I’m trying to do my reviews for summer teas (anything fruity or refreshing) two ways-hot and iced. Some teas are fantastic iced, and some are awful, and I love a big glass of iced tea in the summer. I’m searching for that perfect pitcher. Perhaps I’ll find something so great I’ll want to brew it up even in the winter, when I usually gravitate towards holiday tea (who doesn’t love holiday teas?)

On to the first cup, which I brewed up hot this morning. It has slight fruity aroma, but mostly just smells like a breakfast black tea. There are hints of green and white tea in this blend, but the green tea is more pronounced.

Overall, this tea is pleasant enough. The fruit flavors are much more subtle than I’d prefer, but the taste isn’t at all off-putting. The pineapple is more dominate than the strawberry, which is really only present in the form of a tiny kiss of sweetness. I’m kind of hoping that brewing it iced will bring out the fruity notes. Sometimes a bland hot tea is transformed over ice. I don’t know how or why, but sometimes I get lucky and the tea goes from blah to fabulous.

I’m sitting down with my iced cup and regret to report that I don’t detect much difference in fruit flavor. It’s undeniably pleasant, but tastes more like regular black iced tea. The lack of flavor is especially disappointing because it is such a unique, vibrant combination.

The blend tastes fine, but I’m giving it a 4/10 because it’s supposed to be pineapple strawberry tea, and that it is not.

The Kiwi Watermelon was my first pick because you usually see kiwi strawberry, and this blend has watermelon instead. Watermelon teas are hard to come by (if anyone knows of a good one, please let me know!), and whenever I find one, I must try it.

Simpson and Vail doesn’t disappoint on this first blend. My first cup is iced and overall pleasant. It’s very fruity, I was actually surprised by the full-bodied flavor. The only thing is, the sweetness of the kiwi is a little artificial tasting, though not so much so that it puts me off. This is marvelous iced-it almost tastes as if a splash of fruit juice has been added.

I brewed up my hot tea next, letting it steep for three minutes. The tea is perfect and not at all bitter (not something to take for granted with a flavored black tea). My cup has an aroma that slightly resembles watermelon bubble yum gum, without the sugary sweet aspect. When brewed hot, there’s no artificial taste, which is the first thing I noticed when I took my first sip.

The only reason I didn’t give this a ten is for the slight artificial taste when iced, which I’m quite willing to overlook in the overall picture-I just thought I should make people aware of the slight imperfection.

When brewed hot, the hibiscus is even less pronounced (thank goodness). The blend has decent acai flavor that’s equally sweet and tart, and the blend produces a pretty raspberry-colored cup.

I love superfruit teas, and I’ve tried a lot of acai blends. This is better than some I’ve had, and not as good as others. It is very drinkable, and if you like fruity tea, you should give this one a try. I’m giving it a six because it’s not extraordinary, but it’s still worth your time.

I must give a little disclaimer going into this review: I’m no expert on puerh tea. I have a couple of blends that I’ll drink a cup of every couple of weeks, and while I enjoy it, it’s by no means my specialty.

I would like to try this tea again. I followed package directions exactly, yet the tea was quite bitter. I’d like to try again, steeping under the suggested time. From what I can tell, the puerh has decent flavor, but it’s hard to get past the bitterness. It has a good bit of mint flavor, but again-it’s hard to tell exactly how strong it is.

This blend has a yummy, standard moroccan mint aroma once brewed, in the tea bag the scent if fantastically minty and sweet. I was also impressed by the gorgeous apricot color it produced.

As my cup cooled a bit, the bitterness subsided slightly. With what I can taste, I’d assume this is a good blend that just needs to be brewed for less time than what’s indicated, but I can only give it a 5, since I can’t guess how much better it’d be without it.

I agree with most of their description. The scent is summery and wonderfully tropical. If you were going by the smell only, you’d think it was an herbal tea instead of black tea. This is also true of the taste, as I was very impressed with the sweet,fruity flavor. It was much more than what I was expecting from a black tea base.

The ingredients are Black tea, natural flavors, marigold petals, mango, and passion fruit. The passion fruit and mango flavors mingle together, and compliment each other well. There are honey and rose undertones that give this blend depth, and that’s possibly what they mean when they say “dessert liqueur”.  I wouldn’t say this tea is rich, but it’s definately surprisingly complex. I’ve tried a lot of black based tropical blends, and more often than not, they disappoint. This is a pleasant, well balanced, and full flavored tea. I’m sure it would make an excellent cup of iced tea as well.

