Goji Pop

Thank you Courtney for this sample. :)

Goji berries are not something I have had many times but I do remember experiencing their sour almost cranberry like flavours before.

It’s been such a long day at work and all I want to do is wind down and relax. Something fruity sounds nice and so does the idea of drinking something pink (which this claims to be on the packet).

In raw form this tea consists of large dried fruit pieces, red goji berries, dark red hibiscus petals and little shrivelled yellow petals that look like marigold. Looking at the ingredients list that covers just about everything so you can just about see it’s entire contents from looks alone. It’s nice when that happens. As the pieces are large they look like a mix between pot pourri and trail mix.

In scent this is fruity and sweet with high apple and citrus notes with a touch of something floral. It’s very yummy and juicy smelling. I used to have a lip gloss that smelled similar.

Once steeped this tea is light pink (the same colour as watermelon juice) and has a very gentle fruity aroma with a slight bitter tang.

Yummy. I can taste the melon and the apple :) I love melon. The consistency is light and refreshing with natural fruity sweetness and just a touch of sourness in the after taste. Thankfully the hibiscus is on the light side. While it’s sweet it’s on the lower levels of it but perfect for those of us without a sweet tooth (per say).

I just thought…I don’t crave puddings a lot of the time…I crave the tea form of it instead. If only there was a cheese and onion tea to take away my love for crisps (chips). A moment on the lips a lifetime on the hips…I need to remember that.

Ok back on course. The more I drink the stronger I can taste the melon and apple medley which is at the perfect balance for me. I imagine this tastes amazing as an iced tea, alas I only had enough to sample one teapots worth with (I’m not complaining…if Courtney wasn’t as wonderful as she is I would never have got to try this). Just making a mental note that if I am ever lucky enough to get my hands on some more I will definably try it iced. Maybe even in a slushy style (crushed ice).

The goji or hibiscus is coming through a little more now to create more of a sweet and sour fruit punch. It’s something that I would no doubt love to try again and those melon mad fans (like myself) need to try this.

Look at me I have waffle on a bit, so I will leave it there. I shall just sit back and watch Star Trek – Deep Space Nine.

Another sample that I don’t know where it came from. Bad tattoed, bad. Apologies!

Why oh why did I wait so long to try this? It is so good. By the time I drank it it had reached room temp & now it is pretty cold.
At room temp this was very good, fruity, juicy. & melon like. So yummy. Even colder now it’s better. Definitely one that would be fabulous iced this summer by the pool ( maybe with a touchof vodka…. shhhh)

Also a great alternative to juice for the kids.

ETA: My daughter downed the rest of the mug. Guess it is a good one!

Thanks for the sample of this, Krystaleyn!

I decided to cold steep this so I’d actually be okay with the tartness of it. I steeped it for well over a day because I completely forgot I hadn’t taken the T-sac out of there. No harm done! This is a nice combination of tart, sweet, and fruit flavors. I like what the lemon adds. It’s also in the tart territory, but because it’s citrus, it’s not as bad to me as hibiscus. I think this would be awesome mixed with lemonade because of the lemon.

Maybe it doesn’t even need lemonade.

I’m going to try the rest of it hot. In the future maybe I will get it to cold steep again, but it’s not a high priority right now, besides the fact I just ordered from DavidsTea and it shipped out today.

Dear Goji Pop,
You are so yummy, just like bubble gum,
Sometimes you’re sour, but mostly you’re sweet.
Will you marry me?
-AliPants

No surprises here – it’s tart. Tart and fruity. It’s not bad though. Much better than the samples I’ve had in store, and I think that it would be nice iced.

I have been away from my tea stash for 4 days now, while visiting the rents in blazingly hot Indiana. I am going to drink a million gallons of tea when I get home to 18 degree Vancouver on sunday night!!

So anyway, of the 5 DTs i got my mom for Christmas, this is the last remaining pouch. And since I’m now getting sick I can justify a cup of sweet goji berry goodness. Also I haven’t had this tisane in over a year so this is quite exciting and reminiscent of my first taste of crazy tisanes. Verdict: still good!

