Bird & Blend Tea Co.

Bird & Blend Advent Calendar 2021 – Day 21

I remember really liking this one in the past, but it’s not wowing me today.

I remember it tasting more cakey, but right now I’m just getting some very mild spicing and a hint of almond extract. The base is smooth and earthy.

It’s pleasant, just not very flavorful this time around. Oh well.

After ordering a couple of tea advent calendars to enjoy this December, I’ve been craving Christmasy teas a bit. I admit I’d forgotten about this one until I found it rummaging about in my tea cupboard.

I was worried about its age because it didn’t have much of a scent in the tin. Luckily the steeped tea still has plenty of flavor left!

This tea does a nice job of straddling the line between a spice tea and a dessert tea. There’s a bit of clove-y warmth, but also rich marzipan and creamy cake notes. And just a little bit of sweet orange adds a nice aroma and harmonizes nicely with the spices.

So cozy and comforting for curling up and watching a movie. ❤️

Bird & Blend Tea Advent Calendar – Day 16

So apparently they’re offering this tea for sale for today only… Considering ordering some, but then there’s the whole shipping conundrum. If I keep it under £12, the shipping is £4.80. But I want to order more things… And the shipping just gets worse and worse as you order more, unless I spend $80. UGH. I guess I’ll see how I feel about it after I finish this tea.

I do quite like this one. It’s marzipan-ish, but in a cakey way that makes me think of wedding cake. There’s also orange and spice in this cake, but it’s not overly spiced. There’s definitely a maraschino cherry on top as well.

Ugh, still love this one… Now what to do…

Home – 7:30 PM

I forgot how much I like this one! It’s one of the few blends I’ve tried that really does taste like cake. Some kind of lovely mild orange spice cake with vanilla drizzle. There’s a bit of almond and maraschino cherry in there as well (so maybe vanilla-almond drizzle and a maraschino cherry on top!). Ugh, I want to eat that cake!

Definitely signing up for the Bird & Blend subscription again. It’s crazy affordable for the quality in my opinion, especially for international shipping. And when I get rooibos blends, I’ll just donate them to my fellow Steepsters. ❤

Definitely need to buy a pouch of this when it comes back for the holidays!

Yay, I got my portion of the Bluebird group order! Thanks again to QueenOfTarts for organizing the whole thing. I ended up with ten different teas, which sounds like a lot, but the sizes range from 10 to 35 grams so it’s actually not a ton of tea. I’m feeling very pleased with my purchases for the price I paid! All of my lovely new teas are now safe and secure in various small tins that I had sitting empty.

I couldn’t decide which tea I was most excited for, but I ended up choosing this one (partially because of the cute snowflake sprinkles!). I must say, you can tell that all of these teas are blended in-house, mostly because of the range of ingredients included. For instance, this one has large pieces of dried orange peel and cloves, which are more expected, but then it also has a smattering of pine needles! Dry scent is a sweet combination of almond extract, orange, and clove.

Ooh the steeped tea smells fantastic – very sweet and cakey. And it tastes delicious, too! Definitely very cakey with strong almond flavor, a light kiss of orange, and a nice warming undertone of clove. I didn’t even realize there’s stevia in this tea, as you can’t taste it really. There’s a very slight sweet aftertaste if you sit there and think about it, similar to a very mild licorice root. I love it! Very happy to have picked up 35 grams.

The scent of this blend is so delicious — mint, vanilla, chocolate. It really does smell like mint chocolate ice cream! After water has been added, it smells much more earthy, woody and minty… sharper, almost… but I can still smell the chocolate.

Sipping… the first thing I taste is mint paired with some rooibos. It almost seems like it is going to be too sharp, but it slowly changes into something smooth and creamy. The chocolate flavor itself is subtle, but the creaminess is lovely! This tea has such a nice balance of rooibos and mint. The mint isn’t too overwhelming for someone who isn’t crazy about it. This is really yummy! I would definitely repurchase this in the future.

Backlog:

I was at first a little upset to see hibiscus as one of the ingredients, fortunately, the hibiscus adds relatively little to the blend except for a pretty pinkish hue to the cup which does – admittedly – enhance the “watermelon-ish-ness” of this tea. Fortunately, it doesn’t do much to the flavor (I don’t want an overly tart watermelon tea!) nor the texture (a watermelon tea should be on the light side, I think).

There is some tartness to this, but not just from the hibiscus, but from the lemon-y notes. And I do like the lemon and the watermelon together. The lemon brightens the cup nicely.