The aroma of this blend is minty and uplifting. I happen to be under the weather right now (as I always seem to be this time of year), and the scent helped clear my head a little. The tea is soothing, just like the website suggests. It calmed my scratchy throat and allowed me to breathe easier, though just while I was drinking the tea , of course.

This tea isn’t just to soothe a cold, it’s well-rounded and would make a good cup of tea whenever you need to wind down. The minty spice and touch of raspberry are perfect to end any day. Out of all the similar blends I’ve tried, this is by far the best.

TeaGschwendner continues to impress me, and I have to wonder-why haven’t I heard of them before now?

I couldn’t even really taste the white tea, it just seems like someone stuck a slice of lemon in a glass of water. I really don’t like wasting tea, but it was very hard to finish the cup I had made.I wouldn’t recommend this blend to anyone. I tried to think of this from someone’s perspective that really enjoys delicate, very light tea, and I still can’t say anything good about it, because the little flavor that is there just isn’t good, period. Mighty Leaf offers many tasty teas, but this isn’t one of them.

I don’t have much else to say about the taste, it’s very much the same as the scent of the blend. I was hoping for a smooth black tea-even if the vanilla wasn’t obvious, it would still be drinkable. But the black tea is considerably bitter. I even brewed it twice, being extra careful with the second cup to time it perfectly, and the taste didn’t change. On top of that, I couldn’t detect any vanilla flavor. I especially think it should be detectable if they have real vanilla beans in the blend, instead of just artificial flavor.

I gave it one last shot, thinking perhaps a small splash of soy milk would bring out the flavors and make it creamy, more tolerable. It didn’t help much, other than cutting the bitterness a little. The vanilla flavor was still completely absent. I feel like I did what I could with this blend, but there’s just no flavor to be found, and the black tea isn’t good on it’s own. I wouldn’t recommend this blend.

The aroma of this tea is very alluring, I picked up several things from it. Of course, it smells like melon and peach, making the scent very fruity and playful. It has honey and wheat-like undertones in the scent and also in the taste itself, and it really works with the melon and peach flavor. The fruity notes are tasted together, and the honey and wheat comes later in your sip for a smooth finish.

This tea tastes very fresh, and it’s flavor is light and pleasant-light, yet you can still taste all of those different flavors, which really impresses me. Usually I like more flavor in my blends, but this is very nice and unexpected. I’d recommend this to anyone that enjoys white tea, flavored or not. It’s light enough but pronounced enough to appeal to either side. It’s one of the freshest tasting whites I’ve had in a while. This airy blend is absolutely worth a try.

If pomegranate is paired with another fruit, usually all you can taste is the tartness of the pomegranate. Any sweetness from the other fruit is often completely masked, it’s almost never balanced. If pomegranate is the only fruit in a blend, I’ve found that it tastes nothing like a pomegranate, but more like sour cardboard (I don’t really know why this is. Maybe it’s just bad tea).

This blend is perfectly balanced. Acai’s richness helps tone down the pomegranate’s tartness, and for once you can really taste the acai, making them compliment each other perfectly. This is by far the smoothest, most balanced, flavorful acai/pomegranate black tea I’ve tried-and there are a lot of acai/pomegranite combinations out there (it’s also hard to find a black tea base with so much fruity flavor!) In addition to the amazing flavor, it smells impossibly fruity and pleasantly tart.

I don’t ususally bother with decaf blends, because I don’t need to for any health reasons, and caffeine doesn’t seem to affect me one way or the other. I’ve been told this is a good thing, because a lot of decaf tea really lacks in flavor. I don’t know how true that is, given I don’t drink decaf tea, but I wanted to note that that is absolutely not an issue here. If you need decaf tea, you will get your fruity flavor fix here. I would never think this blend is decaf if it didn’t say so on the bag.

This is a definate repurchase for me. Now I have four “superfruit” favorites. I’m really excited to try this iced, I’m sure it will be wonderful and refreshing. Tell your friends about this blend, especially if they have a hard time finding good decaf tea!