Caribe

I tried a sample of this quite a while ago and absolutely LOVED it. I loved it so much that I asked Harney NZ if they would consider starting to import it as our country didn’t stock it at the time. Well, we do now and I’m very grateful to Harney NZ and their fantastic customer service!

Firstly, this smells AMAZING. I’ve caught my man going into my tea cupboard just to smell this and he is not exactly a fan of tea or the room it takes up…

The guava is the standout scent and flavour with hibiscus following. I don’t taste coconut (granted my bag seems to be devoid of coconut flakes), more of a melange of delicious tropical fruits. If a sweetener were to be used, I think various kinds of honey would compliment the flavours very well.

Since this is a green/black blend, I make sure to give the bag a good shake before scooping as all the green tea tends to settle on the bottom. Steeping wise, I treat this as a green, ignoring Harney’s suggestions to brew as you would a black tea as it then comes out very bitter I find. I also find this quite strong, so use less tea than I would usually. Today I’m doing a test steeping, just to make sure I’m 100% happy before making a huge iced batch.

Something that has rubbed me the wrong way is the review on Harney’s website. Specifically the text “Being a woman, she had to make it look pretty, and she added in flowers, the yellow of marigolds and blue of cornflowers”. Some men like making things look pretty, and not all women enjoy doing so either. Just saying.

SIPDOWN!

And i totally deserve brownie points from Kittenna for this once because…the lovely lala sent me enough of a sample for 2 cups of this delight and i’m choosing to have a “normal person cup” so that I can tuck away the other cup for kittenna to try because it was also on her list of teas to order to try! This likely needs to be brewed as a green, or closer to it than a black. i think at the higher temps it would just become bitter and you’d miss out on the delightful fruity flavours.

I would like to try this iced some time because i think it would be a fantastic iced brew. The smell of this one just makes me happy. I don’t get much coconut, rather the guava is like HEEEEYO! lookit me!

Thank you again Lala for this one!

For some reason I thought this was mango when I grabbed a few ounces in the store, but it’s actually guava! Which is good, because I absolutely love guava. In fact I’ve been craving it recently, since I picked up a pastry at one of the many local bakeries around me without knowing what the filling was (I guessed strawberry from the color) and it turned out to be guava and dulce de leche in the best pastry crust I’ve ever had.

Well, this tea doesn’t taste like a pastry, but it’s very strongly guava-y! The smell is deliciously tropical, and a single sniff transports me to a nice beach. The strawberry is also pretty prominent, but not overwhelming—it’s a bright strawberry flavor, not jammy or sweet. Usually I like jam-like teas, but with guava I think that would be a little weird! I’m not getting any coconut but I don’t really mind, since I think that might be a little too much going on in here.

There’s apparently hibiscus in this blend but thank god I am not really getting any. Maybe a tiny bit of tartness, but in a pleasant way. It also doesn’t brew up red/pink at all like blends with hibiscus usually do. I think this is really a summer blend, but sometimes it’s nice to take a little tea vacation in the middle of winter!

Thanks to Sil for saving the last little bit of this one to try (originally from Lala!). Also, sipdown! 798.

So this tea? Super, super potent! It smells like a tropical candy, and I can’t quite figure out which fruits are comprising this tropical aroma. I see guava listed, but it’s really not guava for me. Passionfruit, perhaps?

Anyhow, I opted to steep this as a green (though I don’t recall how long I infused for… I intended 2 min, but I think it may have gotten 2.5). The flavour is just as tropical-flavoured as the aroma, which is certainly nice (and not usually what happens with such delicious-smelling teas). I can’t taste the green tea at all. However, even though this tea is definitely quite tropical, I’m not quite sure I like it. There’s a bit of an odd, almost smoky flavour in the background (black tea?) and I feel like it could really use some sugar in order to taste “right”, as in, all these tropical flavours without any real sweetness to speak of is throwing me off.

Overall, certainly an interesting tea, but I’m glad all I had was enough for a cup, because my curiousity has been thoroughly satisfied. Thanks Lala and Sil!

ETA: Second infusion (in my totally awesome forest bubble cups from DT that I bought a few weeks ago to match my teapot!) was quite similar and still quite fruity. That smoky flavour was still there making things a bit odd for me so yeah, I’m happy to have just had a single cup of this!

This sample is from the era I will call B.B.G.B.M., or before black/green blends moratorium.

In the sample packet it has an intense, fruit smell. I thought it was pineapple until I read the ingredients again. Now I’m fairly sure it’s guava. There’s a high sweet note that I’m thinking is the strawberry, and an undercurrent of hibiscus. I’m not smelling coconut, or much tea, for that matter.

The tea’s liquor is that sort of in between color that these sorts of blends tend toward. Not a deep black tea color, not a light green tea color, but somewhere between the two.

The aroma is primarily guava and strawberry, though I can smell black tea through it.

