Rainbow Sherbet

So I feel like I need to be honest with you guys: I curse like a sailor in real life.

I say that because my initial utterings upon tasting this tea are not, well… they don’t seem necessarily appropriate to say in a public forum. I meant it in a really, really good way though. Promise!

The first word that came to mind (after the expletives, haha) was whoa. This tea is soooo creamy. Tangy, fruity, and creamy, just like sherbet. I’m pretty weird in that I don’t actually like ice cream/sherbet/sorbets because a lot of the time its too sweet. Also I prefer to drink cold things, not eat them, and I don’t necessarily find milky things to be that refreshing when the weather is hot. I’m a right ball of fun, I know.

So that this manages to somehow sidestep all of my ridiculous criteria is pretty miraculous.
It’s got a creamy full texture which tea usually just doesn’t have on it’s own. The only way I get this texture in tea normally is by adding milk, but iced tea is not something you can add milk to (Ew. just the thought of that…) It tastes like ice cream without being ice cream. And I’m drinking it on its own, without a meal – it’s like dessert!

Um, LOVE. I hope I can get another 2 quarts out of this… but even if not I just went ahead and put one of each of the SBT iced tea flavors in a shopping cart because MY MOUTH IS SO HAPPY.

Thank goodness I saw that discount code when I did!

Oh, how I love this stuff. Truly like rainbow sherbet minus the calories. In fact, I like it even better because sometimes I just feel like experiencing the flavour of rainbow sherbet/ice cream but don’t want the actual sugar and milk and what not. So this is perfect.

Cold-brewed this in my new pitcher. YUM! This is PERFECT for cold-brewing. Just add the two quarts of filtered water to the pitcher and toss in the bag, seal the pitcher and the next day – delicious iced tea. I’m really glad that I decided to get two of this particular flavor and experiment with the cold-brewing, because as much as I enjoyed this tea hot-brewed, its better cold-brewed. This tastes much closer to the Rainbow Sherbet that I remember from last year. Sweet, delicious, fruity, and refreshing. LOVE! And I’m increasing the rating slightly because the cold-brewed worked out THAT much better!

Iced tea of the day……

I am so glad I decided to try a few of these. Iced tea is a necessity in the Summer, and what better way to get teenagers interested in good iced tea than Rainbow Sherbet flavor? It sounds so much more fun. I definitely get a creamy, citrusy, sherbety sweetness and the tea base does not compete with the flavor. Well done! While these fun flavors won’t completely replace my usual iced teas, I will be picking up a few more bags of this and trying a few more. How fun!

Usual iced tea method…one bag. I did add ice and water to close to 2 quarts. Definitely trying a resteep later.

After 16 hours, this turned out to be yet another tasty SBT! This perfectly captures the flavor of rainbow sherbet right down to its icy, fruity deliciousness. Yet another restock!

Okay, so I had NO idea how to prepare this one. And the instructions I found, uh, a bit on the baffling side:

Steep one teabag in 16oz boiling water for 3 minutes, strain tea into 2-qt pitcher, fill with cool water, serve over ice.

Okay, from reading Frank’s comments about these bags making “two quarts” of iced tea, I figured the “2-qt” thing was two quarts, but that still leaves me with the following questions:

-If it makes two quarts, why not make that amount hot and then chill it? Why prepare 16oz first and then water it down? Is this basically instructions to make a concentrate with the idea that the added cool water will make it instantly ready-to-serve?
-If it’s in a teabag in the first place, why would I need to “strain” it?
-Dear goofy Americans and your goofy measurements, WHAT ON THIS GREEN-BUT-OZONE-DEPRIVED EARTH IS A QUART?!?

I had to consult several cookbooks (the internet machine was being used by my sister, unfortunately) to determine that this “quart” thingie is apparently a [baffling!] measurement of 1.89271 litres. (Okay, I actually figured out that it’s a bit under two litres, and the internet machine gave me the exact number just now. Shush.)

Which, I’m sorry to say, reminded me quite a bit of this: http://i49.tinypic.com/14v63rn.jpg

I’m sorry America, but why. WHY AMERICA.

Anyway. Unfortunately, I do not even own a “2 quart” pitcher. I have a 1.6L pitcher (that’s 1.6907 quarts, for those of you following along at home), and that’s the biggest pitcher that will still fit in my fridge. Okay, I figured, that’s okay – the tea will end up a bit concentrated, but it’s RAINBOW SHERBET flavoured, so how could that be a bad thing?!

In the end, I decided to follow the instructions as exactly as possible, Just. In. Case. I put some rock sugar at the bottom of my pitcher, filled my 16oz Tea Master up with just-boiled water to get the measurement right, dispensed it into my pitcher and dropped the tea bag in.

Then I was left with the problem of how to fish the bag OUT again. Since it doesn’t have a string attached to it. Or, I guess, a rope, really, since it’s a big tea bag. I guess maybe that’s why the directions say to strain it?

Well, no worries! I figured, I’ll just use kitchen tongs! …But then I discovered (as my timer ticked down) that I can’t get the handle of the tongs past the opening. Whoops. I finally ended up just rolling up my sleeve, reaching delicately into the pitcher and fishing the bag out by one corner. Good thing I have pathetic skinny chicken arms; if I had hammy man-arms, my poor tea would have been screwed. Although I guess I could have tried pouring it back into the Tea Master.

