"A bold but not too-tart blueberry tea that is simply heads and shoulders above the competition. One of the best of its kind I've ever tasted." Stephen’s Teaview: 8/10 Other Teaviews: Lea gave it 7/10 Your Reviews: Add your review »

SpecialTeas describes this blend thusly:

“The taste of summer any time of year! A wonderful berry blend with a fresh blueberry flavor. Lower in tartness than most fruit blends and lighter bodied. Makes a fablous iced tea! Naturally caffeine free.”

Blueberry Cocktail #720 includes blueberries (of course), grapes, hibiscus, beetroot bits, berry leaves, black currants and “flavoring.”

Now, I’m a big blueberry fan - I should say that straight from the start. There’s few things I enjoy more than pancakes on a Sunday morning, smothered with fresh blueberry syrup (preferably shipped straight from Maine). I’ve grown em, picked em, eaten em, preserved em, you name it. Blueberries and me, let’s just say we get along.

Except in tea.

Not once have I yet experienced that same blueberry joy with a so-called “Blueberry Tea”. They’re always either too faintly flavored, or have that god-awful, “artificial blueberry” flavor you’d expect to get in a low-grade children’s cereal or a pack of bubblegum. And the rare few that were neither ended up being far too tart, so that you had to literally pour your tea into a cup of sugar just to make it drinkable.

All in all, its fair to say, I’ve had some bad experiences when it comes to blueberry tea.

I’m happy to say that those days are now behind me.

SpecialTeas’ Blueberry Cocktail has plenty of flavor (check), actually tastes like fresh blueberries (check), and… drum roll please… has just the right amount of tartness! This, folks, is the one.

The tea brews up to a beautiful dark, reddish-violet hue, with a very faint, fruity aroma. The primary flavors on the tongue are fruity and tart - you can taste both the blueberries and the grapes here, with a hint of a warmer berry flavor in the background that must derive from the black currants. There are also beetroot bits and berry leaves in here forming the “herbal” part of this herbal tea, but you’ll be hard-pressed to detect them over the boistrous fruit flavors.

I thought about adding a pinch of sugar to this cup, but after recently over-sweetening a previous fruit-tea from SpecialTeas I decided to leave it as-is, with positive results. There’s definitely some natural sweetness here that leeches into the brew. Those who enjoy their tea on the sweeter side may want to still add a lump or two, but for me, this was just about perfect on its own.

If I had any beef at all with this brew, its that they might have gone a bit heavy on the grapes. I’m really not sure, maybe it would have been a total flop without them, but I think I would have prefered the blueberry flavor to have been more primary on the tastebuds, instead of sharing center stage with the grapes. You can still definitely taste the blueberry, but the only time you really have it all to itself is in the aftertaste.

Ah well, a niggling point for what is otherwise a very fine blueberry tea. I’d recommend it without hesitation as one of the best of its kind.

— To purchase SpecialTeas Blueberry Cocktail, or for more specific information on ingredients or the story behind this particular blend, click here to go directly to the manufacturer's web site.

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