Basilur

Summer 2025 Herbal TTB!

Cold steeped. This one is actually pretty nice, much to my surprise. The flavor is light but doesn’t taste watery, more refreshing. Hibiscus is noticeable but not overwhelming, and the flavoring does taste a bit like pomegranate to me, or maybe cranberry. Even the stevia isn’t too bad. Hints of blue raspberry candy from the blueberry.

I don’t think I would go out of my way to buy it, but this one turned out to be quite a pleasant and refreshing cold steep.

Summer 2025 Herbal TTB!

Cold steeped! This one has a bit more flavor to it than the passion fruit orange did. Hibiscusy, but not overly sour. There’s a little stevia in it, which is giving a sort of mustiness, but it’s not overbearing. I wouldn’t know specifically what flavor this was, but it has a nice, tangy red fruits sort of flavor. Pleasant and refreshing.

Summer 2025 Herbal TTB!

Cold steeped, 2 bags for ~16 ounces of water. This has rosehips and hibiscus first in the ingredients, but the color of the steeped liquor has no red tint whatsoever. Maybe it’s white hibiscus? It tastes a bit light, even after two days, but nice. It has that classic Hawaiian passion-orange flavor – sweet and tangy with tropical and orange notes. There is a tiny bit of a stevia sweetness, but not enough to be cloying. It’s nice, if a bit mild.

Summer 2025 Herbal TTB!

The first of many Basilur cold steeps.

Honestly, I’m finding this quite bland. I used two bags for a 16-ounce jar of water and steeped it for two days. The color is very hibiscus-y, but mostly I’m tasting the mint and very little of the strawberry or tartness. There’s a touch of cucumber in the finish. It’s not awful, just tastes more like a flavored water than a fruit infusion.

Summer 2025 Herbal TTB!

Tried this one last night, against my better judgment ha ha. And as I expected, I really didn’t like it. I always have issues with honey flavoring tasting like a lozenge, and here a strong honey flavor is paired with red rooibos which is really the worst combination possible for me. So yeah, it tasted like a honey-flavored throat lozenge. Not for me!

Summer 2025 Herbal TTB!

The next Basilur rooibos! I was a bit hesitant when I saw hibiscus in the ingredients for this one. Thankfully, it’s quite restrained and just serves to give some nice tanginess and dimension to the peach. The peach here reminds me of my grandma’s home-canned peaches that I would eat a whole quart jar of. I do think I would prefer a green rooibos base here, but thankfully their red rooibos is very mellow so it doesn’t clash too badly with the fruit. Definitely a nice one!

Summer 2025 Herbal TTB!

The TTB is here! \o/ There are so many Basilur infusions in here, which is exciting. I am always so intrigued by Basilur, I think it may just be their branding and packaging, since it’s not like I’ve had any stand-out teas from them. So excited to try a lot of their fruit infusions! I assume I have Martin to thank for their inclusion. ;) Most of those will be cold steeps for me, and I started a couple to try tomorrow, but I figured in the meantime I would try the rooibos blends.

I’m not a huge red rooibos fan, but was intrigued by the flavors they offer, so I figured I would just try a single bag of each one. I wasn’t expecting much (the dry bag had almost no scent whatsoever), but this is actually quite nice. I get the earthy ginger up front, then sweet orange pops in mid-sip, and the end is the warmth from the ginger again, which lingers in my throat. The rooibos base is mellow and not overly woody or medicinal. I could see this making for a nice sick or digestion tea since the ginger is fairly prominent, but it’s a little more interesting than the usual lemon or honey accompaniments.

2025 herbal/caffeine-free TTB

I feel like this is what a passionfruit/orange hard candy would taste like in hot liquid form. It’s not bad, necessarily, but a little weird as a hot drink. This would probably be better as an iced tea or tea soda.

2025 herbal/caffeine-free TTB

This might be my favorite Basilur! The peach and apricot are jammy and sweet, grounded by a rooibos that’s just woody enough to keep it from being candy-like. Yummy.

2025 herbal/caffeine-free TTB

This one falls into the “it’s fine but I don’t love it” category. The woodsy rooibos and tart lime flavors are nice. The honey just tastes… off, though. Almost medicinal. It reminds me of a honey vanilla chamomile teabag I had years ago and didn’t like for the same reason, although now I can’t find that tasting note or remember which one it was.

2025 herbal/caffeine-free TTB

This tastes like strawberry candy, with a hint of cucumber at the end of the sip. I’m not really getting any mintiness. Unfortunately, it’s just overall too tart to really be enjoyable. Maybe a super short steep would be better?

2025 herbal/caffeine-free TTB

Cold brew with seltzer. I was worried about the stevia in this, but it isn’t really noticeable (maybe it doesn’t extract as much in a cold brew?). This has a nice “black cherry soda” vibe that is hitting the spot right now. I’ll probably keep a couple of bags :-)

2025 herbal/caffeine-free TTB

Another one where the ginger is sitting in another room staring longingly at the mug and wondering why it wasn’t invited to the tea party. This tea is red, but not really hot or ginger. Basically just hibiscus juice. I don’t mind the taste of hibiscus – it’s just not what I wanted from this cup based on the name.

2025 herbal/caffeine-free TTB

This isn’t bad, but it’s also not good – or at least, not to my taste. The ginger is basically nonexistent. Mostly I’m just getting woody rooibos and light citrus. More ginger needed!

