Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Southern Boy Teas
Tea Description:
Here’s our organic Iyerpadi black tea paired with the sweet, juicy flavors of peach and apricot. This is a great thirst-quencher and palate pleaser. Serve some of this to your guests and watch the double-takes you get out of this delicious iced tea.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
This Peach Apricot Iced Black Tea from Southern Boy Teas is a glassful of yummy, ice cold refreshment!
The flavor is spot-on! I’m not sure if it’s the way that the Iyerpadi single estate tea melds with the apricot and peach flavors or just the flavors themselves, but it tastes like someone pureed a peach and an apricot and strained it into a glass of black tea. The flavors are very true to the fruit!
The black tea is a smooth tasting tea – it’s strong enough to assert its flavor into the sip without being too aggressive. It doesn’t taste bitter or astringent. Just smooth and delicious.
Together with the authentic flavors of peach and apricot – this tea has a taste that’s sweet – the kind of sweetness that you experience when you take a bite of a sweet, juicy peach or a tree-ripened apricot. It doesn’t taste overly ‘sugary’ sweet and it doesn’t have a fake taste to it.
There are a lot of ready to drink iced teas on the market out there and peach seems to be a flavor that those RTD tea companies embrace – but they are all so loaded with sugar. This is so much better than anything I’ve tasted RTD!
Date Nut Bread Iced Honeybush Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Organic honeybush is the perfect compliment to this melding of delicious and aromatic organic flavors, including date, orange, brown sugar, cinnamon, butter and pecan. This might seem like a strange thing to flavor an iced tea like, but just wait til you try it!
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
I just ate some Spicy Sriracha Cosmos and let me tell you, my mouth is on fire! Acha-cha! Spicy!
So, I needed something cold and refreshing and easy to drink (read: gulp!) to help cool my palate. Since I brewed this Date Nut Bread Iced Honeybush Tea from Southern Boy Teas last night so it could chill in the fridge overnight, I figured it was the perfect thing to help me cool down my mouth.
And not only did it do just that, but I was happy to say that the flavors came through LOUD and CLEAR even though my palate might have been somewhat impaired after eating those spicy nuggets of fluffy goodness. (It’s the very good kind of burn!) After a tall glass of the tea, my mouth was feeling back to normal, but I wanted to wait a while before I finished the review so that my palate was back to a functioning level.
So now that my taste buds are refreshed and ready to taste things again – I’m really amazed at how much this actually tastes like date nut bread! I taste the dates – this is a strong flavor. The nutty flavor comes from a hint of pecan flavoring as well as the natural nutty flavor from the honeybush. I taste notes of a cake-y/bread-y type flavor, as well as notes of brown sugar and butter and just a dash of cinnamon.
There is a bright note to this that didn’t taste immediately like “orange” to me until I got to the aftertaste. The aftertaste has a sunny orange flavor. I like that while I can taste the orange and cinnamon here, these flavors were added carefully and offer more of a gentle note rather than overpower the tea.
It’s a surprisingly refreshing iced tea. Not flavors that I would normally think of when I think “Iced Tea” but it works and works very nicely!
Sri Lankan Pumpkin Chai from 52Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
So I’m really enjoying this Pettaiagala Extra Long Leaf OP we got in from Sri Lanka, and I know the pumpkin chai blends go over better in the fall, but I couldn’t help thinking that this would make an awesome pumpkin chai. So we blended it with ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, black peppercorns and organic pumpkin and other flavors.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about 52Teas’ subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
When I first saw the announcement for this Sri Lankan Pumpkin Chai from 52Teas I double checked my calendar. Yep, it’s March. (Well, it was at the time of this tea’s announcement!) Pumpkin Chai isn’t exactly a tea that you expect to find in March. In September, sure. Maybe even as early as August. OK. From August through January, but when February arrives, we’ve pretty much had it up to here with pumpkin. By that point, we’ve had pumpkin pies, pancakes, cookies, soup, cupcakes and tea. By February, it’s time to break out the Valentines and extinguish the jack-o-lantern.
So I entered into this tea experience with a certain amount of “meh.”
But I’m really enjoying this chai. It’s heavy on the nutmeg and I’m liking that. (Nutmeg is one of my favorite spices.) Usually when nutmeg is promised as one of the ingredients in a chai, I taste hints of the nutmeg but this is a well pronounced flavor.
