This review is being written in the middle of a heat wave.  Industrial air conditioners around town are failing in the force of the oppressive heat.  The skin on the back of your legs begins to cook the moment you step foot out of the house, causing many to turn and run back into air conditioned houses, making the heat worse on the next visit outside.

What better time for a tea that tastes of ice cream and mentions it would be great iced?

Like all the NecessiTeas blends I’ve tried, it smells amazing.  Orange peel, creamy notes and tea blend into an aroma to make the angels of frozen confectionaries cry.  Once brewed up it’s a lovely light yellow green.  Unsweetened, the tea and the orange peel are front and center.  The pleasantly bitter flavor of the orange combines well with the green tea base to make a pleasant drink.  There’s a hint of a creamy after note.  When I let the cup cool, the green tea took over more and the flavors hid.

But it’s an ice cream flavored tea, so that, to me means SWEET.  So I sweetened my next cup.  YUM.  It brought out the cream flavors, and mellowed the orange flavor while not loosing the tea itself.  When this cooled, it retained the dreamcicle flavor, and stayed an excellent sipping tea.  I tried steeping the leaf again – and was pleasantly surprised that the added flavors remained strong.

This is a yummy, yummy tea.  It’s a flavored green that manages to highlight the added flavors without losing it’s basic tea-ness.  I’d strongly reccomend a sweetened iced cup of this for a warm summers evening, sitting out watching the fireflies.

You can purchase the Orange Creamsicle directly from the The Necessiteas website.

I tend to like tropical tastes. Much to the chagrin of my family, when I order pizza, I usually choose pineapple and ham as toppings. This just grosses people out but I like it. So how about pineapple tastes in tea?…keep that thought in mind, okay now add to it guava. This combination makes me think that you’ll either love it or hate it. As separate food and drink items, I like it so I’m game to try the combo too. Not too sure about the flower petals in it though. We’ll see.

Opened up the package and found a mesh-stitched teabag filled with not small fannings or dust in the teabag but whole leaves that looked of good quality and only a tiny bit of blue flower petals. Steeped the teabag in boiling water for 3 minutes as per the instructions. Aroma is very fruity and floral. A very pleasant fragrance.

I agree with Mighty Leaf that the “green tea blends harmoniously with the sweet tropical fruits of pineapple and guava” and this may be part of the problem. It would have been more distinctive had the green tea had some of the characteristic grassy or vegetal notes of other green teas. Because of this, it tasted more like a tisane than a green tea blend. The taste of pineapple also seems to be lost in a stronger base note of the sweet guava. The blend does seem to come together quite naturally with the floral notes. It is an okay beverage but tastes too much like many fruity, floral teas I’ve tasted. It doesn’t stand out but it’ll do. I could take it or leave it.

You can purchase Mighty Leaf Green Tea Tropical directly from their website.

There are over 5 million ways to divide the world into two groups. Licorice is definitely one of them. People either adore black licorice or hate it. I personally fall into the “love it” camp – unless it’s salt licorice. Because it’s just.. odd. Blea.

There are a few ways to get licorice-like flavors. There is the traditional licorice root, but anise, star anise, and fennel all contain similar flavoring agents. All these plants contain the chemical compound anethole which provides that signature flavor. And while all are similar, there are subtle differences. Licorice root is sweeter, anise is more aromatic, fennel is milder, and star anise has a bit of a bite.

This tea uses star anise to get it’s licorice flavor. On first sniff, the leaf smells very much like standard licorice. But once it started to brew, the notes of star anise come out much more strongly. It develops into a very light yellow brew – likely due to the white tea. On first sip, the licorice is very mellow, soft. Almost more plant-y than standard licorice. The hay-like features of the white tea blend well with the plant-y features of the star anise to merge together into a nice mellow cup.

Of all the various plant anethole-delivery systems, star anise is my least favorite. I don’t like the small, strange bite it delivers. I like all the others (I even have this amazing bread dip recipe that uses fennel*) much more, but even with this mark against it, this tea does not disappoint. It’s mellow, smooth, and yummy. Because it’s not so strongly licorice-y, even those who fall into the camp of licorice hater may like this tea. Good blend.

*G’s amazing bread dip
1 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp salt
4-5 turns of fresh ground black pepper
1 tsp chopped garlic
Olive Oil

Take the first four ingredients, grind in a spice grinder until they’re a fine powder. Blend with the chopped garlic in a mortar and pestle until you get a nice paste. Blop the paste into the center of a shallow bowl or deep plate. Pour olive oil over the paste, stir slightly. Serve with fresh bread. And drink with strong tea – because any other type will be overpowered by the dip.

You can purchase the White Licorice directly from the Golden Moon Tea website.

