Kristal Send Message

104 Followers / 120 Following

Recommended

Kristal drank True Blueberry by Celestial Seasonings

415 tasting notes

I was talking to someone here on steepster about celestial seasonings made as iced teas. I just purchased a TON of tea, including some off amazon, so I decided to pick up a sample pack of celestial seasonings zinger teas (4 teabags each, 5 kinds of tea. the perfect amount for iced teas).

I just recently tried my first cold brew iced tea yesterday, so I decided to try this one cold brewed as well: Filled up my new 2L iced tea pitcher with cold water, placed the 4 tea bags in the water, then set it in the fridge.

All I can say is wow, I’m am VERY pleasantly surprised. I think I have tried a celestial seasonings tea before at my Mother In Laws place, but I didn’t have a good first impression because I think the box said “best before [5 years previous]”. I remember the tea tasting very cheap and, I think, stale.

After 1 hour of cold brewing, I took a sample of this tea. It was weak, but WOW you can definitely taste blueberry. I was shocked at how accurate the flavour was. I decided to let it brew for 1.5 hours more (2.5 hours total) and it was just perfect. SLIGHTLY tart and tangy from the hibiscus, with blueberry flavour afterwards. The slight tartness/tangyness doesn’t bother me at all because that IS the taste of wild blueberries. Awesome, and refreshing.

I must say, this is better than some loose leaf blends I have tried, yet this is approximately 1/4 of the price per pitcher (I have done the math: most DAVIDs tea iced teas cost about $3-4 per pitcher, this is $1-1.5). Plus, no cleaning filters since this is bagged tea! Lastly, did I mention that this tea apparently has no artificial flavoring? That’s better than what I can say for DAVIDs….

I absolutely recommend this tea, and I would totally repurchase.

EDIT: I have this fruit wine (Blueberry Shiraz) I made at the local brewery (it’s actually VERY sweet and closer to a cooler than wine by far) and mixed half tea, half fruit wine together to bring the sweetness down and to bring out more of the blueberry flavour. It’s awesome. Plus, the wine is about 12% and it brings down the alcohol level as well, which is good because it’s frickin hot in my apartment and I get dehydrated too easily.

Flavors: Blueberry, Tangy, Tart

Preparation

Iced 8 min or more 66 OZ / 1951 ML

I Like This

1 likes

1 comments

Kirkoneill1988
Delete

awesome!

People who liked this

Comments

Kirkoneill1988
Delete

awesome!

Profile

Bio

I used to drink coffee, but it started to hurt my stomach so I switched to tea. A friend of mine introduced me to DAVID’s TEA and I couldn’t stop after that! I’ve now been expanding my scope beyond DAVIDs away from “candy-like teas” into more natural teas or flavourings. Current favourite stores include International House of Tea (iHOT) and Verdant Tea.

When it comes to tea ratings, I usually only ever rate them once. I know a lot of people on steepster do many tasting notes for the same teas depending on their mood, but I prefer to rate once and if my opinion changes, I will delete the old note and rate again. How I rate teas goes as following:

1-49: Teas I won’t buy again. Either the taste is disgusting to me, or it’s too bland, etc. I’m most likely not even going to finish the tin/bag.

50-59: Teas I wouldn’t buy again; I have to force myself to drink the whole cup to not waste it.

60-69: I’ll finish the cup and even the bag/tin, but I wouldn’t buy these teas again. Teas of this rating are “lacking something”.

70-79:Teas that are pretty good and ones I might buy again. Usually these teas are ones I have to be “in the mood for” and drink occasionally.

80-89: Great teas! Ones I will drink several times a week and often have in my stash :).

90-100: Favourite must-have teas!

My favourite types of tea are green tea and different types of “natural” herbal tea (different herbs, natural flavourings, etc). I cannot drink black or oolong teas due a sensitive stomach. I don’t really go for white tea due to its cost and the fact that it has just a little caffeine (if I want caffeine I’ll just go for a green tea and if I don’t I’ll go for a herbal-no sense on just having a little caffeine). I also like to do iced teas in the summer time, and then I’ll gravitate towards herbal fruit blends that are bagged to cut costs and convenience (it’s easier to throw out bags than clean a filter). Flavours I don’t care for include anything too tart, bitter, artificial, overly spicy or overly sweet.
Also, when I have time (usually when I’m not working much) I like to make tea lattes out of different rooibos blends.

My everyday green tea is Gunpowder since it is strong and not sensitive to temperatures or steeping time which is something I cannot be bothered with when I’m getting ready for work. Other greens I enjoy are dragonwell, sencha, and different Chinese greens. I’m not the biggest fan of yunnan greens since they are so finicky (although I do like gyokuro)

On a day to day basis I usually have 2-3 cups of green tea and several more cups of different herbal blends.

Besides tea I also work at a couple libraries (I am finishing my library tech diploma),am in my early 20s and got married in Oct 2014.