Review: Hawaiian Natural Tea Pineapple Strawberry

Aug 31

Review: Hawaiian Natural Tea Pineapple Strawberry

Laura’s Teaview Snapshot

"If you gave this to me and I knew nothing about it, I can pretty much guarantee that I would guess this to be a strawberry white tea. "

Laura’s Teaview:	6.8/10
Other Teaviews:	Emma gave it 7/10, Lea gave it 4/10
Your Reviews:	Add your review »

Hawaiian Natural Tea is a company that I had never heard of until I came across them through my participation with Teaviews. I did not know that Hawaii was growing tea! If you spend a few minutes playing around on their website, you will find out that their tea is certified organic Hawaiian teas grown free of pollutants and harmful pesticides. I can tell you that as someone who has had the good fortune to have visited Hawaii a number of times that one of the things that stands out in my mind is the aroma of the pineapples that we could smell as we drove across the Dole Pineapple Plantation. Just deeelicious. There is also a lot of information on their website that really explains what being organic is all about for those wondering.

The tea bag is fairly typical and the aroma coming from it is pretty darn good. While I can detect some pineapple in the aroma, the overwhelming scent is that of strawberries. It very much reminds me of the smell of strawberry jam. Since their website lacks brewing instructions and the package that my tea bag came in does too, I was left on my own for brewing parameters. Since this is described as a blend of green and white teas, I used steaming water cut short of boiling as is my usual protocol when making green tea. I first infused for two minutes and then tasted the brew. It was still a bit on the weak side so I let it go to 3 minutes and thought that was as far as I wanted to push for fear of bitterness. Like the aroma the flavor is also dominated by strawberry. It is a nicely done strawberry flavor that does, in fact, evoke visions of strawberry jam. The strawberry flavor is well done. The pineapple is far less noticeable and I found myself having to work to taste it. The tea base is a little dry and is a mixture of white and green teas. I found that it didn't seem to be of a particularly high quality, but I guess that is somewhat expected of bagged tea. Even though I stretched the brewing time to a full 3 min, I still found the brew slightly weak. If you gave this to me and I knew nothing about it, I can pretty much guarantee that I would guess this to be a strawberry white tea. I doubt that I would be able to detect the green tea nor the pineapple without knowing they were in the blend.

Overall, I found the flavor profile or at least the strawberry part of it to be pretty enjoyable. Just knowing that Hawaii is famous for its delicious pineapple makes it a tad disappointing that the pineapple flavor was hard to detect. The tea base is a bit boring and not anything to rage about. However, I ultimately like this well enough that I would consider this when brewing loose leaf is not possible and a tea bag is needed.

— To purchase Hawaiian Natural Tea Pineapple Strawberry, 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.