Strawberry Cream

I’ll save you all the disappointment. Tastes like hibiscus. And it is nearly identical to Davidstea’s Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait. I expected a more sophisticated taste since it’s a delicate white tea base, and David’s is straight up fruit.

I’m thinking a splash of vanilla soy milk might make it nicer, or maybe as a latte… Or I say screw it, brew it all as a great big jug of iced tea and let the husband have at it.

I won’t rate this low because I’m only disappointed that it didn’t have a more complexed and unique flavour – my own fault. And for the price that I paid I should just shut up and drink my tea.

HOLY HIBISCUS! I don’t mind a bit of it, but this is the only thing that comes through in the cup. Next time I’m going to pull out some of the hibiscus bits. I can’t wait for this to be gone! They totally ruined it with all that hibiscus.

Personally I am not a lover of Teavana. I find them overpriced for very mediocre tea and like many others, I hate their customer service and business model. My friend, on the other hand, loves Teavana and consequently decided to share a couple of her teas favorites for me to try.

I made this both hot and iced to compare the two side by side. Tbh, both lack flavor. The hot cup is like creamy water (if that makes any sense at all – think the taste of water with a creamy mouthfeel) with a touch of berry tartness at the tail end of the sip. The iced cup is slightly sweeter and leans toward the artificial strawberry candy flavor but again, it is very watered down. Neither is impressive at all which is probably for the best given I would hate to have to deal with Teavana to get more. 169.

This tea smells delicious and brews up to a beautiful ruby red – exactly the color of a ripe strawberry! Unfortunately, the flavor doesn’t live up to the presentation. I definitely taste the strawberry and there is a slight hint of creaminess, but I find the hibiscus makes it unpleasantly tart, especially if you brew it too long. Probably won’t be repurchasing this one.

Lately I’ve been strangely craving strawberry teas (any recommendations would be great!) so I bought a few from Teavana. I decided to start with this one and bleh. It’s unpleasantly sour and doesn’t quite have that nice strawberry tartness as Davids’ Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait.

I blame you, hibiscus.

So what I actually did for my second cup was go through the leaves and weed out the dried pieces of hibiscus ( I know .) and well…at least the sourness was gone. Haha.

It just became a rather bland strawberry tea. Then I realized that it would taste like that since it’s in a white base. I guess I’ll try mixing and matching it with some other teas or cold-brewing it. Bottom line is, would not buy again.

It smells mellow, sweet, and a little tart. But I was wrong. This tea is too tart and too bitter.

I’ve tried decreasing the amount of tea, and decreasing the water temp. Still not a good outcome! The tea was overly tart every single time. I would like it more if I knew how to fix it, but fail every time.

Even if I steep about 5 seconds too long, it still effects it!

I’d like to give a huge shout out to the wonderful person known as Ost! She saved me from the dregs of Finals week and sent me some lovely teas to try. She took the dying out of studying :P tehehe..

This tea smells like strawberry ice cream :] It has a beautiful rose color. In the beginning it was was pretty tart.. but I did really like the smooth creamy taste that followed. On the tip of the tongue, it has a pretty artifical strawberry taste and on when it reaches the back, it has a tart bite to it. The white tea does not really take center stage as you can hardly taste it. But this tea rebrews well. I almost like the rebrewed tea better because it gets rid of the overwhelming tartness. And I found that it tasted better when lukewarm instead of cold or hot. interesting. Over all, it was a pretty decent tea:]

Made a few pitchers of this as iced tea. Nice and fruity with low caffeine. Added some liquid stevia and berries!

Tried this last night at a friends place. I like strawberry, and I was alright with a berry tea, but this is sadly lacking in the promised cream component of the flavour. I was hoping for a bit more muted of a strawberry, softened by some vanilla tinted cream notes. Not so much. Tart, tart, and more tart would be an apt description. Interesting, glad I tried it, not something I would run and reach for again.

Oh, Strawberry Cream, I debated getting you for so long. You sounded so delicious, and, indeed, your first cup was all creamy fruity perfection. Subsequent cups have, unfortunately, fallen quite flat and I get more sucker-punch strawberry than anything else. You’re not bad, Strawberry Cream, but I think I’m going to take a long hiatus from you.