Flavour: Cocoa & Coconut Rooibos

Ingredients: Rooibos (50%), cocoa shell (33%), coconut flakes (10%), sweet cinnamon (cassia), flavouring (4%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £3.50

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: Coconut never goes down well in tea. Can we all just agree on that? So – the aroma of this one is so coconutty, but in a savoury way, like a Thai dish but not natural. On tasting it, we quickly declared it the worst we’d ever tried. The most tragic thing was that we both felt the need to taste it again, to work out what to say in this review…but that necessitated drinking more of it. It’s just so overpowered by flavouring, and the taste of sugared desiccated coconut…left in a cupboard for too long. There’s a musty, gone-off vibe. We shared it around our office to get further opinions and the general consensus was that it was awful – in fact, someone said it tasted like ‘vomit’. Then, unbelievably, one person said, ‘I like it – I’d give it a strong 7.’ So it’s obviously a marmite tea…but for us, it’s an AVOID.

Best time of year to drink this: NEVER

Best time of day to drink this: NEVER

Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our blog so you don’t miss out on tea reviews, new flavour announcements, recommended tea accessories, and much more!

Flavour: Caramel Rooibos

Ingredients: Rooibos (74%), sweet cinnamon (cassia), liquorice root, caramel flavouring (3%), chicory, vanilla flavouring (2%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £3.50

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: We didn’t have high hopes for this…but it actually wasn’t bad. The smell is like toffee apples, which must come from the caramel flavouring. The taste is initially okay, although quite sweet…and then you get an unpleasant aftertaste from the artificial flavours. Thankfully, there’s enough rooibos in there to stand out. It wasn’t really for us, simply due to that after-taste, but we could imagine people liking it. It’s like drinking toffee apples, basically – not for us, but kind of alright.

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn – imagine bobbing for apples in October

Best time of day to drink this: After lunch or dinner, as a dessert alternative

Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our blog so you don’t miss out on tea reviews, new flavour announcements, recommended tea accessories, and much more!

Brand:

Flavour: Mint & Fennel

Ingredients: Peppermint (41%), spearmint, ginger root, sweet cinnamon, fennel (9%), aniseed, liquorice root, cardamom (3%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £2

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: Despite the name, it smells overwhelmingly of liquorice, threatening to be intensely sweet. Thankfully, it doesn’t taste as strong. In fact, it hardly tastes of anything. It’s water, with a mild gingery kick…and that’s about it. We left the bag in for ages, but we never got any mint, and the fennel was swallowed up by other ingredients. It’s not bad, but we didn’t see the point. It certainly didn’t deliver what the name promises.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer?

Best time of day to drink this: After meals, for digestion

Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our blog so you don’t miss out on tea reviews, new flavour announcements, recommended tea accessories, and much more!

Flavour: Double Mint

Ingredients: Peppermint (70%), Spearmint (30%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £2.50

Bags Per Box: 15

Review: This blend has a really bright scent – like menthol, but less overpowering, because of the inclusion of cooling spearmint, which immediately opens your senses.  This would be a good one to hover over and inhale when you’re a bit congested.  And it reminds you so much of fresh mint leaf tea, despite it being dried, which is lovely.

The taste is equally cool and fresh; the spearmint really comes through.  It makes a nice alternative to other mint teas on the market, which tend to focus on peppermint and can be a bit heavier.  We love this one, and recommend keeping it in the cupboard next to Tesco’s Finest Peppermint Leaves, as they complement each other well.  While the Tesco offering is great to have after meals, this one would be good to have in the morning, to wake you up.

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime, but especially in autumn / winter when you feel a bit run down

Best time of day to drink this: Mornings

Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our blog so you don’t miss out on tea reviews, new flavour announcements, recommended tea accessories, and much more!

Brand:

Flavour: Lemon, Ginger & Honey

Ingredients: Apple Pulp, Flavouring, Ginger (12%), Rosehip, Lemongrass (10%), Apples, Blackberry Leaf, Chicory, Lemon Peel (0.5%), Honey (0.5%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £2.50

Bags Per Box: 15

Review: Once brewed, these pyramid bags smell strongly of the three eponymous ingredients. When you first take a sip, your mouth fills with lemon and ginger.  However, going down the throat, all you can taste is honey.  This makes it quite sweet, with a powerful after-taste, a bit like drinking Werther’s Originals.  It’s a struggle to identify any of the other flavours that supposedly go into this tea, though.  For example, we definitely can’t taste any rosehip or chicory.  It seems overloaded with ingredients, with no distinctive flavour apart from ‘sweet’.

It’s not really our ‘cup of tea’, but we can see why others might like it – so if you like that honey flavour in your hot drinks, you might want to check this out.  It’s going to be good for sore throats, too, so it may be worth trying if you’re feeling a bit poorly.  The sweetness also makes it an option after lunch, to avoid snacking, and the ginger makes it a decent wake-up drink.

Best time of year to drink this: Any time, if you like this sort of drink.

Best time of day to drink this: Mornings and after meals.

Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our blog so you don’t miss out on tea reviews, new flavour announcements, recommended tea accessories, and much more!

Flavour: Blackberry & Blueberry

Ingredients: Hibiscus, Apple Pulp, Blackberry Leaf, Flavouring, Apples, Blackberry (0.5%), Blueberry (0.5%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: 75p

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: It smells very much of blueberry; even the used bag looks like pulped blueberries.  The flavour is mainly apple and blueberry, though Three Tulsi’s husband identified the blackberry (we couldn’t taste it, ourselves).  It’s a big watery, but flavoursome enough for this price range.  It’s a bit tart and not too sweet, making it a nice one in the afternoon when you want a treat, instead of reaching for the sweets.  Granted, it’s slightly artificial, but it’s good if you don’t want anything too strong.  The inclusion of hibiscus also makes it a good one for women’s health.

All in all, while this isn’t the best tea we’ve ever had, it’s a great low-budget tea.  It’s also much better than some pricey top-range fruit teas we’ve tried, making this a standard to which others must compare.  In short, if it costs much more and it’s still not as good as this Sainsbury’s blend, stick with this shop brand option.

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon or evening (after meals, to avoid sweets)

Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to our blog so you don’t miss out on tea reviews, new flavour announcements, recommended tea accessories, and much more!