Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Raspberry’

I love chocolate and I (clearly) love tea so there was no way I could refuse when I was offered some tea infused chocolate. I’ve had tea with chocolate before but never chocolate with tea, I mean I’ve had chocolate with tea before but it was in a yunomi (the tea, that is) and the chocolate was in hand. Yes, I’ve already gotten in to the chocolate…. Both of the bars that I received are tea infused dark chocolate. The ‘guilt’ in the guilty pleasure (of sweets) is lower for me if I can convince myself that the treat is somehow healthy. I’ve heard that dark chocolate is better for you than milk chocolate – trying to justify my indulgence…

First up is the dark Belgium chocolate with organic raspberry black tea, and it is beautiful. Smells bittersweet with just a hint of raspberry in the blend. The texture is smooth and dark, can’t actually see any tea in it. The tea comes out when you bite into the bar, has an unusual texture to it… Smooth but with a crunch, kind of hard to explain but there is definitely tea in it. The bitterness of the chocolate overpowers the raspberry flavor a little bit but that’s okay. This is really, really good sweetness.

Now on to the Australian ginger black tea chocolate. Really dark, smooth texture, smells fantastic (as all chocolate should) with a hint of a ginger scent. Biting into it and it tastes rich and sharp but the wonderful ginger flavor gets stronger with every mouth-watering, melting second. Strong, lingering ginger aftertaste (I LOVE GINGER)! This is absolutely my new all-time favorite chocolate. You wouldn’t think that ginger and dark chocolate would be such a fantastic combination but they are. It’s now a proven fact.

You can purchase the Dark Belgian Chocolate with Organic Raspberry Tea and Dark Belgian Chocolate with Ginger Black Tea directly from the Tea and All Its Splendour website.

Caffeine free herbal blend with Saskatoon berries, apple pieces, peach pieces, raspberry pieces, strawberry pieces, linden flowers, cranberries, cherries, orange peel

The sweetness for this blend is spot on. No complaints here.

The tartness meter was definitely tipped in the almost too much range. As I drank this tea, I grew used to the tartness and actually enjoyed this tea very much.

A great blend of fruits and berries that can be enjoyed hot or cold at all hours of the day.

You can purchase the Canadian Berries directly from the TeaFrog website.

Kalahari describes this tea on their website as “The blend of naturally caffeine-free herb with deep flavor or roasted cacao, and fresh essence of lush, juicy ripe raspberries.”. (side note: Copy editing is available for a nominal fee – grammer/spelling mistakes on an e-commerce website are a no-no!)

I always approach samples with trepidation when I receive teabags for review. I am happy to review anything, but I WANT to like the tea. Tea companies send their teas for reviews, because they believe that they have a good product, and we receive many of these, however, I seem to have developed a bias against tea bag teas. That being said, Rooibos is naturally a small, in fact tiny leaf, so we are not dealing with fannings or dust necessarily as we would with, say, a green tea tea bag.

The smell of this tea in the bag is a pleasant mix of Chocolate and Raspberry, which are individually among my list of favorite ingredients, so we have a promising start! While the bag is brewing in the cup, I get that nose of Raspberry with subtler Chocolate undertone.

I brewed the tea with boiled water, for 5 minutes, my standard Rooibos brewing method. The color is a dark red, as are almost every single Rooibos cup I have ever had. The taste is a bit more subtle than I had expected however. I was wanting a burst of Raspberry and Chocolate, but got only a hint of each. Despite the scent, the Chocolate is the more predominant flavour, with the Raspberry just barely there. It is not overpoweringly Chocolate, which is good, but I personally would prefer a bit more tartness from the Raspberry. Since the ingredients list only Raspberry flavour, not actual Raspberry, it is to be expected that there is no actual tartness, which this blend could have benefitted from in my opinion.

Overall it is not a bad tea, but at $0.31 per bag, I am not sure that you have value for money, when you can get other loose leaf Rooibos blends for closer to $0.10 or $0.15 per cup.

You can purchase Kalahari Tea Raspberry Truffle directly from their website.

“Luscious, succulent raspberries highlight this ruby red hibiscus flower infusion. Pleasantly tart and extraordinarily sweet.”

Well, that about says it all! Tea Forte has become one of my favorite go-to tea companies for robust tasting teas. So far, they have not disappointed on any of the teas I have tried, and this one is no exception.

The second I put the unique (and quite neat!) pyramid shaped tea bag into the water, a bloom of red spread throughout the water, so deeply red I had to check myself for cuts! Then the scent hit me, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was a raspberry tea I was about to indulge in.

Forget the ingredients list, this is purely raspberry, through and through. A tangy, mildly sweet taste of raspberries straight off the vine filled my mouth at the first sip, and lingered long after I licked every drop out of the cup! If you are not a raspberry fan, then this is not for you, as there is no doubt this is all raspberry, and nothing but the raspberry!

There is not much more to say, other than, again, Tea Forte delivers. I do have to say, that it is a little high in the price range for the bagged tea, so go loose if you are going to purchase it directly from Tea Forte. For my money, this is one I would actually consider stocking the cupboard with, as I can imagine that as an iced tea, it would be just as good as it is a hot tea, and a perfect refreshing drink for a hot summers day.

You can purchase Tea Forte Raspberry Nectar directly from their website.