2025 herbal/caffeine-free TTB

My partner says this smells like “wrong fruit,” and I can see where he’s coming from. The hibiscus is too strong, while the other flavors are a bit too muddled. I’m getting papaya, pineapple, and coconut, but none are particularly distinct. Maybe a shorter steep would be better?

2025 herbal/caffeine-free TTB

Thankfully the stevia isn’t super noticeable in this one. Similar to the Westminster Peach Passionfruit, it brews up more candy than fruity, which actually works fine for a cold brew. And I do like that this is another “quick iced tea” option that doesn’t involve sugar.

This was in the Basilur assortment sent to me by Martin – many thanks!

When someone speaks of Indian Summer here in the South, they mean the hot weather that follows the first cool weather of fall. Sometimes the first cool weather is called false fall. I assumed this is a widespread expression and also that this is what Basilur was referring to in the name of this tea.

Sipping it hot for the first time without having read the ingredients, I was very surprised by the exotic flavor that the rose brings to this blend. It hit me that Basilur is probably referring to summer in India.

This is one of the few hibiscus blends I have really enjoyed hot and unsweetened. I also tried it cold, cold and sweetened, and as a switchel. I think I may have liked it best hot, with iced and sweetened coming in as a close second.

A sipdown! (M: 2 Y: 67)
A perfect refreshing cuppa, even when I drank it hot. As gmathis wrote, it is very hibiscus forward, but lime tastes natural and is very refreshing.

I think it could be a blast iced; but this was a last tea bag, drank on rainy afternoon.

April Sipdown Challenge Prompt – a tea that was gifted to you

I knew this would be a favorite of the Basilur fruit teas sent to me by Martin for my birthday! Thank you, Martin!

Blackcurrant wasn’t a thing in the South when I was growing up. Since the plant was banished long ago it just isn’t that commercially available. I mainly was exposed to it when we were in Ireland and I loved it.

The berry flavors are distinct and tart in this, which made it just right for making a pitcher of cold sweet tea for our hottest days so far. (I drank this one a few days ago. We have cooled a little for now.) These fruit infusions are working out marvelously for our evening sweet tea!

A sipdown! (M: 8 Y: 48) prompt: A breakfast tea

Well, nope. This is too much for me. Too much light elements. Very citrusy bergamot combined with distinctive jasmine. Somehow a floral bomb and I don’t like it enough.

Seems like this box was rather a bummer.

A sipdown! (M: 7 Y: 47)

Third of their Earl Grey assortment and very similar to their Earl Grey Orange. A little bit more fruitier I think; with makes a little stronger clash between tangerine and bergamot.

This is from an assortment box sent to me by Martin – many thanks!

We love strawberry flavor in drinks so I was excited to try this one. I made a big carafe of it sweetened for the fridge to have with suppers since it is uncaffeinated. It is Kool Aid for grown ups, but healthier! It does not taste like pure hibiscus, as so often happens with fruit infusions that are meant to mimic red fruit.

I also put a bag in a cold steeper and drank it unsweetened. It was very nice that way as well. I find that many fruit infusions taste similar to me, but this assortment box has some neat combinations and I can hardly wait to try them all!

June Sipdown Challenge Prompt – drink a flash chilled tea

I have been saving recipes for special beverages on Pinterest for a while now, and one of the most recent is something they are calling Good Girl Moonshine, or GGMS for short. Supposedly the ginger and vinegar are giving you “cleansing benefits” and the beverage is recommended for people who are trying to give up sodas.

The truth is that the recipes are simply variations of switchel, such as Ma made in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book, The Long Winter.

Switchel was cold well water with ginger, sweetener, and vinegar. It was refreshing, and because of the ginger a hot farm worker could glug as much as they wanted without getting a stomachache. I expect it could also be made as a hot beverage in cold weather for a tummy soother or for sore throats.

The new recipes are mostly for concentrated tea, sweetener, apple cider vinegar at a rate of one tablespoon per glass, and ginger. I have seen some with grated ginger boiled in simple syrup and some that call for ground ginger. Most of the new recipes start with a fruit based infusion or a plain hibiscus. You can add cold water to dilute the syrup or sparkling water.

My method today was – the last three teabags of this tea – which were so full of ground ginger that it poofed out of the bags when I put it in the infuser, so no additional ginger needed this time – steeped in seven ounces water. This infusion was poured over ice in a shaker and shaken until cold. Then I poured it into a carafe and added two tablespoons of vinegar. By the recipe it should have been more like three but this is a first try. I poured this over ice, added simple syrup, and diluted with sparkling water.

If you make it ahead of time instead instead of at the last minute as I did, you can skip the shaker step and just refrigerate it until ready to serve.

I liked it very much, and Ashman did, too.

Thank you, again, Martin!

This is from an assortment box that Martin sent to me for my birthday. Thank you, Martin!

I like ginger for relief of stomach ailments but as a spice I like it only in very small doses. It can add sparkle to food and drink but can quickly get too hot for me. Based on the name and the smell, I thought this tea was going to be too much for me. I made it yesterday when some fried food made me a bit queasy and I felt like it helped. The ginger wasn’t too hot for me, although it did build in intensity throughout the mug of tea.

I had thought that if it was unbearably hot for me I would send it to my neighbor who loves straight ginger and strong vinegar and kombucha that puckers your whole face. Instead I will be keeping it to settle my stomach!

When I made my hot mug yesterday I also tossed a bag into my cold steeper to drink today. I drank it as is without adding simple syrup and enjoyed it. It is nice to know that I can do the easy peasy steeping for summer!