Strawberry Lemonade Herbal Tea

Merry Christmas evening Steepster!

This is the 2nd year I’ve gotten Teavana tea gifts from by brother. It isn’t my favorite place to buy tea, but I will not look a gift horse or a gift tea in the mouth. :-P

This is one I haven’t had before and thought I’d brew some up tonight after a long day filled with food & presents. I am tasting mostly lemon in this with a little bit of strawberry and apple. It’s pretty tart but probably very full of vitamin C. My gift also included a bag of the rock sugar so I threw a few of the little pieces into my cup and that made this more palatable. I actually liked this better than I thought I would but I’m not sure I will need anymore once this supply runs out. I bet it would be good mixed with green tea so I might need to try that.

My gift to myself included a subscription to the BBC History magazine on the Kindle so I might have to curl up later with that and some more tea. :)

When I was in junior high my friends and I would head straight to the local deli after school for one thing—Bubbilicious gum. There were a million different flavors but my favorite was always strawberry lemonade (and later, raspberry lemonade). I’m not sure why, but that stuff was like mana from heaven for a group of gossipy 13-year-olds. Chewy, overly sweet and utterly delicious.

This is one of the blends I got during the Heavenly sale, and upon opening the bag I was instantly transported back to that time. Hot summer days spent sitting on walls blowing bubbles, watching small town life pass us by. Idle chatter about who was dating who, as if at 13 you really could date something. As much as I disliked junior high and high school there were some shining happy moments thrown in, many of them revolving around Bubbilicious gum. And this tisane smells JUST like my favorite, strawberry lemonade! Like identical.

Of course that means it’s sugary-sweet, even without sugar. It’s got a strong lemon and strawberry flavor though without the tartness you’d associate with lemonade. It’s smooth and rather one-note, without the depth you’d expect from an actual tea blend. Granted, perhaps this isn’t anything special, but sipping it right now I’m brought right back to those shimmering summer days even though it’s snowing rather heavily outside. A+ for nostalgia, B- for flavor, but I’m still really enjoying it! I imagine this would be best in the summer, more like cooling juice than tea really, though I’m finding that is true of many of Teavana’s herbal blends.

A tea swap tea. Not as strong as I expected it would be, or would like it to be, but it’s really good. It’s so nice to drink an herbal tisane that isn’t totally tart from hibiscus. Might buy a bigger size of this; I have such a hard time finding caffeine free blends I like.

This made a perfect iced tea for today. I’ve never had it by itself before, and it is really good. I sweetened 2 quarts with 2 tablespoons of rock sugar and it is perfection. I thought this tea would be more pink than it turned out, but it is more a yellow tea color. I’m so glad I remembered to pick some of this up last time I went to the mall. It is really refreshing on this 85F day!

Thank you Fiddling for this sample. :)

Almost at the end of Season 2 of Sons of Anarchy thanks to my mad marathon day but still a couple of hours to go. It’s past midnight now so I’m trying to stray away from anything with caffeine and I remembered receiving this tea earlier this month as part of a swap.

The mixture looks like a large mixed dried fruit medley with strawberry and apple pieces being the most obvious. If you look close enough you can see a fair amount of hibiscus (eek!) and some other bits that I am not confident on identifying.

This large pieced blend smells sweet and fruity (no fruit in particular), rather citrus and a little sour.

Once steeped this tea is burnt yellow in colour and has a sour lemon scent with an undertone of apple. I thought it would be red/pink because of the hibiscus so the surprise is nice, maybe it’s not as hibiscus heavy as it looked.

The first few sips reveal a crisp apple and sour lemon combo. It has sweetness but at a personally nice level for me which is not too sweet but enough to say that I wouldn’t need to add any sweetener. The strength is medium but with enough flavour to still be pleasing.

I can’t taste any strawberry or any other berry like flavour which is a little disappointing so it’s more apple lemonade than strawberry lemonade. It’s still a nice refreshing fruity drink but not for those that really want something strong or strawberry flavoured. I also asked my husband what he could taste before telling him the name of the tea and he said citrus like orange or lemon and something sweet like apple. Then I told him the name of it and he also said he couldn’t taste any strawberry so the best we can fathom is that the sweetness is supposed to taste like artificial strawberry like that found in candy.