It’s actually surprisingly tasty, and I’d probably drink it again if I was offered it. But in truth, I drink guava flavored juice maybe once every year or three and I don’t think this tea, nice as it is, is enough to turn me into a regular guava consumer. That’s the primary flavor as well, though I can also taste strawberry, hibiscus, and a mixed black/green tea taste that is hard to explain. It’s fresh green but toasty, paradoxical as it sounds. It gets points for being well done and unusual, though.

I received a little sample sachet of this in my recent Harney order, and as it is a dreary and somewhat chilly night I thought now would be the perfect time to have a little cup of something tropical. When I opened the packet I was overwhelmed by the fruity (mostly guava) smell. I was excited about this blend having coconut in it, but no coconut is detectable in the aroma, or in the flavor. The flavors that I do notice are mostly strawberry and guava. This is a read good, warming tea!

-Silken sachet.
-Sachet smells fruity, like guava, with a musky undertone. Tea liquor aroma is like strawberry jam.
-Tea liquor is a medium brown color.
-Malty fruit flavor with a light guava finish.
-Best with sweetener.
-Refreshing, heavier tropical tea with malty undertones. Lingering fruity flavor.

This has a strong pineapple and coconut fragrance and taste. It’s really sweet and fruity and very easy to drink. While H&S Bangkok tends more towards the coconut side, this one leans heavily towards the pineapple and guava. It’s listed as a black and green blend but I’ve found that it tastes better if you treat it like a green tea and use a mild temperature and shorter steeping time.

Forgot this was a green/black blend, but Harney’s instructions were for 212F anyway.
Picked this up from a little tea/beer place at the beach, they measured all the tea into little plastic bags and this one in particular was leaking smell all over the place. I’d get a whiff every time I walked by the table where it was sitting. It smells very fruity, which I think is mainly the guava. Definitely tropical.

It has a very light feeling which I think is due to the green tea component. I taste the guava followed by a general “tropical fruit” flavor. I think this would be great iced and maybe I’ll play around with brewing temps. I have enough of a sample to play around so we’ll see! I think I’ll rate after I try it a few more times.

I can’t believe I’ve consumed nearly a whole tin of this without writing a tasting note! Well, after today’s cup, I will have finished it off, quite glad it accidentally (ahem, not really) came into my life after a tea buying moratorium (I’m rarely successful at a buying moratorium, it turns out).

Dry, Caribe smells wonderful. Intensely fruity, tropical, its like someone distilled the essence of a thousand fruity cocktails into a four ounce tin of tea. The brewed tea smells less intensely fruity, with the scent of the black tea coming out more. The taste, the taste is what always gets me, and Caribe is no exception. It tastes like black tea—a hint of fruit, not a strong wallop, like the aroma of the dry brew promises. I think the charms of flavored teas are lost on me—while the nose works well, the taster? Not so much. While it sort of sounds like a bust of a tea, reading back, it really wasn’t. The aroma of the dry mix alone was worth the cost. Damn, it smelled wonderful.

Almost the last of this sample. I’ve now tried it two ways; the first was at a lower temp because of the green tea in the blend (175), steeped for a longer period of time. This time, because I’m having it in the morning, I kicked the temp up to 205 and steeped for a shorter period of time.

Really, I can’t seem to recall any distinct differences between the two methods, though I will grant you that I had this tea at the lower temp more than a week ago, so my memory is broken across the rocky, beer-foamed snarls of a raucous convention weekend. The cup I’m drinking is alright, though. The most intense flavor — after the tea, and insofar as order of noticeability, rather than what I would consider literally intense — is the guava by a wide margin. It makes identifying the strawberry independently difficult to do, but you catch some trace of it toward the end, along with a tang. I assume this is the hibiscus, but I’ve had hibiscus in blends before, and it by no means screams HELLO at your palate…in fact you expect that mild tang to be there, because the guava scent and flavor are enhanced by it, and predict it.

This tea is just fine hot, but let’s face it — it’s practically destined to be iced tea. Sweetened with a little bit of honey and slapped into a pitcher, this blend would be a perfect porchside companion.

Mmmmm, coconutty guava deliciousness! There are several coconut shreds in the tin which combine with the guava to create a wonderful scent. I could smell this tea all day, though my officemates might give me some strange looks.

This is a green/black mix, but to me it just tastes like an awesomely flavored black tea. I usually prepare it as a green tea. I’ve noticed that the flavors aren’t as prominent if steeped at boiling, though it’s still drinkable. Once steeped, I can mostly taste the guava and coconut, but the strawberry finally makes an appearance too. It has a natural sweetness to it that I just adore. It really doesn’t need any added sweeteners, though a touch of honey really brings out the guava.

