Vanilla Spring Fruit Tea

Cold Brew Sipdown (639)!

Yes, after that flurry of sipdowns/tasting notes this morning my cupboard number has gone up yet again. I got a handful of free Teavivre samples in the mail today though and this was included in those samples. I’m always curious about Teavivre’s fruit infusions; it seems like a sort of weird thing for them to carry – and in so many varieties too! I’ve never really spoken to a tea drinker who has gone “Yes, I’m placing a Teavivre order because I’ve run out of their fruit infusions”. It’s always one of their straight teas.

I own the Waterlillies blend they carry; that was my first “foray” into their fruit blends. I almost went with this one instead, but I was lured in by the pineapple in the aforementioned. I tried to go for a real mix of teas in this most recent batch of free samples; and that included flowering tea, some pu’erh, a straight herbal tea that I don’t think I’ve experienced before from any company, and this! Back during the free sample/Black Friday deals in November I actually kind of wish I’d gone for this one instead of Waterlillies though because I think I enjoyed this one a lot more than I do Waterlillies, which I find to be VERY tart and hibiscus heavy in terms of flavour. But at least I’ve tried it now…

So firstly, “Vanilla” is DEFINITELY a misnomer because there is nothing in this blend that tastes of vanilla _at all. However, once you accept that and move past the idea of a “berries and cream” profile it is very enjoyable as a mixed berry tea! It’s a little bit tart, but overall quite smooth and well balanced with some really nice sweet Blueberry and Elderberry notes, and then just a little bit of currant in the finish of the sip. It’s fresh and juicy, and hella refreshing! And when I say ‘a little tart’ I really do mean the bare minimum amount of tartness for this to actually make sense as a berry tea; apart from that it’s smooth, smooth sailing all the way!

Thoroughly enjoyable, and maybe I wouldn’t place a Teavivre order specifically for this blend but you can bet that I’d toss it into my cart if I was making an order for other things at the same time!

Heavy on the hibiscus, some grape, black current, raisin, candied fruit. Mostly hibiscus, though, and extremely tart. I added vanilla sugar because there is no vanilla at all in this, but the sugar wasn’t enough. No vanilla, too much hibiscus to really taste anything, not drinking hot or iced by itself. I’m pretty disappointing. I’ll be sticking to less sour teas in the future.

Finished this sample off from teavvire. While it’s not a bad fruit tea – it IS on the hibby side, which a lot of folks won’t like. I don’t really get vanilla out of this and teavivre has a few better fruit teas that i prefer. Good to try, but i don’t need more of this.

I love how this is sweet and cake like with the vanilla but4 fresh and tart with the fruit. Awesome hot and cold.

Mmm, the dry leaf smells like blueberry fruit leather. I don’t get any vanilla from this but I really don’t care since all I want is a nice cold brew, vanilla or no vanilla. Flavour-wise, it’s tart, but not too tart, and it tastes like a mixture of different berries. Even though there are lots of blueberries in the leaf, it’s not what I’m only tasting. Rather, I swear I’m picking up on strawberry, maybe a little cherry, even. My mom especially tastes cherry.

Pretty good cold brew, if you ask me! I’m so glad I picked this as a sample. Many thanks to Teavivre for the experience! I’ll definitely have to order a full size next time.

Where vanilla? :(
I liked the corn flower blue fruit tea a lot more. This one lacks the sweet berry flavors. They are shy here. The roselle/hibiscus is strong. I don’t mind it chilled but not the best hot. Plus there’s no vanilla in the taste. I might take the cornflower blue and add vanilla bean to it.
Glad to have tried this though!
Thanks Teavivre.

Tea pop!

The dry leaf of this is full of huge dried berries. The smell is a pretty nice balance of vanilla and berry. Unfortunately, the vanilla doesn’t translate into the flavor. The flavor really resembles hibiscus. It’s pretty strong, so I steep for under 1 minute. The short steep brings out a teeny bit of the vanilla flavor. Still overwhelmingly berry and tart though.

So, I thought… tea pop! I use a small amount of leaf, probably about 1/2 teaspoon, and a small amount of boiling water, probably about 3 oz. Then I add 4-5 ice cubes and top it off with seltzer. Such an improvement over the hot brew! This is a nice non-chamomile herbal option for a hot evening.

Thank you to Angel at Teavivre for the samples!

Fruit teas are hard for me to review. They aren’t bad, but they often all have a very similar tart taste, as most use hibiscus or some other tart ingredient like that. This tea has that tart taste, but it also has a blueberry taste in it, and there is a touch of vanilla in it.

However, this tea doesn’t have as much of the flavours in it that I would like. The tartness is a little overpowering, and I don’t taste enough vanilla to consider it a vanilla tea in any way. It wasn’t bad at all, of course, it just wasn’t as flavourful as I’d like it, and it wasn’t my favourite tea.

I do think it may taste different cold though, so I am going to let it cool and then keep it in the fridge for a while. I’ll report back when I drink it cold.

Where is the hibiscus in this tea? Again this is like a cup of hibiscus but there’s no hibiscus in the blend. I thought I would really like this fruit tea but another fruit tea from Teavivre that I hate.