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Thanks to Teavivre for another stunning package of Samples!

I’ve had a fun day! First I was off to post some samples to TeaFairy, and then to Happy Lucky’s Tea House to purchase a small wooden gongfu tray that can handle my little water spills. (It only cost $24.95!) Andy always serves me free tea too! I ended up purchasing a little Yixing Gai Wan with a handle and strainer (turns out I’m not much good at pouring and straining from my other gai wan…clumsy me). Now I’m ready to rock and roll!
With all the caffeine during the morning and afternoon, I was in the mood for a gentle evening without caffeine. I finished some brown rice California rolls…(WASABI !) and decided on one of the new Teavivre tea’s I had requested (yes you can ask for items you are interested in trying!).
The steep time listed is 8-9 minutes. Nice and long…and fragrant! It was hard to wait those last few minutes as the room filled with bold berry scent. The liquor was very dark purple blue. Had I gone too far and steeped this too long? I hate bitter infusions!
Taking a tentative sip, whew! there wasn’t any bitterness.
This fruity tea was full bodied and juicy like Knudsons Real Fruit Juice. The juice that’s 100% non- reconstituted, not mixed with anything else and coats your whole mouth. There was one element I could not identify so I looked at the wet mash in the basket. Blueberries, currents, grape and woody stuff that’s redish. What’s this red stuff? I read the packet…Roselle and Googled it. OK. This is a variety of Hibiscus…a more fibrous, woody variety with very small flowers that is grown in China. Evidently, you can steep it longer without it being as tangy as the Western Hibiscus I’m used to or Australian Hibiscus. Whatever the case, this Roselle addition mellows the flavors so that the tea becomes a blended fruit tea but not a distinctly blueberry tea.

I drank 24 oz. pot of tea hot this evening and then put a bit on ice to see what the flavor would be like. Very good. I’ll do an iced version for the next tasting since I received a generous portion from Teavivre.

Of all the caffeine free tea’s, every berry type satisfies me. The fruit used in this blend is big and bold. No tiny blueberries but large round fruit mixed with plenty of currents and grapes. I finally found a tea that I rummaged through after steeping. You can see the rehydrated fruit all plumped and I couldn’t resist popping the berries in my mouth.

Tomorrow night my tea shop is having a free tea ‘Happy Hour’ Near East Dance Performance to raise awareness to stop human trafficking. This shop supports this and other causes with 10% of store profits. I like that. One nice thing about small towns.