A very fruity tea, I like that I can also taste notes of the tea base which is a green and white tea base. It’s light, buttery and fresh tasting. I do think that the tea tends to be more of a background note, and the fruit medley is more focused than the tea. But the flavors are so nice that it’s hard to complain about that.

Overall, I enjoyed it. It’s a little more fruit than it is tea, but it’s a pleasant tasting cuppa. Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/08/27/watermelon-splash-tea-blend-from-bluebird-tea-co/

Backlog:

I’ve tried a few teas from them since I first tried this tea, but this was the first from Bluebird that I tried. I was quite pleased with this blend.

I don’t know that I actually tasted “Lime Cola” here, maybe I’m a bit spoiled by the cola teas that 52Teas creates because Frank manages to nail the cola complete with an effervescence that is astounding.

That said, this is really tasty. I like the coffee-esque notes from the guayusa and I like the way the lime perks up that flavor. As the cup cools, I start to pick up on hints of a cola-esque note. When it’s hot, no cola … there is some cola to this when it cools, and this tisane is definitely better iced.

I enjoyed it quite a bit even though I didn’t get as much cola as I would have liked. Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/08/19/lime-cola-guayusa-from-bluebird-tea-co/

This is another of the oldest teas still in my cupboard. I’m not actually sure why it’s lingered so long – I wasn’t the greatest genmaicha fan at first, but I’ve warmed to it over the last couple of years. I think initially it was just so outside my range of experience, and I wasn’t the biggest green tea fan anyway. These days, I can appreciate it for what it is. I also like the heritage that it has – it’s interesting to think that brown rice used to be added to tea in Japan to make the leaves stretch further, now I suspect genmaicha is mostly consumed for the experience or enjoyment of the flavour.

I have more experience of various genmaichas than I did when I first tried this one, and it’s clear to me that this is a good one. There’s an initial hit of toasty rice, which has a slightly bitter bent but not excessively so. It’s more sugar puffs than burnt toast. The apple emerges in the mid-sip, and it’s also got a baked flavour, slightly floury and a touch floral in the way that some apples are. The green tea is mostly present at the end of the sip, and it’s a touch vegetal with mostly seaweed/marine notes. It’s clean tasting, and it works nicely with the apple.

I like to return to teas I tried at the beginning of my tea journey from time to time, because I know my tastes are changing and it’s often surprising to compare an older note with a more recent one. I’ve increased my rating of this one based on today’s cup because qverall, I’m pretty pleased with this one. It stays fairly true to the spirit of genmaicha (it’s about 50/50 brown rice and green tea to look at the dry leaf), but with a modern, accessible twist in the form of the added apple. Definitely worth a try.

This is a flavoured genmaicha blend from one of the UK’s few independent tea mixologists – Bluebird Tea Co. This blend has been around since the inception of the company, so it’s one of their “original” teas, so to speak. It’s probably fair to say that they’ve come along in leaps and bounds since then, but this blend stands the test of time.

The dry leaf contains pretty much a 50/50 mixture of toasted brown rice and roasted green tea. The base tea is a blend of Chinese and Japanese greens; the Japanese being Bancha and the Chinese unspecified. The leaves are fairly small – some are darker and rolled into thin tubes, others are a lighter green and folded in appearance. There are some pieces of popcorn, although few compared to some genmaicha blends I’ve tried. There’s a generous smattering of apple cubes throughout.

I used 1 tsp of leaf and gave it 2.5 minutes in boiling water. The resulting liquor is a bright yellow-orange, and smells primarily of sugar puffs, but with an edge of seaweed. An odd combination if ever there was one!

See my full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2015/06/19/toasted-apple-green-tea-bluebird-tea-co/

This one has been at work with me for a while, but I’ve evidently neglected it for one reason or another. I think perhaps it wasn’t a favourite the last time I tried it…I remember it being a little bitter and almost floury tasting, although my tasting note is reasonably positive. Time to renew my acquaintance! I used 1 tsp of leaf for this cup, and gave it 2 minutes in water cooled to around 175 degrees. The resulting liquor is a bright orange-yellow. The scent is primarily toasted rice, with a light undertone of almost floral apple.