Caribe is fantastic as an iced tea. The fruity flavors really pop when it gets cold. I generally steep it hot at double strength, add a squeeze of honey, and either pour it over ice or just add water and let it cool in the fridge. The results are quite refreshing. This will definitely become a staple for me this summer.

ETA: Just noticed that this was my 50th tasting note. Hooray!

I have a sore throat, so last night I had the brilliant idea of steeping a pitcher of this to have iced today. This worked wonderfully, especially since I remembered to add a couple spoonfuls of honey while it was still hot.

This is cheating, really, as far as assessing the tea is concerned – I oversteeped it by far, and added enough honey to compensate. That said – it’s really really good! Fruity and flowery and sweet, and I haven’t gotten tired of it after drinking all day (I made about 24 oz). I definitely prefer this iced to hot. I can taste the green and black tea both, I think, but it’s pretty heavy on the guava/strawberry flavor too.

1 heaping tsp for the first 8oz, added 1/4 tsp for each subsequent 8oz, freshly boiled water, irregular steeping times

Working my Saturday away so I needed the combination punch of green and black to stay on track. This is my third Harney and Sons tea. I am impressed with the refined, sculpted and artful feel all their teas convey. Every flavor and characteristic is there for a reason.
This tea has tropical island written all over it, (da plane boss, da plane!) but the aftertaste turns to strawberry for me. I sweetened it a little and drank it hot. I think I will try it iced later, just for kicks.

Thanks again to Quilt Guppy for another tea adventure!

I’m not a black tea fan, but it’s blended with green tea and some flavors that sound good. I treated this like I would a green tea because I didn’t want the green tea to get bitter. It turned out well. The guava is strong with this one. There is a sweetness from the strawberry in there but mostly what l I taste is guava, I do taste some tea base. It’s a decent tea every now and again if you don’t want to think much about the tea. I’m betting this would be nice iced…I’ll have to try that when it gets warmer! May the guava be with you.

Picked this up at the local tea shop. This is a delightful fruity tea. At first sip, I tasted the guava, but then I got a hint of coconut. I’m sure the other flavors are in there too, but I’m having trouble finding them. I may not have the best palate for them. I like that it’s a blend of green and black teas – might be the only way for me to enjoy a green. A great way to start a Tuesday!

Very fruity, but mild. The black/green tea blend thing is very odd, but this one is pretty good. I don’t really like guava, but it’s got a nice fruity flavor.

The smell of the dry tea instantly transported me to a plantation garden in Hawaii. Smelled so good, tropical, fruity.
Brewed, this tea has a smell similar to pineapple, a sweet, tart, tropical fruity flavour. There is also a roasted smell, which I am wondering if that is the coconut.
The taste is delightful and delicious. I’m getting that slight roasted flavour, but also the guava and marigold. The mix of green and black tea base is very light. It is fruity and floral.
Next time I brew this I am going to brew it more like a green tea, and less like a black. I think it would make a delicous iced tea.
I bought this as a sample size and am a bit dissapointed I am soon going to run out.

Edit: I left the house to go and chip some ice so that the mail man would continue to deliver my tea packages(only when they don’t get lost in the mail, that is) and when I came back in the house has a wonderful pot pourri smell of this tea. Delicious. Just like luscious pineapple and tropical flowers. I’m just going to leave the used tea leaves sit out all day!

I got this as a wrapped sachet with my first Harney & Sons order last year, and never bothered opening it. For some reason, it just didn’t sound appealing. However, I’m trying to clear out my samples drawer to make room for more, and figured I’d give this a try.

Holy strawberry yum.

It smells so juicy and amazing, right off the bat — sort of like strawberry kiwi Snapple tastes, if that makes sense. And steeping it doesn’t mellow the aroma a bit, but actually makes it stronger and fresher and juicier.

The strawberry is definitely there in the flavor, as is the guava. The tea isn’t very strong, but it’s still pretty evident, mellowing the fruit flavors a little and keeping this blend from being cloying. (In fact, this green/black blend probably would have been better with the H&S mango tea, instead of the black they used.) I don’t taste the coconut, but I hate coconut so I’m fine with that.

This is so delicious, seriously. I am definitely including a tin in my next order.

I didn’t notice the green tea at all. I tasted pineapple, although that is nowhere on the list of to be expected flavors. It was somewhat muddy. I’ll try it again cold. As a hot tea, it’s not near the top of my list, but I’ve certainly had worse.

This was an unexpected (yay!) sample in my Harney tea order. The aroma is definitely guava and reminds me of when my eldest daughter was really little – about three years old. She loved guava juice. The guava is the prominent note in the aroma and in the tea, so if you love guava and you are a fan of flavored green teas, you should like this one. It doesn’t have a lot of the buttery or vegetal taste many greens have, but rather a fruity floral taste. There is also a bit of black tea blended in this, which seems to deepen the color of the cup a little but isn’t a front note in the taste. Thank you, Harney and Sons!