I’m also getting a strong dose of cinnamon. The cardamom is a background note. The ginger and pepper hit the palate at about mid-sip. They aren’t overly aggressive, but they do offer a pleasant spicy zing to the cup. I find myself missing clove here – I think a little clove might help round out the flavors just a little bit better.
Last year (at a more appropriate pumpkin time – September 22) 52Teas offered a Pumpkin Chai that I reviewed in October and I seem to recall that having a nicely defined pumpkin-y flavor to it, but I’m not tasting as much pumpkin with this blend as with the previous chai. The pumpkin does emerge somewhat as the tea cools a little.
But the lack of clove and pumpkin-y flavor might hide the nutmeg and really, for me, this chai is about the NUTMEG! I could smell it when I opened the pouch. Before I smelled the cinnamon or ginger or cardamom or pepper, I smelled nutmeg. And as I hinted at before, this made me a very happy sipper, indeed.
And because this is the one of the best celebrations of nutmeg in a tea that I’ve had in quite some time, I will let the fact that it’s mid-April and I’m sipping on a pumpkin chai slide. Just this once.
Streusel Topping Iced White Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Ever get one of those giant packaged muffins with the crumbly streusel topping, and find that the lower half of the muffin isn’t nearly as good as the top half? Here’s our premium organic shou mei white tea fannings blended with organic cinnamon, brown sugar, butter and pastry flavors to make it taste like a muffin top without giving you one!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Yum! This Streusel Topping Iced White Tea from Southern Boy Teas tastes so much like a muffin top, all that’s missing is the blueberries (or whatever muffin you might be eating). But I’m not missing blueberries because this is so tasty that I forget that I generally take my muffins with blueberries.
But since there are no blueberries in my muffin top, I might suggest that this tastes a bit more like a crumb doughnut. You know the mini doughnuts that come in packages of six? I taste top notes of brown sugar, and those notes almost taste caramelized. The cinnamon isn’t overpowering. And I get just enough of the butter and cake-like flavors to make this glass of iced tea taste like something other than just another cinnamon tea.
The Shou Mei base is an ideal choice for the flavors of cinnamon, brown sugar, and buttery, cake-y pastry. The white tea is delicate enough to allow these flavors to be experienced but not so light in flavor that I can’t taste the tea. Southern Boy Teas has achieved a delicious balance with this blend.
It’s a really refreshing iced tea and a very cooling beverage to drink, which is especially nice as the weather gets warmer.
Cantaloupe & Berries Green Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Southern Boy Teas
Tea Description:
This super refreshing and delicious iced tea will definitely get you in the mood for spring. We’ve blended our sweet organic Chinese sencha fannings green tea with organic cantaloupe, strawberry, blackberry and blueberry flavors. Be warned, this will disappear out of your fridge really fast!
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
I love cantaloupe. At family gatherings, my mom and I fight over the last piece on the fruit plate. My sons will yell at me if I come home from the grocery store without one. Thank goodness my grandpa is a farmer. He supplies us with the most amazing fresh cantaloupe (and other fruits and vegetables) throughout the summer months. He is 80 years old and still goes out in the fields and hand picks everything while drinking his coffee from the thermos. Even in the crazy hot days of summer!
This tea reminds me of him and hanging out with him in the fields during summer break. Brings back so many fantastic memories of my childhood. I love it when a tea gives you what I call “Warm Fuzzies” and takes you back to happy times.
I didn’t brew this up per the packaging. Since I am the only one that drinks tea in my house, I break the larger pouch into smaller tea bags so I can enjoy them on the go or at my office. I’ve tried to brew up a pitcher all at once, but I wasn’t able to drink the tea fast enough. This way works for me and from what I can tell, it doesn’t affect the outcome of the tea at all.
This is a perfect spring/summer tea. The cantaloupe flavor is the first that hits your taste buds. The green tea gives the tea a rich buttery feel. You can taste it more after you’ve had a sip or two, adding in a slight grassy note. Very slight. Its more of an after thought. I’m not picking up any of the berries or even a hint of them. Which is fine with me. I’m good with an iced cantaloupe green tea. Overall, I really dig this one. I wish I could taste more of the berries and I’m hoping additional steeps will bring those flavors out.
