Sweet Fruit Garden

I wanted to continue this nice relaxed feeling all day so after a lovely celebratory dinner with my husband I made myself a cup of this. Such sweet fruity flavors come out to play in this tea. I find it very comforting and relaxing and a go to tea at any time.

Steep Information:
Amount: 2 tsp per ~ 12 oz mug
Additives: honey
Water: filtered, boiling
Tool: make your own paper teabag
Steep Time: a little over 7 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: fruity, sweet
Steeped Tea Smell: fruity
Flavor: berry, sweet
Body: Full
Aftertaste: fruity, a little tart
Liquor: deep dark red

I raided my mom’s tea stash and made some of this tea. My sister had picked it out one time when we were at Teavana and apparently didn’t finish it yet.

It’s good, but I think the strawberry kiwi is better.

images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/04/teavana-loose-leaf-herbal-tea-sweet.html

One of the herbal samples from Jessica’s contest, and another Teavana product that smells great – fruity and sweet, really living up to its name there. Much like the Vermont Maple, it looks a lot like trail mix, with good sized chunks of fruit and raisins or currants sprinkled throughout.

It steeps up to a deep red color, and gives off a strong candy-like fruity sweetness. The first sip though – tart! Much more sour than I expected given the smell. I’m actually going to add a little sugar to this to bring it back into balance for my taste buds. Much better now – a variety of fruit and berry flavors in the mix, including apple and cranberry. A nice caffeine alternative hot drink.

All gone now. I need to order more of this. My son likes it a lot.

Freebie #2 from Teavana after purchasing a Breville earlier today.

Strong smelling dry, fruity, luscious. Smells similarly as it steeps. Unsweetened, this was unpalatable to me: soapy. I wondered if it was the Breville, as I normally love tea. I almost dumped it before adding some Truvia, and now it’s infinitely better. Still a soapy feel on my tongue, but now I can taste the fruit, although it’s still very tart and dry. I’ll drink it, however I doubt I’ll ever make this again.

I was pleasantly surprised by this tea. What drew me to pick some up at Teavana was the addition of hibiscus. Since my time living in Guatemala, where I was obsessed with Jamaica tea, I will try almost anything with hibiscus in it.
The flavor is quite tasty. It has a nice tart and sour flavor to it, which is wonderful when iced. I was also pleased that it wasn’t overly sweet or too fruity, as some of the Teavana fruit tea blends can be. I have yet to try it hot, but I can definitely see this being a wonderful addition to my cold tea rotation.

It’s very sweet and fruit but has a very tart after taste. It’s a good tea cold/iced but I personally don’t like it hot.

Sipdown no. 216.

I am fairly certain I got this as a tea of the month. I’ve had it before, and I remember when: the BF’s mom was visiting. However, I don’t remember much else about it because any time she visits it’s sort of stressful. They don’t get along very well.

I heaped up the spoons on this because my experience with Teavana fruit blends is that heaping is required.

The blend looks just like the picture, and it smells sweet and fruity, but not like any particular fruit. Which makes sense given the ingredient list. There’s not much they didn’t include.

I know I’m going to like this because it’s been discontinued. LOL.

And I do like it. It has a lot in common with Caribbean Breeze, notably the color, which is a deep, wine red, and the hibiscus which is, with over-leafing (which is really overfruiting here) noticeable but not too tart, bitter, or otherwise offensive. In fact, this blend has a nice sweetness to it. On the other hand, I am not able to distinguish separate fruit flavors. But that’s ok, actually. I get an overall berry flavor, which has a raspberry bent. I think it is the papaya that is sweetening things up.

So yeah, I like this. And it is discontinued. :-)

Meh, this is not one of my favourites. I’m really diverging from the artificially sweet, fruity teas, and this is one of them. It’s got flavouring as an ingredient, and it tastes too sweet and odd to me. It has a ton of hibiscus , so it’s sweet at first, then super tart. Also, it smells great dried..not so great brewed. A common problem with Teavana teas for me.

Looks: Fabulous when dry. After you brew it’s a huge mash of nasty looking mushed up fruit bits.

Smell & flavour: As I said, I like the smell when it’s dry. After brewing it’s kind of odd, too much hibiscus I guess. The flavour is like ultra tart watered down red fruit juice. Take the non-descript red juice in the aisles, water it down a bunch and add hibiscus tartness. Voila, sweet fruit tea!

Brewing notes: It’s just fruit, so it’s pretty forgiving. The longer you steep the more hibiscus comes out though, so a quick steep is preferable.