Please be advised – this note contains a rant, you can skip it if you like.
This is not a tea I would have normally bought for myself. It was given to me as a gift, which I am grateful for. Stepping out of the box!
Let rant begin: I hate it when a tea blend contains a sweetener, this one has stevia. If I wanted a sweetener in my tea, I would add it myself. Now I totally understand teas like pineapple upside down cake and pankcake breakfast, that contain a sweetener in the blend. But that is because they are mimicking a food. But there are teas that add sweetener, whether it be stevia or rock sugar or whatever, that don’t necessarily need it, like this tea. I will make my tea how I like it, please don’t force your sugar on me!
End rant.
On first smell, I wasn’t quite sure. To me it smelled like fermenting fruit/berries/grapes, like if you have ever smelled the mash that is used to make wine (and no, I am not a moonshiner).
On first smell, I got a sweet, tart smell, much like Sweet Tarts Candy. But underneath, there is that fermenting fruit smell. It almost has a carbonated drink smell to it, like pop/soda.
The tea tastes nothing like it smells. To me it tastes strongly of stevia (you will know what I mean if you have tasted the leaves of a stevia plant). I can taste the metallic notes of rooibos and the lemon verbena. A faint, slight generic fruity undertone, but I would not say it was raspberry. There is the aftertaste that I get with drinking carbonated drinks.
It does not taste anything like it smells, but I am still overall not a fan. I think I was jaded by reading the ingredient list, and thus, going on a rant. I think I will try is as a cold brew as I do with most of my herbals, and see what happens.
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I am with you on that one!
I totally agree with you. There were a couple of teas I was looking into from Davids and as soon as I saw ‘stevia’ listed in the ingredients I passed. Like you, I’d rather choose whether to add sweetening or not. =/ Especially in the case of your sample you had from Teavana. I understand sweetening a brewed sample inside store locations, but mixing in sugar with the dry leaf!? Not cool.
I agree completely! I wish a lot of vendors let their tea stand on their own – it’s not exactly a vote of confidence that they add sugar.
I didn’t mind this one, actually, but I think it really depends on how much stevia you get in a cup, which seems to vary. For instance, I love Banana Oolong even though it has stevia… but when I hit the bottom of my bag? Barf. All the stevia seemed to have accumulated down there or something. It was disgusting. I think I had the same experience with two batches of DT’s Blueberry Jam as well; one was amazing, and the second was so stevia-heavy it was gag-worthy. Sigh. I’d personally also prefer it was entirely left out. I’m quite capable of adding my own sweetener… (and yeah, when things like maple sugar or chocolate are ingredients in a blend, that’s one thing… stevia is another.)
I am with you on that one!
I totally agree with you. There were a couple of teas I was looking into from Davids and as soon as I saw ‘stevia’ listed in the ingredients I passed. Like you, I’d rather choose whether to add sweetening or not. =/ Especially in the case of your sample you had from Teavana. I understand sweetening a brewed sample inside store locations, but mixing in sugar with the dry leaf!? Not cool.
I agree completely! I wish a lot of vendors let their tea stand on their own – it’s not exactly a vote of confidence that they add sugar.
I didn’t mind this one, actually, but I think it really depends on how much stevia you get in a cup, which seems to vary. For instance, I love Banana Oolong even though it has stevia… but when I hit the bottom of my bag? Barf. All the stevia seemed to have accumulated down there or something. It was disgusting. I think I had the same experience with two batches of DT’s Blueberry Jam as well; one was amazing, and the second was so stevia-heavy it was gag-worthy. Sigh. I’d personally also prefer it was entirely left out. I’m quite capable of adding my own sweetener… (and yeah, when things like maple sugar or chocolate are ingredients in a blend, that’s one thing… stevia is another.)