Scarlet Cloud

Ugh. This tea has sealed it for me, I will never again shop at Teavana. Between the terrible customer service (still no response re: the broken teaware), the fact that they cancelled part of my order without informing me (my matcha set, which was the whole reason I was ordering), and this tea being very subpar, let’s just say this company lived up to their reputation.

I got no fruit flavor, all I got was overwhelming mint and what tasted like cheap white tea. Blegh. I so wanted this one to be amazing, too. I’ll stick to Tealish and DavidsTea from now on.

This is one of a very few cups that I refuse to finish. Life is too short to waste on bad tea.

White Mao Feng tea, blackberry pieces, raspberry pieces, peach pieces and mint. (ingredients for this tea from Teavana’s website… when I read the description for this tea on steepster it differed from just strawberries and white tea)
It is a nice light white tea. The fruit and mint are nicely balanced with neither being too overpowering. Great for multiple infusions!

Wow, no love for this tea on Steepster. Not terribly surprising, it’s very hit or miss, luckily today it produced a nice cup. 3 tsps in a glass infuser mug with 175F water for a little over a minute uncovered. Brewed up a beautiful pink and yes a tad cloudy. No bitterness to speak of, no soapy peach, berries are a bit tart which is fine, mint is mild but present. Overall a very lightly flavored white and since Teavana doesn’t seem to believe that white tea leaves themselves should be anything other than light, I can see why others think this is bland, I just don’t mind at the moment as I know what to expect and wasn’t really looking for fruity. This might be more interesting with a bai mu dan or shou mei base. May try this cold brewed as I believe I bought it with the summer in mind when it was 75% off. Would never buy this at full price though. Just the handful of Verdant blends I have been drinking lately have spoiled me, I don’t know if I want to venture trying David’s or 52Teas blends, though that reminds me I need to place an order some honeybush for my mother-in-law.

I received this tea in a swap a looong time ago and can’t remember who I got it from…. But thank you! The color of this tea is pretty. It’s a soft scarlet red color. The flavor is just as soft with hints of berries. Thanks again!

Another Teavana problem tea. I’ve had it a few times and, as another reviewer commented, this is an uneven tea, perhaps because there are so many elements (different fruits, white tea, mint) that depending on what you get in the spoonful you scoop up, it could be overwhelmed by mint, heavy with sour fruit, or just…blah.

Today, I brewed for 2 min. in a mesh ball in one of my favorite large mugs. The liquid is a brownish-purplish color that promises “strong”, but a taste brings nothing big; just a hint of mint and a slight sourness from the fruit. Yes, maybe I should have brewed longer, but Teavana says white/fruit blends get 2 min., so 2 min. is what I gave it. I added a couple of teaspoonfuls of rock sugar and now it is mildly fruit-flavored sugar water with an aftertaste of mint. In no way do I taste white tea, or any type of camellia sinensis whatsoever.

I’ll continue sipping the mug until I get an idea of what I want to drink next or until it gets cold, whichever comes first.

For no reason I could tell, my last shipment from Teavana included TWO packages of Scarlet Cloud rather than the one I ordered. So, I threw out the packet from today, the one that’s been open for a couple of months, in case it had gone stale. At some point maybe I’ll open the extra one. Maybe.

I want this tea to die. The first time I made it I over-steeped it and used water that was much hotter than recommended, and it was absolutely nauseatingly bitter. Just disgusting. It tasted like poison. I made it a few more times, being careful about steeping time and temperature, and it still tasted gross to me. It’s likely that my first awful experience was primed every time I drank it, so the tea never had a fair shot. It was more palatable with sugar and half-and-half, but the taste was still too unpleasant for me. Sadly, I bought a bunch of this on sale (a full 8oz tin!). Steve was able to drink some of it but it mostly sat unloved on our shelf for over a year… at which point it started to look and smell funny, so we tossed it (finally!).

I don’t typically drink white teas, because in the past, I found them to be too light. But, I did inherit this tea and wanted to try it. To make up for the anticipated hardly-there flavor, I did add about half a teaspoon of Teavana’s German Rock Sugar along with about a third of a pack of stevia. Much to my surprise, I really enjoyed this! I didn’t find this to be too light – I’m not sure if that means it’s actually a stronger white tea, or what. Very berry and minty. Sounded like an interesting mix, and although I don’t know if I LOVE it, I do like it and find it refreshing. I was happy to be given a bit of this tea, but after checking Teavana’s price, I will not be purchasing this for anywhere near what they’re selling it for. Does make me curious about other white teas flavors though!

. . . hum.

While I can taste the various fruits, and the mint calmed down a lot from the scent of the dry leaves into the brewed tea, it was . . . weak? Strange? Disproportionate? Yes, let’s go with the last one. Disproportionate. It should have been a lot better than it was. Oh well. We’ve learned our Teavana lesson.

I love this tea. I purchased it on sale and thought what the heck, I’ll give it a try. So glad I did. I’ll probably order a few more pouches before the sale is over though. For me its a good balance of everything I love in a tea. I bit of fruitiness, a little refreshing mint, and of course an actual tea flavor. Next stop it to try it with the sweet fruit garden which I’ve heard is awesome

You have to be careful when making this, that you are getting a little bit of everything in it. I’ve made the mistake of just dumping some in my strainer, and getting a cupful of fruit.

The mint is most prevalent in this, followed by a light fruit flavor. There could be a white tea flavor in there too, but I can’t tell, mostly because of the mint.

I didn’t like this one at first. I bought it online during a sale, on a whim. Since then, it has grown on me. I didn’t care for the mint+fruit flavor at first, but now I like to drink it when I need to relax. I don’t “float on a downy white paradise”, but I do enjoy it. :)