To taste, this is more palatable than I recall. The apple is the main flavour, but it’s a mushy, floury, slight floral apple. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s supposed to be baked apple, and when I do I can see how spot on the flavour actually is. The rice provided the baked/toasted note, which is a significant element in the overall taste of the cup. It’s not overpowering, but it’s perhaps a little more prominent than I’d like. Still, this is a genmaicha. The green tea base (I’m pretty sure it’s sencha) is smooth and a little grassy. It doesn’t quite work with the other flavours, somehow although since it’s confined mostly to the aftertaste, it’s not a huge problem. I can’t help but think that the base would work better with a crisp, sharp apple flavour though. That could potentially be really good!

I have quite a large bag of this one, and I think it’ll take me a while to work through it. It won’t be a repurchase for me for this reason, and because it just doesn’t tick enough boxes for me personally. Good to have tried, though.

I wasn’t sure about this one when I tried my first cup, but I think now that I’ve more or less recovered from my cold, I can give this one a fairer chance. I gave 1 tsp of leaf 2.5 minutes in water cooled to around 180 degrees. The resulting liquor is a quite surprising yellow-orange. Unexpectedly vibrant!

To taste, it’s quite a savoury tea. I can taste an almost starchy baked apple, sharp rather than sweet, and a toasty undertone from the rice. It’s a pretty spot on recreation of baked apple, to be fair. The green tea base is sencha like, smooth and a little grassy. It complements the apple flavour well. There’s a tinge of bitterness right at the end of the sip that puts me off a little, because I usually gravitate towards sweeter teas. It’s nice to try something a little out of my normal range, though; almost a palate refresher! Another pleasing Bluebird tea.

Tea number 2/10 of my Halloween Tea Marathon.

This was another sample from my secret pumpkin KittyLovesTea, which I was really pleased about since I’ve been wanting to try this blend for a while.

I’ve read a few reviews of people wishing this was smokier, or had some lapsang in it, but to me it hits the nail on the head as far as bonfire toffee goes. For any non-British followers, this is the classic British sweet it resembles: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire_toffee

I used to have bonfire toffee every Halloween, even though I hated how it stuck to my teeth and had a sort of bitter aftertaste. It was a Halloween/bonfire night classic, how could I not? I haven’t had it for a couple of years, but this tea immediately brought me back and made me really nostalgic. It has the dark, caramelised taste of bonfire toffee, combined with the hint of apple which makes it almost reminiscent of toffee apples, too. Yes. This is exactly how Halloween tastes.

I’m still not completely over my cold, so I’m limiting the “good” tea I drink because I know I just can’t taste it right now. I made an exception for this one, though, because I have a large bag, and because it sounds perfectly suited to a sore throat. Chili!

I used 1.5 tsp of leaf, because it’s quite chunky. The dry mix smells strongly of tropical fruit — all coconut and pineapple. I left it for the recommended 4 minutes in boiling water, and returned to a medium red-brown liquor.

First sip, and it’s the fruit that comes out most clearly. I can taste pineapple first, then a creamy coconut. It’s fairly fleeting, though, and after that initial hit, I can taste mostly tart/sour hibiscus. Fruity, though, in a chutney sort of way. The chili develops primarily in the aftertaste, and it does have a bit of a burn to it. It nice and warming in the mouth and throat, as perfect as I’d hoped for a lingering cold! With every fresh sip, the sweetness of the initial fruit returns, the natural sweetness augmented by the sour hibi/spicy chili elements that have gone before.

This is a pretty perfect tea for this time of year. Warming, yet with a reminder of summer still lingering in the taste of the tropical fruit. I’ve had a few bad experiences with chili chai blends, but this is fortunately one of the ones that’s “just right”. Yum!

Smells: like gingerbread

Tastes: mostly like rooibos, but little hint of warming ginger and chai spices.

Great warming tea for a cold autumn evening.

Today’s cold brew. I’m still disappointed with this one – it’s just not tangy or sherbet-y enough for my liking, and nothing I do seems to change that. As a very mild lemon cold brew, it’s very refreshing. This is how I’ll be finishing the pouch – it’s good on a hot day, but just not quite as amazing as I wanted it to be.

Today’s work cold brew. I used 2 tbsp of leaf for this batch, steeped in 1.8 litres of cold water for approximately 10 hours. This one works as well cold as it does hot. It’s very smooth to taste, with soft, delicate lemon notes. It’s more lemon myrtle than lemon juice to my mind, and nowhere near sharp enough for Lemon Sherbet. Instead, it’s almost creamy. While there is a creamy aspect to sherbet sometimes, I’m still missing a hit of sourness or sharpness that would really make me think of this specific sweet. It’s just too gentle.

