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I got this tea mostly for blending, since I don’t have any light whites to mix with stuff. In the spirit of making at least one cold brew a day, I mixed this up in a glass with cucumber slices, some shredded mint, and very finely chopped cantaloupe last night and let it steep for about 14 hours. I strained it all, including the cantaloupe, leaving a gorgeous-looking peachy brew. And it might be the most refreshing drink I’ve ever had—sweet from the cantaloupe, vibrant from the mint, cooling from the cucumber and there’s a lovely subtle tea taste in the background. A little floral and fruity, which really elevates this from “water with stuff steeped in it” to “fancy iced tea.”

I’m not supposed to be buying any more tea, but I can never pass up a sale, and it was all of $2 for 2 ounces of this. I mean, that’s just impossible to resist! Plus with summer at full blast, I need some nice tropical teas and take my mind of the suffocating heat for a while. It’s so hot that our local squirrel is laying spread-eagle on the fire escape and is too lazy to even move if I open the window.

Anyway, I made this last night for the bf and he loved it, but I only had a little sip so I decided to re-steep it this afternoon. The flavors are just as strong on the second steep, which is always a goof sign with a flavored blend. There are big chunks of pineapple and coconut in there, and they are sweetened according to the packaging but thankfully this is definitely not overly sweet. This has such a nice tropical flavor, though the coconut is more dominant than than the pineapple. It’s surprisingly good hot—usually blends this fruity I only drink iced, but this is good both ways. Mostly because they used a pretty tasty black base that comes in at the end of the sip. Though with it being 100 degrees outside and all this will definitely make it into the iced tea rotation (probably with a splash of rum!).

I suspect that I looked like a kid on christmas morning when I pulled this out of my Fire Sale box from Rachel. I knew it would be good stuff, but I was expecting samples…. not, you know, several practically full bags of awesome discontinued/unavailable teas. That’s right, I have a whole bag of this! Which is nice, because it’s so good it makes me cry a little to think about drinking the last of it.

The bf had a sip from my cup and described this as “earl grey with a slice of cheesecake melted in.” It’s just…. perfection. The earl grey is very strong, pretty heavy on the bergamot actually, and with a hint of lemon as well. First you get the bold, super-strong earl grey, then there’s the creamy, sweet cheesecake. There’s no crust element, it’s more like cheescake filling. But for me that’s the best part!

EDIT: I resteeped this twice last night: the second steep was even cheescakey-er than the first, and the third held up well too!

Trader Joe’s has these amazing dried mango slices that are soooo juicy, and they roll them in cayenne pepper for the tastiest spicy/sweet combo I’ve ever had. I was kind of hoping that this tea would taste like that, and Krystaleyn sent me some in our swap! I’ve been wanting to try it for a while but there are so many teas I have to get through ;~;

This is a juicy tea, and has a really strong mango flavor. I did steep mine for extra long, because I’ve found that DAVIDsTEA blends tend towards the weaker side of things. There is a nice green tea flavor, but it’s not that strong—mostly this is just mango-y. The chili, though, is disappointingly lacking. I wanted spicy, and this really isn’t—there’s a bit of heat after the sip that lingers in your mouth, but it’s not spicy enough for my taste. There are really big chili threads in this blend so I thought I’d have more oomph. It’s tasty for sure, but I think the name is a little misleading… there’s definitely no Diablo in here!

I got this tea what seems like a very long time ago, and I still haven’t tried it! I try not to dip into my 52teas that often since I know I can’t get them again once they’re gone for the most part, and I just knew I would love this tea which made me even more hesitant to try it. I don’t want to love it, I want to think “oh it’s good but I can live without it.”

Well, this is a tea I can’t live without. I cold-brewed it overnight, and sweet gods of cotton candy is it perfect. At first it’s just a very nice iced tea, the black base really shines and is wonderfully layered but not too heavy. Then, BAM, cotton candy. It’s not fake or artificial, it seriously tastes like cotton candy jut melted in your mouth. And the taste lingers, filling you with giddy childhood memories of eating cotton candy at the county fair and then running around in the petting zoo on a sugar high. It is SO good, I can’t really imagine this tea hot but iced it’s…. urgh, so amazingly perfect. Thank god they’ve added iced tea bags of this, though I think I could drink a pitcher of this every day which would put me in serious tea-debt!

There’s only one thing I would add to this blend: I wish it was blue! I’m tempted to put some food dye in mine just to make it that much more like liquid cotton candy.

I love grapefruit, but it’s hard to find a truly grapefruity tea that isn’t overly bitter or too much like orange or lemon. Upton’s Summer Blend was close, but not quite there—Dylan recommend that I try this one (which happily enough I’d already ordered a sample of), which I finally remembered when digging through my samples. All those Upton ones packaged for Batman are on the very bottom of the bin!

