Strawberry Island

First of all, my apologies to iHeartTeas for taking so long to try these samplings you sent me! No excuses – I’m sorry!

This is tasty. I’m finding myself wishing there was more strawberry flavor in it … and the strawberry that I can taste is artificial-tasting. The coconut is nice, but I think that my favorite part of this tea is the vanilla, it has a nice, smooth, even tone to it. The black tea is rich and malty. This could be a really delicious tea, but the strawberry seems to be holding it back. It’s alright, but, I think I prefer the raspberry apricot blend I tried a while back.

The aroma is of a malty, slightly sweet black tea with a hint of fruitiness. It’s not discernible as strawberry to me, particularly.

The flavour is malty and creamy, and the fruitiness comes out at the end of the sip, so it’s definitely a lightly flavoured tea. There’s also delicious creaminess at the end of the sip. Again, I’m not particularly picking out strawberry, but it does taste like a berry sort of fruitiness. My short steep time avoided too much astringency (there’s just the slightest touch), so I would definitely recommend going with a short time with this tea.

Overall, it’s tasty and I love the creaminess, but I do wish there was more strawberry flavour (as with the Raspberry Apricot Green Tea Delight, however, I may be experiencing issues with Mango ‘n Friends being so sweet as to have temporarily contaminated my taste buds). I personally think it would be enhanced with some freeze-dried strawberry pieces though.

Overall a tasty tea and I will finish my sample, but probably not one I’d want an entire package of as my preference for flavoured blacks leans towards stronger flavours (but the base and creaminess here are fantastic). Thanks for sending along a sample of this one, Rachel!

I don’t know about you but if I was going to be stranded on an island I would love for it to be a place called Strawberry Island.

Whilst raw this consists of lovely small cut black twisted leaves with green chopped up parts (that look like a leaf and after reading the ingredients must be the raspberry leaf) and some sort of dark brown stick (maybe vanilla). All of this blend of ingredients smells like sweet strawberry gummy sweets (so it’s somewhat artificial smelling).

Once brewed this is a dark reddy brown colour (similar to an assam but a little redder…maybe the exact colour to describe this would be red honey). The boiling water has brought out more of a berry smell rather then focusing just on the strawberry but it’s still as sweet.

First few sips bring out a fair bit of berry sweetness and a touch of earthiness and a slight bitterness in the after taste. A sugar/sweetener would take the edge nicely off this tea and may bring out the berry/fruit flavours but for me this is sweet enough. I’m still finding that the sweetness tastes a little artificial and usually I am not a fan but this is balanced nicely.

The fruity flavour comes out once the tea has cooled slightly so I would recommend drinking this one around 70-80 degrees (if you opt for a hot tea and not iced that is). Perhaps reduce the steeping time slightly as well to remove the subtle touch of bitterness in the back.

A very good effort and a nice sweet fruity tea, this is definitely something that I could drink happily. :)

Out of the two I tried from iHeartTeas, this one is my favourite. It’s like tropical paradise in your mouth! It tastes like Paradise Island from Davids tea but with strawberry instead of Raspberry, very delish. A perfect getaway in your cup! Full video review here: http://www.erinstea.com/handcrafted-teas-iheartteas-launches-teas/

This is a delicious tea! I love the dominant strawberry cream flavor with the hints of coconut and vanilla. This is a nice tropical dessert tea. Love it! It is tropical but not bitter! :)