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Flavour: Honeycomb Cookie D’oh!

Ingredients: Rooibos, cocoa nibs, Sri Lankan black tea, puffed quinoa, oat flowering tops, stevia, natural flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7 for 50g

Review: Interesting, mixing black tea with rooibos, as usually rooibos is used as a tea substitute. This one smells and tastes really sweet, which is unsurprising with stevia in the mix. It’s almost vanilla-y but not very honeycomb-y, in our opinion. It wasn’t our favourite, simply because it wasn’t that exciting. It wasn’t bad, though. Someone will definitely think this is a nice dessert tea to have after meals – lunch, especially, so you’re not kept up all night by the black tea.

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime?

Best time of day to drink this: After lunch, for a calorie-free treat

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Flavour: Chocolate Digestives

Ingredients: Shri Lankan black tea, cocoa nibs, cocoa shells, fenugreek, liquorice, natural flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7 for 50g

Review: Bird & Blend are this magical company that manage to make all manner of flavours that sound like they’re going to be disgusting and artificial…and then turn out to be heavenly. This blend is no exception. It smells malty, a bit like a biscuit dunked in chocolatey black tea. The flavour is similar, but light on the chocolate. It has an edge of caramel, but not too sweet; you can’t distinguish the liquorice. The black tea is mild, not bitter at all. Overall, it’s gentle, warming and soothing, the ingredients mixed together in a delightful balance. It’s a perfect afternoon treat, like a calorie-free chocolate digestive, just as the name promises. Gorgeous!

Best time of year to drink this: It feels wintry

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon, to get you through a long work day

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Flavour: Nutty Chocolate Flavour Assam Tea

Ingredients: Black tea, cocoa nibs (20%), hazelnut flavouring (8%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: Around £2-3

Bags Per Box: 12

Review: It smells like…tea and hazelnut flavouring – really sweet. The taste was surprising. We expected an overwhelming hazelnut flavour, but it’s more like gentle black tea with a subtle sweetness. It doesn’t taste artificial. In fact, it gets nicer with each sip and makes a very pleasant brunch treat.

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime

Best time of day to drink this: Brunch / afternoon

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Flavour: Glass Slipper

Ingredients: Black tea, orange, blue cornflower petals, natural vanilla flavour, natural bergamot flavour, natural crème flavour

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7.99 for 50g

Review: Smells like tea, tastes like tea. From their Fairytale collection, this is a light, mellow blend. It’s basically black tea but with a creamy texture and a faint citrus edge, making it less bitter than your average tea. The vanilla makes it slightly sweet, which is good if you’re the type to add sugar to your tea but you want to cut back. It isn’t the most exciting blend we’ve ever tried, but it was nice enough.

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime

Best time of day to drink this: Morning / afternoon

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Flavour: Dark Caramel

Ingredients: Black tea, toffee flavouring (7%), golden syrup flavouring (5%), flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: Around £4

Bags Per Box: 40

Review: Take a look at that ingredients list…now, predict what we thought of this blend. The smell is awful – like flavoured instant porridge, when you first open the packet. The taste is intensely sweet – reminiscent of artificial, sugar-free caramel syrup, like you’d add to coffee. In fact, the whole thing is coffee-like…as in, some flavoured concoction you’d get somewhere like Starbucks. Not straight coffee. We’re not marking it an avoid because we imagine there will probably be people out there who like it – but we couldn’t stand it. It has the most yuck aftertaste, as well. Just…no. That one got immediately donated to the office cupboard, where we work.

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn / winter

Best time of day to drink this: Morning / afternoon – not at night

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Flavour: Dark Chai

Ingredients: Black tea, spice flavouring (11%), ginger (10%), cinnamon (8%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: Around £4

Bags Per Box: 40

Review: First of all…spice flavouring?? Why not just use real spices? The result of going the artificial route is that almost all you can smell or taste is clove. After just one sip, we couldn’t feel our mouths. It’s medicinal, almost…but also strangely watery, with a hint of black tea at the end. It’s not terrible…but there are definitely better chai options on the market.

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn / winter

Best time of day to drink this: Morning / afternoon – not at night

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Flavour: Dark Grey

Ingredients: Black tea, bergamot flavour (6%), smoked black tea (5%), lemon flavour (3%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: Around £4

Bags Per Box: 40

Review: It’s…Earl Grey, you know? It smells citrusy, and a bit smoky as per the Twinings ‘Dark’ range. But all in all, it’s pretty standard. There’s a slight smokiness to the flavour, but it’s not that different from normal black tea. You can’t really go wrong with this one. It’s just not that exciting, either.

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime

Best time of day to drink this: Morning / afternoon – not at night

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Flavour: Base

Ingredients: Black tea, pomegranate, cherry stems, moringa, cacao beans, cranberry, cornflower and safflower petals

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £6.75 for 60g

Review: Another interesting one from this company. It smells like a black forest gateau, chocolatey and fruity. It tastes like so much more, though. It journeys through a variety of flavours, almost citrusy at first, with black tea at the end. It’s a little tart, but with a smooth chocolatey aftertaste. Complex and gorgeous, it’s very hard to describe – but we highly recommend it as a rounded, warming drink to start your day.

If you live anywhere near Glastonbury (or visit there regularly), you can bring in your empty glass jar and have it refilled at a discount to the full price. Alternatively, you can order online at their official website. Do recycle the old jars

Best time of year to drink this: Spring / summer

Best time of day to drink this: Morning / afternoon

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Flavour: Dark Moon

Ingredients: Black tea, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, white pepper, jasmine petals, rose petals, lavender petals, clove, nutmeg

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £6.75 for 60g

Review: Our first review for this shop, which Tulsi found on her last visit to Glastonbury. Her husband left her for an hour (it was very clear she would be a while) and she literally sat on the shop floor, surrounded by approximately 90 varieties of tea, sniffing each one of the tester jars until she went nose blind, trying to narrow down her selections for purchase to something reasonable. (She bought seven.)

This one has a gorgeously earthy, spicy smell. The flavour of the black tea is mild and not too bitter. Although there are a lot of flowers in the blend, it’s not distinctly floral. They got the balance just right, making an infusion that doesn’t taste of any one thing. It’s well-rounded and robust, dark and wintery. It’s so soothing that we have to stop ourselves from drinking it in the evenings – it’s easy to forget the caffeine. It’s also pretty to look at in the jar, too! Highly recommended. And if you happen to live anywhere near Glastonbury (or visit there regularly), you can bring in your empty glass jar and have it refilled at a discount to the full price.

Alternatively, you can order online at their official website. Do recycle the old jars

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn / winter

Best time of day to drink this: Morning / afternoon

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Flavour: Butter Ale

Ingredients: Black tea, apple pieces, cocoa nibs, rosehips, butterscotch flavour, marigold flowers

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7.99 for 50g

Review: Another from their Witchcraft & Wizardry collection, this time inspired by Harry Potter. The ingredients lists sounds amazing until you hit that butterscotch flavour. Then you think, No no no no NO! And that’s about how the drinking experience goes. The smell is horrible, like burnt sugar, and very fake. The taste is not as strong but incredibly artificial, with an awful, lingering aftertaste. We couldn’t taste the cocoa at all, just generic sweet and bitter simultaneously…and long-burnt caramel. Ginger managed to ‘suffer through’ the rest of the cup but Tulsi couldn’t have any more. This is an AVOID.

Best time of year to drink this: Never

Best time of day to drink this: Never

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