Overall it’s a nice fruity drink and would be suitable for a light flavoured ice tea but it wouldn’t be the sort of thing I would buy again.

On it’s own, this tisane is pretty average. Nice berry flavor with a nice zesty lemon twist. Not
much more to that, but combined with a rooibos or another tea (iced) it’s an absolute treasure and a must for summer tea drinkers! Blending with blueberry bliss also from teavana is excellent. So rating this tisane on it’s own is difficult because I think of the wonders it would be blended. On it’s own this tea is pretty boring and sticks to the same two flavor pattern the whole way through and is kinda boring but has a nice taste, very kid friendly. Overall I will try it again but absolutly iced and blended. Can’t imagine this one hot.

There’s a Teavana in the mall that one of my classes is in (I know, a legit university in a mall… so weird!), so I popped in the other day to pick some of this up for work. It’s perfect because I don’t need to stock any additives, it’s sweet but not ridiculous, and I can just leave the bits in my mug until I’ve finished drinking it.

I really like the flavour of this one, and I think it’s the lack of hibiscus that really makes this tea taste better to me than David’s Strawberry Ginger.

(The ingredients on the Teavana website are different than those on the tea page. Apple pieces, rosehip peels, apple slices, strawberry slices, strawberry pieces, marigold petals, citric acid, flavoring (strawberry, lemon, lime). Maybe they also use a different strawberry flavour… who knows.)

It’s good for what it is. It’s bright and citrusy and sweet. It tastes like summer, and it’s delicious iced. My problem with it comes in in terms of cost – it’s really only good for one strong steep, and it’s a weak tea so I brew it strongly. That being said, I can purchase the ingredients straight for much less money and blend it myself. I’m glad I bought it though, as it is delicious, just not worth the price.

I have had such a bad day at work. I came home and found my tea delivery. So excited! Somehow it washed away the bad day.
I ordered this tea to use for iced tea. But I decided to try it hot, partly because the other new teas I ordered have caffeine, so I will have to wait to try those.
This tea smells delicious. Sweet and fruity. It also tastes delicious. It tastes like strawberry kiwi gum or candy. I added a little bit of rock sugar to sweeten it up.
I used 1.5 tsp but I think I might use 2 next time for a bit stronger taste.

My older brother and sister-in-law came by last night with a bag of this, wanting me to make a pitcher of iced tea for everyone. I haven’t tried this herbal tea before, but I am always excited to try new teas.

I mixed eight tablespoons of leaves with about two tablespoons of rock sugar, steeped for around ten minutes and left it in the fridge for a good four to five hours. Mind you, I’ve only made iced tea this way twice before, so there is a reason to my general approximations.

My first initial reaction was how surprisingly dark it is lukewarm, I would assume the sunflower petals and rosehip peels are to blame for that, but the sweet and fruity flavors quickly overwhelm, not so much overtake or suffocate, but at the very lease harmonize the overall taste.

It is an unusual color, a reddish blonde tone. And, because it is herbal, very cloudy.

My second helping, about twenty hours later, gives less a dark flavor and more a sweetly juicy body. The fruit really balance each other out. As well, the colder it is, the more delicious it gets.

I wish I made some of this near the end of summer. We’d probably be constantly making it, as the juicy flavor sure could quench a summer night’s thirst.

Not a bad tisane. I had to double what the directions say to get good flavor out of it though.

Lemon dominates the strawberry. In fact, I picked up more apple than strawberry. It seems they’ve added pear as well.

I recommend this iced instead of hot. Once it cools down the flavors are more apparent.

Got a little crazy this morning and mixed this up with Bigelow’s Perfect Peach, and a dash of Teavana’s Pineapple Kona Pop!. Made it into an iced, sweetened with german rock sugar, poured it into a clear pitcher and threw in some lemon slices. It looks beautiful and smells heavenly! We’ll see how my creation tastes later. It’s reached 112 degrees here in the midwest lately! In need of a refreshing fruity treat.

Edit.
Had a ice cold cuppa later yesterday, when I wasn’t feeling so hot. Turned out pretty darn good! The bf enjoyed it, too. He also came home later with beautiful smelling roses for no reason, so maybe I have concocted some sort of love potion.

