A Taste of Ten Thirst-Quenching Iced Teas

It’s been entirely too long since I talked about tea! And I’m going to admit – I have a tea problem. Not that I have too much tea. You can NEVER have too much tea! (*wink*)

But I do have an organization problem. My tea takes up two full cupboard shelves and is starting to leak onto a third. So I’m looking into solutions. I want to get some nice tea tins. So if you know where I should look for those, let me know! I also found these adorable little tea organizers that look just like mini filing cabinets except the perfect size for teabags. I must get some!

Why do I have so much tea? Let’s just say that my husband and mother-in-law have embraced my love of tea and helped me try a wide variety. Sometimes I work through the samples pretty quickly. But sometimes I fall in love with something and ration it so that it’ll stick around for awhile. Or… you know, buy more.

I actually missed the 2020 David’s Tea advent calendar. There were so many things going on at the end of the year, I forgot to order one before they ran out. But it worked out for the best. It turns out I either owned or had tried many of the non-new teas they included. (Another of my tea problems, apparently!)

However, my mother-in-law did buy me a really awesome iced tea sample pack a few summers ago that I never blogged about. Mostly because there were so many packs in the box that I just finished with them a few weeks ago.

It’s been hovering around 42C for about four days at the time of writing this, so talking about something iced feels like a good idea!

Top Picks

Let’s start with the highlights! There were 10 teas in this box in all. My top favorite was the Hibiscus Splash. This refreshing caffeine-free blend includes pineapple, hibiscus and cranberries with a little bit of cornflower blossom (which seems to pop up in many of my favorite fruit teas.) While there were a lot of nice fruity, summer flavors in the box, this one really popped. It had the right blend of fruit to tang ratio so that it doesn’t get too mellow once you add ice. Plus it works really well with a small splash of lemon in the cup. (Imagine my joy when I received a second sample of this in my birthday present!)

I would say my second favorite of the bunch was Strawberry Moringa. In my notes for this post I wrote: ‘smells and tastes of strawberry like WOW!’ It was kind of like drinking a strawberry puree, especially if you add a little splash of citrus. The ingredients here are apple, raisins, moringa leaves, beetroot, hibiscus and strawberry. I recently came across a recipe for tea popsicles, and I actually think is my top runner for trying something like that. They’d be delicious!

Rounding out my top picks is Magic Potion. This includes currants, apples, rosehips, raspberries and blackberries. But the key ingredient is butterfly pea flowers. That’s right – this fruit-packed tea brews blue. But when you add a sprinkle of lemon it turns pink. Magic in a cup! But parlor tricks aside, it also just tastes delicious. Like a berry blend punch.

Interesting Blends

I will say, none of the teas in this pack were bad. I enjoyed sipping all of them. I used my packs to make pitchers so I could max my enjoyment. But obviously some of the teas interested me more than others. One of the most interesting was Just Beet It. The star ingredient in this tea is beetroot – as you can probably guess. Joining it are apple, raisins, hibiscus, elderberries, goji berries, aronia berries, blackberries, redcurrants, raspberries and some cornflower blossoms. Quite the list!

As you can probably imagine, this tea brews a very deep red-purple color that I wouldn’t want to spill on anything. I had no idea what to expect because I don’t think of beet flavor when I think of tea. But actually this tea had a really deep, rich fruitful flavor due to the mix. And unlike some teas that have a long list of ingredients, it didn’t struggle to have a unified flavor.

Another interesting offering was the Rainbow Lemonade. The ingredients here are apple, pineapple, orange peel, sweet blackberry leaves, cornflower petals and raspberries. It kind of tastes like the rainbow sherbet I used to eat as a kid. The one that came in the giant tubs my grandparents would pull from the freezer every year when summer started. In order to make it taste lemonaidy, you really need to add a sprinkle of lemon. But that does taste delicious too!

Evoking another nostalgic memory was the Mango Fruit Punch. This one includes candied pineapples and mango pieces, orange peel, beetroot, strawberries, tangerine and marigold blossoms. I wouldn’t say that mango dominated this tea. It tastes more like a general fruit punch than a mango punch. But it’s still pretty good!

Rounding Out the Teas

There are a few teas I haven’t mentioned yet just because I already blogged about them elsewhere. The box contained Caribbean Crush, for example, which is one of my top favorite iced teas. I keep it on hand year round, but tend to drink more of it in the summer.

It also had a few packs of Green Passionfruit tea. This is a tea I often drink hot, but tried cold for the first time at the urging of the box. I’m glad I did! Drinking a tea cold can subtly alter which of the flavors are more dominant. As a hot tea, Green Passionfruit is floral with fruity notes. But when you ice it, the fruit really stands out. I’ll be drinking it cold more often in the future.

The box also included a tea called Frozen Raspberry. Unfortunately, this tea has little yogurt pieces in it, and I’m lactose intolerant. I haven’t really figured out how to mix the lactase enzyme with drinks I intend to sip slowly yet, which makes it hard for me to comment on this tea. I enjoyed my taste test for this one, but it’s not something I can drink on the regular without suffering some consequences.

What was the final tea in the box? A blend called Just Peachy. Peach is a flavor that’s really difficult to master. It’s delicate, so it’s easy to drown with other things. I did find this tea tasted primarily of peach though, which is good! It might not have been one of my favorites, but I certainly enjoyed it.

So there you have it! If you’re looking for a fruity treat to keep you cool this summer, I hope you find something here!