Tomato Lime Cocktail

UNDRINKABLE. Super duper strong fake tomato flavor. If you are into Clamato or Michelada, you should give this a try but, seriously, who wants a Clamato tea?

I’m very open minded when it comes to food and drink. I ordered this because it was on sale and I was ultra curious.

The smell was not quite what I expected. It really made me go “Heh?” I’ve smelled it quite a few times and I still can’t make up my mind on how I feel about it.

So I brewed it. I iced it and took it in my giant travel mug. Tasted it. Not BAD, but not good either. I added hot sauce because I wanted it savoury. Drinkable but still not yum.

I tried again the next time, this time hot. The first thing I picked up on hot was cinnamon. Cinnamon? Really? And I got the sweetness of the raisins. I dumped it down the sink. I have too many nice teas to waste my time drinking something I’m not in love with.

My phone won’t let me drag the damn bar to express how much I actually love this tea! I was shocked by how delicious I found it! It sounded so odd but the flavors just work together… it is beautiful iced accompanying a turkey bacon and cheese Sammie!

Sipdown (118)!

So, uhh, this is different…

This sample comes from TheLastDodo and is her slightly altered version of it. Because she found it very sweet she added onion flakes, garlic pieces, and red pepper flakes & also suggested brewing it in a vessel I don’t normally use for tea because of how much the smell carries over. That’s why I did this as a cold brew; my mason jar doesn’t retain smell/taste at all and can always be dishwashed worst case scenario.

The brewed up liquor is a vibrant cherry red, or I guess in this case more of a tomato red. I can’t help but wonder if what Teavana was going for was sort of a lime Clamato type thing? Is that big in the states? Someone at work said that Clamato is a mostly Canadian thing and that when she traveled to the states people were really weirded out by the concept. Personally, as a Canadian, is weirds me out too (and as I write this I’m eating pasta absolutely doused in ketchup popcorn shaker; who’s the weird one now) but it’s also super, super popular here…

I can absolutely taste the garlic/onion that’s added in here: probably one of the more dominant flavours, though if we’re being honest everything about this is dominant and not necessarily in a great way. The tomato is present too; very present actually – but it’s more like a sweet, kind of tangy tomato paste/sauce? And kind of artificial like the ketchup popcorn shaker I love so much.

Part of the tang I’m getting obviously comes from the hibiscus/apple/lime in the blend too – they’re also contributing a lot of noticeable flavour. I can sort of see why TheLastDodo added the savory ingredients; otherwise I think the tomato in the blend actually could have been overpowered – and that’s such a weird thing to say of a blend that has something as peculiar as tomato in it.

The clash of sweet and savory here doesn’t really work though; I absolutely didn’t enjoy this blend (although it was hella memorable). But also, to put it into perspective, it worked more than I thought it would. Like, I drank like two thirds of this monstrosity while cooking supper tonight and though I grimaced with each sip it really didn’t occur to me until quite far into drinking it to toss the rest out (which I eventually did).

So…

A fail, but not as bad a fail as it could’ve been!? I can’t help but wonder what I would’ve thought of the unaltered version. Not that I’ll be seeking it out. Big nope on that front. Not going to rate, ‘cause I don’t have the original version to use as a baseline.

Herbal TTB.

I got the Herbal TTB that I started in January back today and it’s packed full of things I want to try. I thought this looked interesting so I gave it a whirl, but honestly I couldn’t drink more than a couple of sips of it. It was kind of gross. Ah, well. On to the next sample

The scent was so awful that the employee warned the other employees that she was opening the canister. They moved off to the far end of the store. That was a pretty good indication of what I would think of this tea. I took a brief smell I thought maybe it would brew up better. I asked her to brew me a sample and the other employees practically left the store. Needless to say, one sip and it went in the trash. Who came up with this blend? Who was on the test panel? Were they all seriously drunk or high?
The main taste was tomato! Ewwwww… It contained Apple Pieces, Beet Root Pieces, Carrot, Cinnamon, Dried Tomato, Hibiscus Blossoms, Natural And Artificial Flavouring, Orange Pieces, Raisins.

I tried this as an iced tea and this is hands down the WORST tea I have ever had in my entire life! I have tried more than 100 lose leaf teas and this tea was freaking disgusting. Even when I smelled it in the store I gagged because it smelled AWFUL. The sales associate pushed me into buying 2oz of this tea just to try it out. When I tried it I spit it out in my sink. The tea tastes like fruity ketchup. It is EXTREMLY NASTY! Both the taste and smell were DISGUSTING!

DO NOT BUY THIS TEA! SAVE YOUR MONEY!