This is the first time I’m trying a blend from Love Some Tea. I got a chance to try Tropical Sunset blend thanks to a generous SororiTea Sister. The first thing I noticed about this tea is its colorful logo and package design. A green stylized tree is set on a bright background of orange and pink sunset rays. The colors look a bit like a groovy blacklight poster or a flower power mural.
The second thing I notice about this tea is the size and quality of its leaves. Their description says this includes both black and green teas, but it is hard to tell the difference in the dry leaves, they are all lush, long, curled leaves. Brewed, the color difference between the green and black leaves is more distinct and you start to notice the layers of flavor in the scent and taste.
This tropical blend is a medium body tea, like an oolong, with a touch of green and mineral flavors. But the black tea also adds a bit of unexpected starchiness and a tiny hint of woodsy smoke at the end of each sip.
Among all of these intense tea flavors, there are fruity flavors like passionfruit, mango and papaya. The fruitiness is so lush the dry leaf almost smells like a fresh plum, but the tropical nature of the fruits comes out more in the brewing.
The quality of the tea leaves made it so that I really enjoyed this tea when brewed hot, but something about tropical flavors always makes me think the tea would be even better when served iced.
I was impressed by my first experience with Love Some Tea and I’ll have to try some of their other flavors sometime soon!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black and Green
Where to Buy: Love Some Tea
Description:
Our first green and black blend layered with all the wonderful aromas of Thailand, including dried mango, dried passion fruit, dried papaya, rose flower, blue lotus flower, jasmine flower.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
On the Rebound – Teavana-Styled Rebound Teas from Adagio Teas. . . .
Late last year, Adagio teas offered a free set of “rebound teas” for recent customers of David’s Tea and Teavana. While David’s Tea isn’t going anywhere as far as I know, Teavana has been closing its doors and sold out of the final stock in its online shop. Adagio’s rebound teas were blended to be familiar to tea lovers from those other shops in the hopes of encouraging these tea-fanatics to try out more teas from Adagio’s selection.
Now, I am a little biased because I got my loose-leaf start with Adagio, but I feel as though different tea suppliers have different specialities, and I’ve enjoyed tea from both David’s Tea and Teavana. David’s Tea and Teavana tend to have more specialized themed blends. They are a great choice when you want a tea that tastes like a peanut butter cup or an over-the-top tropical peach iced tea. Not to mention, they have some very cute tea tins, mugs, and accessories to jazz up your tea shelf.
Adagio’s Rebound Sampler featured 5 teas (though they are adding new rebound blends all the time, see their listing of comparable teas here)
Teavana had a few popular peach teas, so this sampler has two peach teas of its own: Peach Bellini and Peach Serenity. They are subtly different, with Peach Bellini focusing on more tropical flavors like mango and papaya, and Peach Serenity with more herbal ingredients like lemon verbena and chamomile. In both blends, the strong peach flavoring drives the smell and taste. I think these would be best suited for cold brews, where the sweet candy peach flavor can add sweetness without sugar. These teas are great if you are a fan of peach rings candy. I’m always in favor of having more herbal blends, but I think I prefer the more subtle peach taste in Adagio’s peach black tea or peach oolong.
Raja Oolong is an oolong blend with lots of delicious inclusions like chicory, ginger, and cocoa nibs. Likewise, White Ayurvedic Chai is a white tea with a long list of flavorful spices and fruits, like cloves, pineapple, lemongrass and cinnamon. Despite the varied ingredient listing for both blends, the strong cinnamon flavoring takes over. These teas would be great for fans of Adagio’s hot cinnamon spice tea, or for fans of Hot Tamales candies. I’m all for a spicy tea, but I wish there was more variety in the spice. It would be great to have some sweet ginger heat or herbal black pepper spice share the spotlight. I would recommend trying Adagio’s original White Chai blend as another take on the white tea and spice combination.
Samurai Mate is a sweet and tropical mate blend, with lots of sweet papaya flavoring. The fruit pairs well with the green yerba mate, but it is a little one-note. This might be more subtle when iced, not to mention a cold brew would suit the tropical fruit theme. Not the blend for me, but a very striking fruity blend.
If you were able to take advantage of the rebound deal, I hope all the Teavana and David’s Tea fans out there enjoyed your first taste of Adagio. I think Adagio’s strengths lay with their more naturally flavored or unflavored teas. Let’s not forget their lively fandom blends where customers design themed flavors using the tea blender tools. If there’s a discontinued tea flavor that you’re missing, why not try your hand at creating a signature blend of your own to bring it back?
Here’s to a healthy rebound in your loose leaf tea life!
Here’s the scoop!
Where to Buy: Adgaio Teas
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Orange & Papaya from Tea-Shirt Teas. . . .
I’ve been in a green tea mood lately, tasting all the flavors and mix-ins that go best with those lighter tea leaves. It was the perfect day to try Orange and Papaya from Tea Shirt Teas.
I was immediately impressed by the delicious scent of the tea in the dry leaf. It was amazingly fruity, and hard to resist smelling the dry leaves in my mug while I waited for the water to boil. The leaves themselves are all dressed up for the occasion, with big chunks of dried papaya and orange slices mixed in among the green tea.
