RiverTea

Hallelujah I have become a believer! This tea was a tart mess on the tongue when brewed up hot, but cold with a swirl of agave this tastes like nothing so much as candy. Delicious raspberry candy. I don’t drink iced tea ever, and I’ve had two glasses of this in the last hour.

Hot – I stick by my 65.
Cold – a clear 90.

Apparently this tea is so good it BROKE STEEPSTER. My wife and I have both been trying to update it since yesterday afternoon.

Anyway, this was my bedtime tea last night. I don’t reach for hibiscus teas often but we got ALL the RiverTeas yesterday so I wanted to try them all. And I don’t usually sweeten my teas, but that was my downfall. It really needed some agave or sugar to cut the tartness of the hibiscus. It was sad that it was so distracting because the rest of the tea was delicious – a big mouthful of strawberries and sunshine. It will make an amazing iced tea in the summer.

I like this more and more every time I drink it.

Mmmm I have been excited for this one since we ordered it.

The dry leaf smells tingly, not quite floral but . . . plant-y. Like a post-apocalyptic world where people are learning to farm again. Or Buckley’s. I don’t think I’ve ever had a tea quite like it. It tastes like an herbal, like a nice calm herbal, but the caffeine content is ridiculously high.

Pu’erhs tend to have a dark dark taste to them, but that is almost non-existent here. If I hadn’t know it was supposed to be a primarily pu’erh blend I wouldn’t have guessed it. The taste is complex, and I can’t wait to have another cup – but I can’t quite decide if I love it or am only meh about it.

Morning cuppa and it’s just alright. I had this iced a few days ago and it didn’t taste good, but I thought it was just because my iced tea mugs needed a good clean. However, now that I’ve had it hot, the issue is with the tea, sadly. It’s just eh. Only a little bit of this left and I’ll be glad to see it go.

This is one of the ones I eyed and then decided not to get and then my wife talked me into. I’m glad she did, it’s good! I taste cranberry and orange on the front of the sip, then the smooth vanilla, and then mango and banana in the back. Yum. The cinnamon comes out to play here and there and that is A-OK with me, I love cinnamon. All in all, it’s a very intriguing cup…I look forward to getting to know you better, Boatsman.

RIVERTEAS I MISS YOUUUUU.

We moved all of our RiverTeas into the sipdown pile because there’s no sense hoarding them until they go stale. Even if we get sad every time we have a cup. Such a great company.

Anyway, when making lunch (buffalo cauliflower wraps) I made this tea over ice. Seems appropriate, right? It’s so tasty and fruity and reminds me of a good peach tea from back home (Tennessee) with added mango. I love it. It won’t be hard at all to finish off the leaf we have left, but oh man am I going to be sad when it’s gone.

So I was making lunch and figured this was perfect to brew up. I’m having super spicy Jamaican patties and when I took a sip to cool down my mouth, I was immediately reminded of Thai green curry…I’m gonna wait until my mouth cools down.

…Okay! So this is cool, but I like cool/cold teas, so party on! So now I’m getting mango and peach…with an undertone of green curry. Yum. I have no idea what it is, but it’s gooood. Except now I want curry. Maybe it’s the mango, as I usually get a mango salad when we have Thai. Regardless, it is tasty. A yummy lunch.

Sipdown (193/195)!

I definitely made some good sipdown work today! Hooray for me!

I left this to cold brew while I was at work and strained it right when I got home; apparently that nine hour time period was too much because this is hardly drinkable (then again, previous experiences with this have not been pleasant either).

It’s still more pleasant than the hot version, though. Regardless, I’m dumping about 20 of the 25 ounces, and saying my thanks that this blend is gone.

Backlog! from Tuesday… Welp.

This was cold brewed (seven hours total), because I figured it might be more palatable and less crazy intense tart that way (without “beet” flavour – which I’m sure was the hibiscus doing weird flavour things) similar to how I found DT’s Queen of Tarts to be. Overall, I think I was correct in that judgement, and I definitely will be finishing what I have left by cold brewing it.

Essentially, it tasted like a sour/tart punch with some stronger orange and seabuckthorn notes amongst the very powerful hibiscus. Watered down, it might have been ok, actually.

So yeah, if I send this to anyone my suggestion is definitely to try cold brewing it – NOT doing it hot. Hot, it’s just awful.

Well, I guess I’ve finally found a RiverTea blend that I don’t like. As soon as I smelled it dry, I pretty much knew I wouldn’t like it though. It smelled sour and primarily of hibiscus and sour apple/oranges. And, if a tea smells that sour just imagine how it’ll be brewed up…

Sure enough, it brewed up to be incredibly tart and unpleasant. Maybe my taste buds are off, but I got the same “beet” flavour that I was experiencing with DT’s Queen of Tarts yesterday too. Ick. There were fleeting notes of sour oranges and apples, and brief flickering notes of something in there that kind of reminded me of DT’s Redberry Tonic which is also a Sea Buckthorn flavoured tea. Redberry Tonic is just so much better though.