This should be called “Earl Grapefruit.” It’s BAM POW GRAPEFRUIT, right up in your face. Tangy, bitter, acidic, sooooo good. I mean, good if you like grapefruit, since it’s kind of an acquired taste. My bf looks at me in horror when I chug glasses of it, but hey, more for me! Saint Isaac is like grapefruit juice with some tea thrown in—you get the base which is pretty strong, bright, and brisk, but the beginning and end of the sip are grapefruit all the way. I am in total tea-love with this, and there’s enough left in my sample to try it a few different ways still. I think this will be delicious iced!

EDIT: Apparently by trying it iced later I meant right now! It’s actually not quite as good iced and loses some of that graprefuity goodness, but it’s still tasty. In the future though I’ll brew this hot.

The awesome Azzrian sent me a sample of this when she saw it was on my shopping list (which is more like a “tasting list”). I love cucumber and I love mint, but this has mixed reviews so I wanted to try it out first. Now I have the chance!

This definitely sounds like a tea that’s best iced, so I cold brewed some last night. I’ve been experimenting with smaller cold brews recently, since I usually do huge pitchers but that requires a lot of tea. So I just made a big glass of this: 1 teaspoon loose-leaf, filtered water and a little simple syrup (since I like my iced teas sweet) and let it sit for 12 hours. I was worried it would be weak since it wasn’t a great tea to water ratio, but it came out fine! Crisp, refreshing, with strong mint notes and a hint of cucumber. I’d like more “POW” cucumber flavor, but that seems to be pretty hard to capture in tea-form. I have enough of my sample left for another cup, so I think I’ll just add some cucumber slices!

There’s also some subtle blueberry, which is nice but also weird since this isn’t “Cucumber Mint Blueberry” tea. It does add some nice sweetness, but it’s as prominent as the cucumber which throws me a bit. I don’t think it’s really a stand-out blend, but I do like all the flavors so I might consider buying this just for cooling down over the summer.

I was craving something ginger-y after thinking about Rishi’s Ginger Pu-erh, but I am currently in samples-only mode to try to clear out my ridiculous tea overflow. This is one of my samples from Fusion Teas, but I hadn’t tried it yet because I usually don’t like peach blends. However, I had a relatively pleasant experience with the Peach Fuzz Chai (even though it didn’t pack enough punch for me), so I decided to give this one a try. Plus having them so close together means it’s easier to compare and contrast!

There are big chunks of cinnamon bark and peaches in here, which right off the bat is a good sign. Steeped it smells divine, like fresh from the oven peach cobbler. There’s definitely a lot more going on here than the Peach Fuzz, which is funny because this isn’t even advertized as a chai-like blend. But cinnamon + ginger reads like a chai to me, and this is definitely a warming, comforting tea. The peach is delicious, juicy, and present consistently throughout the sip. Darjeeling was a good choice for the base: it doesn’t overpower the spices and peach but it also has enough oomph to make it taste like tea instead of mulled peach juice. Peach as a tea flavor is definitely growing on me!

Another from my box from LiberTEAS! I tend to be wary of peach teas since the flavor can come out very artificial, but I trust 52teas to blend up a juicy chai so I decided to make this today. I iced it the lazy way, aka let the cup sit out until it was cold enough to put ice in. I usually take chai hot but it felt like a peach version would be better cold. I tried a sip when it was still warm and I definitely prefer the iced version!

This is not overly peachy, but has a nice juice-like quality. It doesn’t really feel like a chai to me though, more like a spiced peach drink. There are certain flavors that I associate with chai—particularly clove and ginger—that I am not picking up. They are listed in the ingredients, but I am really only getting up the cardamom. The white base isn’t that strong either, so there’s not really a stand-out flavor. It’s good but too mild all-around for my taste: a pleasant enough cup, but perhaps too soft.

A few months back I started a thread about what unique blends people would like to see, inspired by a sudden craving for tamarind tea—which mysteriously does not seem to exist! The awesome Stacy at Butiki contacted me about a custom blend and I jumped on the chance—I mean, it’s every tea-lover’s dream to have their own custom tea just for them! I was amazed that she liked the finished creation enough to add it to their regular lineup since it means that everyone can try what started as an idle idea and ended up being one of the best teas I’ve ever tasted.

Of course my review is a bit biased since the flavors are pretty much tailored to my palate—the original idea was to replicate the taste of those tamarind-flavored Mexican sodas, and boy does this deliver! The Guranse base adds a nice woodsy/earthy smoothness and there’s that bright pop of malty/sour flavor from the tamarind, followed by delicious brown sugar. But they combine to form something better than the sum of their parts: there are notes of caramel, vanilla, and yes, an almost soda-like fizziness! With just a pinch of rock sugar it’s somehow even better, and it really brings all the flavors together. I’ve had this hot, iced, lukewarm from sitting in the AC too long, and it’s perfect every way. This is definitely my ideal tea, and it’s amazing to actually have it in front of me!