This blend is identical in smell to BTC’s Berry Medley. Berry Medley is a black tea blend while the Berry Twist is a red rooibos blend.

This tea is caffeine free, which is always a good thing to have in your tea cupboard for those late night cups of tea. For me, the aftertaste of the rooibos is too strong and left me wanting a cup of Berry Medley. If you like red rooibos with fruity notes, this is the tea for you! Enjoy.

You can purchase the Berry Twist directly from the Boston Tea Company website.

Loose tea blend of lemongrass and ginger.

The ginger was a bit mild for my liking. The lemon seemed to take a back seat to the other flavors in this blend. As I sipped this tea, I was continually hit with the sensation that I was drinking hay. It was drinkable, but will I choose this particular tea again from my cupboard, probably not.

Well, I did choose this tea again and I liked it better, I let it steep longer and that seemed to overcome the hay sensation I experienced with tasting number one.

Overall, a good caffeine free choice from Tea Forte.

You can purchase the Ginger Lemongrass directly from the Tea Forte website.

The cold weather always makes me reach from stronger blends so today I’m trying a nice black tea blend from SpecialTea Brew. It’s called Pink Grapefruit and you can see pieces of citrus mixed in with the dark leaves. The dry leaves smell amazingly rich and fresh, really inviting.

Steeped it in almost boiling water (195 degrees) for just over two minutes and it brewed up to a nice red color. It smells really good while it’s steeping, not a grapefruit scent though, more orange than anything. It’s a nice clean brew with very little dust. Tastes really smooth but a little bit on the bitter side, thinking I may have to steep it in slightly cooler water next time. I’d recommend it to anyone looking to warm up and wake up on cool morning.

You can purchase the Pink Grapefruit directly from the SpecialTea Brew website.

This is the second tea blend I have tried with Formosan and Indian teas. I am wondering about Formosa teas are. They are from Taiwan. From what I can gather, Formosa teas are oolongs. So, I am supposing that the one in this particular blend is on the black side of things. This does explain the flavor profile. I was not expecting an oolong to be in this tea. I think a shorter infusion in my smallest teapot would be a better brewing method for this tea.

I was right, less leaf and a different brewing vessel improved this tea. I treated the leaves as I would if I were brewing on oolong: less leaves, cooler water, small tea pot.

Ok, now to the review of this tea.

Amber colored liquid poured from my teapot to my cup. First smell is of a traditional tea smell. No fancy additives taking away from the tea leaves. The sip revealed an earthiness that is hard for me to pinpoint. If you could taste water running over smooth stones, that would be this tea. It is simple tea with many layers of flavor.

The astringency is there, but I expected that with this blend. All the teas are bold in their own right and then to have here all together in one blend, this is one tea that definitely says Good Morning in a BIG way.

This will have to be a weekend tea for me. Time is a factor for me during the week, this tea will cause you to ponder the story of the tea leaves and solve the problems of the world. With each new infusion, another dimension unfolds. The second infusion is milder. I don’t see this going over two infusions and still being viable. I suppose the reason for this is the other two black teas as I rarely think that black teas taste good after two infusions.

All in all, this tea is good. If you are curious about oolongs, this may be a good starting place. It tastes like an oolong but has all the characteristics of black tea.

You can purchase the Winey Keeman English Breakfast directly from the Grace Tea Company website.

Orange Blossom is a deliciously fragrant tea blend from Rishi Tea. Rishi describes it as “a refreshing and floral blend of green teas with sweetly-scented blossoms, lemongrass and tropical citrus fruits”. The listed ingredients are organic and fair trade certified green tea, organic lemongrass, organic osthmanthus flowers, organic lemon myrtle, natural essential oils of orange, lime and tangerine.

Out of the bag the tea seems to be more lemongrass than green tea leaf – a very pretty combination of light and dark green with a scattering of golden osthmanthus flowers. Not surprisingly, the scent is strongly citrus – the orange, lime and tangerine combination almost mimics bergamot; with a nice fruity undertone provided by the osthmanthus.

After brewing, the blend maintained it’s refreshing aroma and produced a nice amber cup of tea. I really couldn’t taste the green tea in this blend, but it had a very pleasant taste; the citrus flavors were mild and not too sharp, and the floral notes added a sweetness rather than a perfumed taste. The lemongrass did a nice job of softening and tying all of the flavors together; although I think that between the lemongrass and the lemon myrtle, someone who didn’t like the taste of lemon may not like this tea. The lemony scent and flavor was not overwhelming for my tastes, but I was expecting stronger notes of orange based on the name of the tea.

Organic Orange Blossom Tea is available for purchase as part of the Xuan En Yulu Organic Fair Trade Sample Set from Rishi Tea.

You can purchase Rishi Tea Orange Blossom directly from their website.