Half the mug I made got dumped because this was just very unpleasant on the whole. I suppose I’ll try cold brewing it though, to see if that can mellow it out a little. You really can’t love ’em all, though…

Thank you River Tea for this sample. I’m just sorry that it’s taken me so long to review this blend.

It’s a nice enough looking blend and each ingredient is easily spotted. The raspberries are rather finely chopped into small pieces but there are quite a few of them scattered around. The blend as a whole has a sweet berry aroma that is rather delicate.

Steeping this blend as per the instructions.

The blend is thickly Pu Erh but it’s nice as a base, like mild damp earth and musk. In the background behind is a sweet fruity flavour, like sweet orange but very mild. Not sure I can taste the raspberry per say but the after taste has a sour, berry like flavour (at a stretch).

I think it would be nice if the fruit was a little stronger but that’s just my personal opinion. Something to lift it up, at times it tastes like an ordinary unflavoured Pu Erh.

It is a beautiful morning, if only because it is no longer yesterday XD. Yesterday we discovered our bedframe is moldy and rotting, I broke my toe, and spilled tea all over myself. Today will be better because I say so XD.

However we did organize our sipdowns into caffeinated and non caffeinated, so I can just grab one and go. Hopefully my grabbing this one bodes well for the day.

I had this with an avocado smashed onto an everything bagel and it is just perfect. The tea is nice and fruity, though I wouldn’t pick out strawberry specifically. And the lime kinda tastes like lime peel. Still, it’s a tasty morning cup.

I was right, this is so, so good iced.

Despite the fact that it’s February and we live in Toronto, our building is painfully hot. Painfully. So I’ve been opening all the windows and today I really just needed a light, sweet tea to soothe my dehydrated, hot self.

This tea hits the spot. Oh my goodness, it is so good. Sweet strawberry and just a hint of tangy citrus…oooh, we have some limes in the fridge, I should add them. I gave most of this cold brew to my bestie, so I’m left with a single cup of my own…but yum. What a cup. This will be a staple, come summer.

A Strawberry-Lime tea? Yes please! My bestie will be super excited, that’s her favorite flavor combo, besides strawberry-kiwi. I’ll have to be sure to save her some, but this cup is alllll mine muwahahaha.

I steeped with one at just below boiling and there is absolutely no bitterness, yay! The strawberry and lime work well together to create a sweet but tart blend that makes your lips pucker ever so slightly. Utterly delicious like their other offerings. It is certainly an eye opener, and as I sip along, trying to pick out everything I’m tasting, I discover I’m at the end of my cup! Sadness! It is very yummy, but I don’t think it’s a must-have for me. We’ll see how it does cold!

Tea o’ the morning t’ ye!

…I apologize for that.

I was very eager to wake up and try this tea, because I knew better than to have a pu-erh late at night, no matter how good it smelled. So of course this was the first tea I reached for today. Sidenote: After my drinking binge yesterday (eight perfect mugs full of tea, yowza), we had to run the dishwasher with the entire top rack filled with teaware XD.

Anyhoo, dry the leaf smelled fruity and light and amazing. Steeped, holy cow pu-erh! Not the most pleasant thing in the world, but I’m not a pu-erh fan. I smelled a hint of fishy, but mostly…leather.

The taste? Very yummy. The fruitiness is toned down by the earthiness of the pu-erh. I get orange, very strong earth, and just a hint of berry. It’s tasty, but I think my wife will like this more than I do, so I’ll save this for her.

Coldbrew for a snowy afternoon.

Okay, it’s not that snowy, but I’m melting. I made candy for my brother, which is hot work! I was super grateful for this blend being cold and ready to go.

I’m trying to cut back my sugar intake, but even with less sugar, it was too sweet. Hmm. But it is still delicious and one I highly recommend.

I wasn’t expecting to love this hot, but I do. Oh my glory, I do. It’s so hard to find a good melon tea, but this…this is wonderful. I love it. It’s juicy and sweet and a brilliant combination of peach and melon. I am painfully eager to try it iced.

I am on an unending quest for a cherry tea that does not taste like Herbal Essences.

There is a little bit of floral rose in this tea still, but this is the darkest cherry blend I have ever drunk. It’s lovely. The chocolate isn’t very prominent but it keeps it from veering off into floral country. I am totally in love with RiverTeas’ black base. I am totally in love with RiverTea.

So we recently went through our tea stash and set aside all the teas we didn’t like or we were just “meh” about. It has been kinda nice to go to our tea-filled expedit and know that whatever I grab, I’ll enjoy. I don’t have to force myself to sip down something I don’t like, I can enjoy the teas I love.

This is one of them. I love the strawberry and the grapefruit. It’s caffeine free, which is great tonight, because I am exhausted and I need to be able to sleep tonight.

All in all, this is a hit for me.

I cold brewed this overnight, eager for a cold, grapefruity delight. It smells so good. So good.

And it is good and there is a hint of grapefruit, but the honeybush takes over. It’s not bad, it’s just different. I think I’ll drink the rest of this hot, because it is gorgeous hot.