Green Delight

This is the second of the two free samples I received from Tealated!
The dry leaf is very pungent and sweet. It smells like some sort of candy. The pink starburst? The leaves look like a type of Chinese green. Probably not gunpowder. What do I know? The little pieces of rose hips and dried raspberry make up the rest of the stuffs in the bag.
This tea reminds me of Raspberry Gardens from Celestial Seasonings. But in a good way. I hated that tea when I got it years ago. No, the tea is sweeter, and thank god, no teabag taste or bitterness from the fannings.
I like how the freeze-dried raspberries look, especially after steeping. It’s just as if I have actual fresh raspberries in my infuser basket!
Just like the first tea that I tried, Cream of White Coconut, I steeped a cup hot for right this moment and then cold-brewed the rest for my smoothies. Today I added it to a lime/grape/strawberry Swiss chard smoothie. Very Refreshing!

This tea came to me in a bubble mailer with my name and address handwritten on the front. I thought at first that it must be a late Christmas gift since it seemed so personal, but when I opened the package I was delighted to find two very generous samples of tea alongside a handwritten note. I hadn’t expected these to arrive so quickly! My husband opened the bag almost immediately and began making himself a cup of this tea. I, however, had just polished off more than a few Christmas chocolates so I abstained until this morning.

My first thought upon opening this bag of Green Delight is that it smells almost exactly like the little chewable Tylenol tablets I had as a kid. It’s not at all an unpleasant smell; it just smells extremely sweet and very fruity. There is also a slight hint of peach. Looking at the dry mix, it is mostly green tea leaves with a few red bits thrown in, likely the rose hips and the dried raspberry. The fragrance tones down a bit after steeping and leaves the tea tasting somewhat floral. It’s a little bitter, but I may have over-steeped so that’s certainly my fault. I attempted a re-steep and found the flavor to be much the same as the first. No new notes to speak of, but no dulling of flavors either. I fully expect my rating to go up after I get the steep time where it needs to be. For now, I consider it to be a consistently good tea and one that I feel will continue to grow on me with each new cup.

Side note: By the second steep, I really started to feel the effects of the caffeine. I’m not sure my new tea ball extracts the caffeine as quickly as my previous one so I may need to do a longer pre-steep or use this one for herbals only.