Go white sox!!

Day #8 of 24…..

This sample comes to me from aisling of tea. I can’t believe I did not get around to trying this earlier. Maybe I was suffering from hibiscus worry…… Thank you so much for our swap eons ago that definitely fed my David’s Tea addiction! Now they ship for $5 for orders under $50, which so helps in just putting in an order to try things, in comparison to the $20 it used to be…..

This really is pretty good. It really does taste a bit like juice or a fruit lemonade. I can see kids really liking this one! A gateway for the younger generation……?

Mug method with a 7 minute steep time and twice the blend.

This tea received the honour of being the first member of the DavidsTea spring collection to be brewed in my Breville.

Of all the ridiculously intriguing scents going on in my trial baggies of the spring teas, this one does stand out. I brewed this up for 6 minutes as I was worried about it being weak, but it came out a little tart so it will be maybe 4 or 5 minutes next time. Even the tartness wasn’t bad, though. It works with the kick-in-the-pants-refreshing nature of this tea. This was deliciously bold and fruity and tasted like summer. It’s begging to be made into iced tea and/or popsicles, but was also nice hot.

My only qualm with this tisane is that as with most of the herbals you need to use a fair amount of it. It being a heavy tea, it’s on the expensive side. Definitely worth it as a treat to remind myself that warmer weather will eventually arrive!

I will also confess to chewing on a couple pieces of the dried fruit. Tasty!

I tried this at the Victoria Tea Festival. Better than I expected since the hibiscus worried me. But it’s like drinking a fruit basket! One second I tasted berry, the next the bright citrus was there.

Ever do that thing where you start watching a horror movie by yourself during the day and you’re like, “Wow, this isn’t even scary,” and by the time you finish it, it’s nighttime and suddenly every creak you hear and shadow you see is obviously some monster that is going to make you its meal?

Okay, well, with me it’s a book (well, The Walking Dead graphic novels to be specific), and I’ve been powering through them (and also a few pots of black tea to keep me going) all day. Suddenly it’s 11 pm and the caffeine from the black tea has me jumping at everything (I scared the crap out of my cat, poor thing). I need a nice, tasty herbal to calm my nerves so here I sit with a nice cup of this tea. It’s fruity and reminds me of summer and definitely helps me keep my mind off of flesh-eating zombies. (Seriously, who knew that things that move .0008 miles per hour and probably can’t even master a set of stairs could be so freaky?)

Rating: 70
Steep time: 5 mins.

I received this tea as a little sample with my DavidsTea order… twice. So, I figured it was a message, and who am I to stand in the way of destiny?

It’s an herbal/fruit tea, so technically, there is no tea at all. It is, however, one of my favorites so far. (Well, definitely behind Forever Nuts, which reigns supreme as the top herbal tea in this household.) The first thing I noticed was all of the chunks of fruit and berries that go into this. When it begins steeping, the cup almost instantly turns purple-pink. I let it go for five minutes and wish I had stopped it a bit sooner. It’s a very pretty purplish color right now, but it’s also quite tart. The fruit mix is wonderful! I think there’s a tad too much hibiscus, but other than that, the fruit meshes really well together. It’s definitely citrusy. It’s a perfect pick-me-up for after work, but before bedtime.

The tea itself looks like a snack, but of all of the new teas in David’s Tea’s spring line-up, this is the one that made me go “Mmm” when I smelled it. It smells like hubba bubba bubble gum and makes me want to go put on boots and play in puddles. (Maybe this really IS the fountain of youth!)
When it’s steeping, it’s turning a very pale almost dusty pink colour and smells no less amazing. I want to buy fabric this colour and make accent pillows and drapes for my daughter’s new bedroom. I also want her room to smell this good and sunshiney. It goes well with her illustrated print reading, “Let’s Have Fun Today!”
Well, Goji Pop*, let’s do this.
Let’s have fun, naked-style**.
OOoooOOooooh. Mellow! The melon really pops out, and the sweetness hits the roof of my mouth like a delicious summertime popcicle treat. The “pop” in Goji Pop, perhaps! I feel like I’m sitting in the grass, shaded in a mottled pattern by our enormous weeping birch. I’m barefoot, freshly un-flip-flopped and enjoying iced treats with my daughter after we chased down an ice cream truck. There’s enough of a breeze to keep the bugs off, but it wouldn’t matter anyway because it’s such a beautiful day.
Back to the tea: I can’t get over how delicious it is. It’s exactly what I had wanted Luscious Watermelon to taste like last summer. I’m going to brew a batch of this double-strong and make popcicles out of it. Or at least try it iced. I’m very lazy after all.
Thank you, David’s Tea, for reminding me that spring will happen, even though there’s a meter and a half of snow in my back yard and it’s -12.