That’s not to say it’s not tasty, just that it didn’t quite meet my expectations. It’s a very pleasant creamy lemon tea, and the green base hasn’t developed any bitterness or astringency during the process. I can’t really tell it’s green tea at all, to be honest. I’d have believed it to be a herbal if I didn’t know different. Not the greatest hit with me, but a refreshing cup on a warm day, all the same.

I haven’t tried this one in a long time, I think because I wasn’t all that taken with my first cup. I read through my note again just now, and I still feel exactly the same way about this tea. I used 1 tsp of leaf, and gave it 3 minutes in water cooled to 180 degrees. The resulting liquor is a very pale yellow, and has virtually no scent.

The initial sips are just sweet hot water, and I had to check the bag to make sure this one really was a green. I think, as before, there’s so little green tea in the dry mix that it doesn’t really register. It’s mostly stevia and lemon verbena. That’ll be where the sweet is coming from, then. There is a very light lemon flavour; more easily detectable after a few sips in succession, but it’s not exactly what I had in mind when thinking of a lemon sherbet. That’s a much stronger, quite distinctive flavour to me!

As a light, sweet, fresh tasting cup on a hot day, I can imagine this one being pretty good. I’m going to stick with what I said last time, and try this one cold when the weather warms up a bit. Hopefully that’ll improve my experience of it!

I’ll be honest and say I wasn’t too sure about this one on first sip. I used 1 tsp of leaf, and gave it three minutes in water cooled to approximately 180 degrees. Looking at the dry leaf, there doesn’t appear to be a huge quantity of green tea leaves. It’s mostly lemon verbena, and stevia, as far as I can tell. Perhaps accordingly, the liquor is a pale lemon-yellow. The scent of both the dry leaf and brewed cup is deeply lemony – like lemon zest.

To taste, I was initially disappointed to find the flavour very mild. Lemon sherbets are a strong flavour, with a kick of sharp/sour alongside the boiled sweet sugariness. This tea is much, much more delicate than I was expecting. There is a distinctive lemon flavour; very much like lemon squeezed into water. It’s mildly sour, with a hint of sweetness from the stevia. There’s nothing that’s really making me think “sherbet” though. Not enough of a tang!

I like this one as a gentle, fresh lemon-tasting tea. I feel a little disappointed that it doesn’t live up to its name, but I imagine it would be good iced as well as hot. I’ll happily drink up the rest of my bag, but it’s not one I’d repurchase.

Smells so much honey. Tastes like rooibos with honey in it, which is nice.

Cor, what a spicy one. Tastes mostly limey but with a big chilli kick. Bit of a weak fruit tea for the most part. Perhaps needed longer to bring out the actual tea flavour. Although there wasn’t actually much in the way of tea in the bag, mostly other bits.

I’ll give it another go but I’m not that impressed right now

Thank you Dinosara for a sample of this one! Have to try all the Bluebirds! I love that they have some book themed teas. This one sounds lovely: chocolate and rose… the lemongrass and raspberry leaves sounded a little out of place. The taste is great though! The leaves themselves smell like they were infused with rose. I didn’t want the first steep to be too long as I wasn’t sure if the raspberry leaves would make it terrible as they tend to ruin teas if steeped too long. I didn’t taste any raspberry leaves at all. Instead there is a perfect balance of rose (from the infused flavor) and chocolate from my favorite chocolate ingredient in tea: cocoa shells! I could have used more cocoa shells, but maybe that was just my sample. Why isn’t chocolate infused with rose a thing? And if it is, why don’t I know about it? The lemongrass made itself known just enough to give the first steep some character. The second steep seemed to have much more of a lemongrass flavor that made it very lemony like lemon myrtle – drowning out the other flavors. I think the first cup was steeped perfectly though. I love the idea of a chocolate rose tea, so I could have done without the other ingredients but this is another great Bluebird blend. Hurry up holiday teas!
Steep #1 // few min after boiling // 3 min
Steep #2 // just boiled // 7+ min

Another sample from KittyLovesTea! Thank you! This just might be my favorite green or white from Bluebird. The dry blend kind of brings peace in itself it is so nice looking- yeah, tea nerd here. I mostly smell spearmint in the dry blend. The flavor is lovely, mostly spearmint and super sweet jasmine from the actual jasmine buds in the blend. The green or white teas aren’t terribly noticeable so everything must be blending nicely! Very refreshing and the name is fitting. A great combination! My Bluebird order COULD be ridiculous.
Steep #1 // 30 min after boiling // 3 min
Steep #2 // 30 min after // 3 min