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I just received a sample of this in the mail the other day and had to try it out immediately because the combination of ingredients intrigued me. This was exactly what I needed for a 7 hour car trip with my toddler.

I like that this isn’t your typical end of the day herbal tea, the licorice is a really nice twist. I was surprised just how sweet this was on its own although after checking out the ingredient list I saw that it contained stevia. That in combination with the vanilla bean and coconut provides more than enough sweetness. The chamomile, licorice, and vanilla bean stood out the most and I thought they worked surprisingly well together.

I did notice a somewhat creamy taste, possibly from the coconut, in addition to a subtle apple flavor. I do think the strong taste from the licorice covered the taste of many of the other ingredients, I really had trouble picking out the lemongrass, but that wasn’t really a problem for me since I like blends with licorice. Overall this was a really nice blend, but I would definitely skip it if you don’t like licorice.

To say I was underwhelmed with the sample I recieved from Teavana with my order would be overly nice of me, this was just flat out terrible. My initial problem with this was that in the 2 teaspoons that I dished out for my 16oz glass, nearly half of it was German rock sugar. I like German rock sugar, I even order it from Teavana, but I normally only uses 2-3 pieces per 16 oz on the rare occasions that I do use it. This was easily three times that amount and would have made this sickenly sweet considering this tea is pretty sweet on its own because of the fruit. I picked out all of the rock sugar and added 2 teaspoons of “tea”, then added 3 pieces of rock sugar back in.

On to the next problem…

Where in the world is the white tea for this blend? I counted exactly 3 pieces of white tea and they weren’t even whole. I ended up with a glass of warm, bright orangish-pink water that reminded me an awful lot like kool-aid. I hate kool-aid.

This was terrible hot, and I agree with one of the previous comments that this tasted like warm fruit punch. It wasn’t even a good warm fruit punch since it was really lacking in flavor. I suppose that is why there was so much sugar in the mix. This was only marginally better when served cold.

I really wanted to be fair with this review since I do have an issue with shopping at Teavana. I disagree with the way they treat their employees and the practices of the sales staff. I really wish that they would improve the quality of the product they sell and the way they treat their customers. They get so little of my business as it is, but I really don’t see them keeping me as a customer for much longer. That really is a shame because I love that I can buy tea locally or send friends to do so, it just sad that the tea isn’t any good.

Iced tea has always been a staple in my home, but I find many restaurant teas to be hit or miss. Anymore I generally avoid ordering them because they just aren’t up to my standards. I love this tea, it is one of my favorites when I’m eating out because it is so much nicer than the standard Lipton tea or ::shudder:: tea concentrates that many restaurants favor. Huge bonus points for actually being loose leaf tea. I recently had it at Noodles and Company, but PF Changs and a number of other restaurants serve it. You don’t need to add a sweetener and it has a nice fruity flavor to it, even if it doesn’t really taste like passion fruit. This is definitely on my top 5 list for favorite restaurant teas.

I thought this would go well with my leftover carrot cake from last night and I was right. I did end up using 1 tablespoon per 16oz rather than the 2 teaspoons per the instructions. I tend to find Adagio teas a little weak for my tastes. The changes worked out great, but there is a lot of ginger in this. I expected more peach flavor, but the apricot came across more. Overall, this wasn’t my favorite ginger peach, I prefer a much more subtle ginger flavor and more peach, but the apricot was nice.

When I saw this a few weeks ago I thought that this would make a great 30th birthday present to myself. I have to admit, I was a bit of a sneak and had a cup when it first came in. I never was good at waiting for presents and it was really hard to wait another 10 days to drink some more. I’m not overly familiar with oolong, but I love peach and white peony.

The white peony is pretty subtle and stays in the background and that works really well with the peach that you can taste a little more up front. The oolong rounds this out quite nicely and makes me want to try some others since I’m lacking a bit in that area. This is nice hot but I prefer it at room temperature or even iced, I think the peach comes out better once it cools. The second steep looses most of the peach flavor which was a little disappointing, but it still resteeped fairly well and you can still taste the white peony.

I don’t know if I will be buying this for myself again mainly because they don’t offer it without the tin. I would jump on it otherwise because I’m really starting to like it. I do think this would make the perfect inexpensive gift for the tea drinker in your life. Pair it with an ingenuiTEA and it makes it a gift that keeps on giving, I think I may do this for a few of my tea drinking friends this year.

My husband’s gift to me was pretty nice as well, he let me sleep in and he took my toddler out all morning which gave me a quiet house. Then promised to make me a carrot cake from scratch once he got back. Score! Turning 30 is pretty awesome.