This tea is now 75% off at my Teavana in Dallas, Texas. I haven’t tried it yet but for you all that love it, thought I would let you know it’s on sale. The Teavana Specialist suggested it as an iced tea which many of you suggested and have tried.

I ordered this in a recent teavana order and realized that it smells exactly like GOGI POP from DAVIDs TEA, which is quite unfortunate. I do still like this tea. But if you live in CANADA, then just get gogi pop from DAVIDs.

The taste: A bit sour from the lemons. And nice and sweet from the strawberry’s. This is basically the ultimate fruity iced tea.

The colour- very, very light pink.

The smell- Exactly like GOGI POP. ;)

Great tea- but wont be re-purchasing as i can basically just get this at my local DAVIDs TEA.

This tea looks and smells fresh and inviting. It’s pretty, actually…made of dried fruits with delicate edges, all light tan or peach or deep red. It reminds me of potpourri.

When I hold the tea in my mouth and swirl it around, I find a very nice flavor that’s very fruity and a little bit tart, like a berry compote. In fact, I think this would be a great complement to mixed-berry tea bread. However, I am yet again disappointed that the flavor is so subtle. If I just swallow the stuff without any ceremony, I get a little tingle of orange in my throat, but no complexity.

To be fair: 1) I’m addicted to black coffee, so maybe my threshold for “strong” is a little higher than most people’s; 2) this tea is evidently great when mixed with a green or black tea and served iced; and 3) my batch is more than a year old, and for a while I was storing it in the original packaging (i.e., a paper bag) rather than in an airtight container. I cannot speak to how this would influence the flavor. Does anyone know?

Well Birmingham finally got a Teavana today! It’s really hard to get quality tea in the area since Mrs. Rosemarie’s closed last year and I was thrilled. Since it’s been very hot outside, I ordered the Strawberry Lemonade tea iced. I am still getting the trick of brewing iced teas from leaves, but my Teavana barrister Sam did a fab job. I love the tangy fruitiness of this tea and adding the Teavana rock sugar really brings out the notes of strawberry. Over all, it’s my favorite tea this summer.

This is the second of the Teavana lemons and I have to say I really really like this one. I’m not done with the perfect lemon search but I’m not planning to spend the rest of my life on it (too many teas, too little time) and anyway, I have a feeling that like love, the perfect tea generally shows up when you’re least expecting it and never when you’re out there looking for it. But for now, this could be my standard lemon. At least it’s a contender.

It’s got that chunky fruit thing going that Lemon Youkou also had, but it’s a little more under control; I haven’t found a 2 inch orange slice in this one, but it’s delightful looking. The textures and colors are almost autumnal, except for the strawberries. The color palette of leaves changing in the fall. The fragrance of the dried fruit is sweet. The strawberry is there in a now you smell it now you don’t kind of way. Sometimes it’s a distinct strawberry smell other times it’s a generic sugary one. The lemon, of course, is there too.

I can’t tell you what color it is because, silly me, every time I have made this one I seem to have made it in a green ceramic cup. But the taste is yummy. Very lemon, and sweet without overdoing it. The strawberry is responsible for the sweetness, but it’s second fiddle to the lemon and virtually indistinct unless you really taste for it, which is probably why I like it so much. I wasn’t looking for strawberry in my perfect lemon.

I can see myself bumping up the rating if the continued search doesn’t turn up something really awesome, but I’m being conservative for now because I’m not done.

Thanks denisend and wombatgirl for the recommendation!

What a good iced tea! It’s lighter by far than actual lemonade, but with the same flavor and about twice as refreshing. Definitely better iced than hot, though.

Sweet and a great blend with Blueberry Bliss from Teavana. :) Hot or cold, it’s a sweet addition to any pantry. Tastes very natural and very light. My only request is that it may be caffeinated. :D

This smells so very good in the bag that I was expecting great things. What I got was slightly lemony water. I must have not used enough — three heaping tablespoons, brewed for 11 minutes, to make two quarts of iced tea. I’m guessing I need at least two more tablespoons. In which case, I won’t be buying this again, because that makes for one really freaking expensive pitcher of iced tea. Oh well. It was worth a try. I’ll probably make a stronger pitcher down the road at some point…