I didn’t add cold water right away, since those darn rock crystals, awesome-tasting though they are, really don’t like to dissolve well. I added some more hot water and stirred until they did…then I added cold to fill, and stuck the whole thing in the fridge to chill for several hours. Whew! A more involved process for a pitcher of iced tea than I’ve bothered with before, but I guess I’ve got the details hammered out now.

So, the tea:

Dry smell is AMAZING. It made my entire kitchen smell exactly like rainbow sherbet from the moment I opened the bag! The wet smell is pretty much precisely the same, so I excitedly let my mother sniff the already-steeped bag, and she said it smelled like department-store perfume. (Sigh. I need to stop letting my mother smell my tea, because she always smells something strange in the leaves. No matter how bang-on the scent actually is, she always comes out with something like, “perfume,” or “paint chips.” Seriously, Mum?!)

Ultimately, it’s not quite as sherbet-y tasting as I was expecting. I was a bit surprised by this (given the strength of the tea’s scent), but there is definitely a smooth black tea coming through first, with sherbet more towards the back of the sip. But it’s definitely there, orange and lime and raspberry and something else that makes it specifically sherbet-like (and not like ice cream). The more I drink it, the more I feel like it grows on me, and indeed, the more I can actually taste the sherbet, too! This, like DAVIDsTEA’s Tropicalia and Root Beer Float is one that I decided to add milk to, because the cream (or something like it) implied by the flavour is so enhanced with a bit of milk. It didn’t exactly knock me over, but it’s still delicious, and I am going to go cold-steep the bag now for another pitcher to see what I can get out of it.

Phew! How can life manage to be so busy and so dull at the same time? :P I’ve been swamped with school work in the final class of my online graduate certificate. It’s proven to be an astounding amount of work. Luckily, my full-time job is dependent upon the certificate, so they do allow me to complete assignments during work hours. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be able to do it.

It’s also been so hot, I can’t even imagine drinking hot tea. Well, I can imagine it, but it’s not appealing. Time to try another iced tea from 52teas’ spin-off brand, Southern Boy Teas!!

I love sherbet! Lime sherbet is probably my favorite. My mom always used to buy me some when I got strep throat. I hope this tea will be a healthier alternative! I brewed it up per the instructions on the packet, except I subtracted one cup of water so I could add ice without diluting it.

But just like with ice cream, I’m not sure sherbet translates into tea well. I believe this tea is lime, orange, and raspberry flavored. Honestly, that’s kind of a weird combination in my book. I’m not sure what to make of it.

The more I drink it, the more the flavors blend together to become a true sherbet taste. It’s good, and it’s definitely well made. It’s just not a favorite flavor combo of mine. I think it may take me a few days to finish off this pitcher. If you love these flavors, then you really can’t go wrong with this tea! I just prefer the strawberry, vanilla, chocolate combo in the Neapolitan Ice Cream tea.

In regards to SBT ice cream flavoured iced teas, I think this one is better than the Neapolitan.

I made this one as per the directions on the package.

The dry tea bag smells deliciously like rainbow sherbet. It smells sweet but also that slight little bit of tartness that sherbet has.

The brewed tea tastes very similar to SBT cotton candy. You can tell that the taste is rainbow sherbet but the taste is not as strong as the smell. I find for the SBT iced teas, this one is much of a lighter taste, its not bad that is light, its just not in your face. You can taste the black tea, but it is not too strong and the flavouring works well with the tea. It is very refreshing. I did not add any sugar to this one.

Edit: Resteeped. Made an excellent resteep. Tastes pretty much the same as the first steep. I added some rock sugar this time around. It did sweeten it up a bit. Brought out the smallest amount more of rainbow sherbet taste. I am thinking this one would be excellent with a lot more sugar added. I’m just not in the mood for that today.

After Fiance and I finished the Cherry Limeade SBT in record time for us, I went for this one. And after cold steeping it overnight, I was really excited to try it!

I love it when excitement is well warranted. This really tastes like sherbet. Initally, I get lime, then orange, and then the raspberry, but the best moment is at the end of the sip where they all kind of come together and bcome a spoonful of guilt-free sherbet. It’s even a little creamy.

I personally didn’t add sugar because there’s a bit of natural sweetness, but I can’t see it as anything but delicious and even more sherbet-ty then.

(And only 5 more reviews till I hit 500! Yikes!)

Hmm… I just figured out that I’ve been misspelling sherbet my whole life…I thought it was sherbert? I try to learn something new everyday…I think this qualifies :)

I managed to try the second steeping of this and it was quite tasty.

“What happened to the first steeping?” you ask, well…

… I was making this in the perfectly sized glass pitcher that my family has had for years. In retrospect I should have made the hot tea in my teapot, but I was using it to make a different tea, and I wanted to get it brewing so I could get to bed.

As I poured the cold water into the jug, I heard a crick ping crack! I couldn’t see anything, but from the sound, it was evident that the structural integrity of the jug had been compromised. I finally decided to gently lift the jug to try and inspect it over the kitchen sink.

yeah…it didn’t make it.

As I started lifting the jug a sudden flood of tea surged forth, leaving the entire bottom piece of the jug on the counter, and me holding the sides of the jug while the tea gushed out all over the counter and onto the kitchen floor. Quite the mess, but at least it didn’t have sugar – that would have been shticky. I’m sad that I didn’t get the chance to try the first steep, but I must say, the kitchen smells glorious!

I must admit that I’m not really a sherbet kind of girl, but when 52teas had their sale I decided to give this one a go. The fruity citrus creamy taste is beautiful together with the flavor of the black tea. I think I’m going to have to go searching for another proper-sized jug so I can make more of these iced teas over the summer.