured it over a cup of ice. After a fair number of sips, I added lemonade “to taste” – half my cup ended up as lemonade.

More lemon than strawberry, but this has such a nice scent and color to it. This is a good summer tea.

Can I just say how absolutely amazing this tea is? I taste more lemon than strawberry, but the strawberry has its moments. It’s not sour, but it’s not sweet. It’s a subtle, fruity, fresh, summer-y, amazing taste. It smells like what you think it would, strawberries and lemonade. The color is a beautiful red. I drank it as an iced tea, and I haven’t had it hot. I for sure recommend to anyone who wants to feel like they’re lounging on the beach.

When I was little, my family had a huge strawberry garden that we tended to every year (and that my mum turned into the most amazing jams and lovely desserts). Taking a sip of this tea, I was flooded with good memories of those summers, searching for berries through all of their low leaves. The berry in this tea has a slight herbal tang to it that keeps it from tasting like candy, even though it is sweet. It smells very natural and true. The lemon is like a burst of lemongrass sunshine. It tastes so summery, cheerful and lovely. I almost never enjoy berry teas and went in expecting to hate this (and thinking it would be sour), but I’m very charmed by this tea.

I’ve been having this at night as I cold brewed a big bottle of it. It was great the first night but it’s almost like there is an underlying note that gets more stale the longer it steeps.

Used the last of this to do a cold brew over night. It has a smooth and yet sour taste which is fantastic. Not really picking up much strawberry other than the colour. It is still really good and I rather enjoy the flavour of the cold brew.

I find that this tea lives up to its name-as good as it can made with tea ingredients. Of course it isn’t as great as sugary loaded strawberry lemonade, but it is better for you. I imagine it would be delicious in a pitcher with cut up fresh strawberries and slices of lemon added to it.

*Update: AMAZING!! With some strawberry kiwi sugar as sweetener and a mix of frozen strawberries and ice to cool it off. I also ate the berries as a mini snack after I finished drinking my iced tea. I made it again the same way but decided to add some lemonade in there to top it off and it is now the BEST DRINK EVER!