Along with the papaya is a hefty dose of lemongrass, but despite all the lemongrass in the dry leaf, the brewed blend tastes most strongly of orange and papaya. A hint of mango comes out at the back of each sip. It all makes for a vibrant cup of citrus and green that can’t help but jazz up your afternoon.
This blend is sweet and fruity enough to love it hot or iced, and either way the luscious fruit flavors were super satisfying and thirst-quenching. Though I tried the blend both hot and iced, with all these tropical flavors, this blend is absolutely calling out to be the next pitcher of iced tea in your fridge. Drinking it cold, the fruit makes the tea almost candy-sweet, like a more mature fruit punch.
This is a great blend for when you need to brighten your day and imagine yourself in a sunny grove of tropical fruit.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Tea Shirt
Description:
Ingredients: green tea (60%), lemon grass, apple pieces, freeze-dried apple pieces, orange slices, mango flakes, papaya flakes, flavouring.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
A Kid-Friendly Novelty, Delicious, Gross Swampwater from David’s Tea
David’s Tea company always have the cutest seasonal mugs, and I just can’t help but check out their fall collection as soon as it goes up on their website. Their loose-leaf teas are generally all blends, and tend to be on the sweeter side. That said, it is a colorful and friendly place to get started for those who are new to tea.
This Halloween season, I ordered a cute ceramic jar with glow-in-the-dark ghosts. To get the jar, it came filled with tea, and this blend was such a good time I had to write a review. The tea that came with my jar was Swampwater. This green rooibos blend is flavored with papaya and passionfruit and is decked out with orange and black-cat sprinkles. It smells sweet and fruity in the dry leaf, and tastes even more sugary when brewed. The tropical flavors reminded me of gummy candies or melted popsicles. Definitely a sweet indulgence, but a nice reward for Halloween.
The real trick with this blend is that this tea brews up murky and opaque– like swampwater! It reminds me of those gross-out candy workshops that all little brothers seemed to have in their toy collection. When brewed with hot water, the sprinkles melt to change the color of the brew, and this innocent rooibos ends up looking as densely colored as a cup of matcha, but more brown than green. Even if you like to drink your tea iced, I recommend brewing this hot and chilling it. If the tea is used in a cold brew, the sprinkles won’t melt and you won’t get this sensational color-change magic.
Because of its decaf nature, the sweetness, and the novelty of the color change, this would be a great drink for a kids’ Halloween party. It looks gross and tastes great, and what kid can resist some black-cat sprinkles on Halloween? If you order it soon, you might still be able to get the glow-in-the-dark ghost jar as an added bonus. Happy Halloween!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Rooibos
Where to Buy: David’s Tea
Description:
After we retired this fruity limited edition tea, we never thought we’d see it again. But this Halloween, it rose from the grave one last time. With rooibos, papaya, passion fruit and black cat sprinkles, it’s a spooky blend worthy of any Halloween festivities – and best of all, it steeps to a sinister dark green colour. The scariest part? People can’t seem to get enough of it. So make sure you get your hands on this frightfully delicious tea before it goes back to the grave.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Lavender Dream from Dave and Solomons Tea
Dave and Solomons are a mother and son tea blending company, currently selling their indie creations on their Etsy store. I hadn’t come across them before this sample arrived with me, but it’s always nice to discover a new tea company, if a little dangerous for the bank account!
Lavender Dream is a fruit and herbal blend, combining the sweet fruitiness of peach with the light floral of lavender. It sounds a little odd to begin with, but I was pleased to discover that they’re actually two flavours which work incredibly well together. The dry leaf itself is incredibly pretty, with dark pink rose petals, bright blue cornflowers, and purple lavender buds, plus large (1-2cm square) chunks of dried papaya.
I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 5 minutes in boiling water. The result is a medium orange-brown liquor, which smells wonderful and which filled the entire kitchen with the scent of fuzzy peach. To taste, it’s very much as you might expect. The peach isn’t particularly natural-tasting, hence “fuzzy” peach, but it’s strong and incredibly juicy, and I’m more than happy with that. The lavender is definitely playing second fiddle here, not really making itself known until very much the end of the sip. When it does, it’s a pleasant counterpoint to the sweetness of the peach, adding a delicate floral flavour, and just a hint of perfume.
I expected this one to be a lot heavier on the lavender, given that it’s called Lavender Dream. Having tasted it, I feel Peach Dream 
would be a much more appropriate name, because it is primarily a peach flavoured tea. I’m not the biggest fan of floral teas, particularly when they’re herbal blends, but in this case it shouldn’t put you off. The lavender really isn’t very prominent, but the contribution it makes is balancing one, and pleasant to boot.
As this is a caffeine free blend, it’ll likely be making a regular appearance in my evening rotation for a good long while to come. I love the juicy peach notes, and I’d actually like to try this one iced (although I might have to wait until summer, or a rare warm day, for that now.) I’ll definitely be trying more blends from Dave and Solomons Tea in the future on the strength of this experience. There’s certainly some skilled blending going on!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Fruit/Herbal Tisane
Where to Buy: Dave and Solomons Tea
Description
Yummy peach cubes with organic lavender, rose petals, marigold & cornflower petals. MMMM Soooo good!
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