*I’m currently deep into the last season of Big Love. The third sister wife is selling a product called Goji Juice. It’s more or less a multi-level marketing scam, but whatever. This last season is epic and extraordinarily tragic for television. Anyway, every time I hear Goji, I’m overcome with an unobstructed sadness. Luckily, the smell of Goji (sad) Pop surmounts that sadness and makes the sun come out.

**You wish. Naked as in no milk or sugar, of course.

Had a cup of this hot (on like Tuesday! Only just remembered I had this… Ugh. I do dislike this week) from my advent calendar tin. I really like it! Very goji berry-ee, and the apple and melon are a lovely base. No bitterness whatsoever from the rosé hip or hibiscus, what a win! Going to use the rest of my sample for an iced cup. Very nice.

I did accidentally leave it for about 6mins, not quite as long as it says below ( another iPad hiccup).

I love Goji Pop! It’s so juicy and sweet. I love love when this is a TOTD so I can fill my $1 tumbler. For some reason I’ve never gotten around to bringing some home, probably because I already have a bunch of iced teas that I love. One day though!

I have a love/hate relationship with tea depending on how it is brewed. If brewed well, it is delicious, full of flavour and fruity and not even needing sweetener (although I do love it with some agave.)

If its brewed badly, this can taste . . . just gross. And I also find that if you add sugar it ruins it. Luckily tonight I remembered all of this and brewed it really nicely and perfectly, and with a dash of agave. A litre later, I’m a tea-logged happy girl.

This reminds me of fruit by the foot, or rather, healthy dried fruit leather. Sort of a strawberry apple lemon flavor. Yum! This tastes like what Teavana’s fruity herbals are trying to be. I added a touch of sugar but it was fine without it; I didn’t find it too tart, I just have a sweet tooth :)
Thanks Jenn!

Hmmmm, this was not what I expected!
I was hoping for that drying sensation/taste that I get from gojis and green tea sometimes, but none was forthcoming. In fact, I didn’t get any goji at all!! I’m wondering if somebody picked them out of the tin at the store?? I’ve heard rumours of the same happening with the watermelon equivalent…
Too bad, I so wanted to like this tea. All I got was sour “juice”! A hot lemon cider-ish drink that was overall tasty, but still not what I wanted.
Hmph.

okay this is pretty awesome. sweet, fruity, a bit of a pinch/bite to it. i steeped it hot but i definitely think this is one i need to try chilled too. this 25g bag needs to last long enough for me to do it!

I don’t mind Goji Pop for sure,
it’s refreshing!

But I find fruit teas are usually not my favorite due to their sour-taste. I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy! I’ll try a little sweetener next time (and can’t wait to try the blazing strawberry!)

I got a sample of this in my DavidsTea order that arrived today. I was at work so I grabbed the sample and made a cup of it right before a meeting. After it steeped a couple of minutes I added some agave nectar to it so I could just remove the bag and give it a stir in my meeting. Good to go, right. Right, unless I forgot to bring a spoon and forgot about the agave. I drank half of it unsweetened and then realized it and swirled the sweetener into the other half for a very sweet second half of the cup.

I like this tea. I’m not sure I would order it, but I enjoyed it. It is lemony and tastes like some sort of berry that I cannot identify; probably because I’ve never had a Goji berry before. It’s fruity, in a real fruit kind of way and has no medicinal qualities. Nom!