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Flavour: Raspberry & Lemon

Ingredients: Hibiscus, rosehips, blackberry leaves, natural lemon flavouring with other natural flavourings (8%), natural raspberry flavouring with other natural flavourings (7%), rose petals (5%0, lemon peel (5%), liquorice root, natural flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: Around £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: It smells like cleaning products…and it tastes cleaning producty, too. We had to fight to taste any raspberry. The box says there’s ‘a hint of rose petals’ but we found the rose before any fruit, unless you count the horrible citric acid feeling in our throats. Ginger asked, ‘Could it be nicer cold?’ Tulsi said, ‘It’d just be cold cleaning products.’ After a while, Ginger asked, ‘Why am I still drinking this??’

Best time of year to drink this: Summer, if you must

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoons, if you must

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Flavour: Sleep Breezy

Ingredients: Lemongrass, chamomile (15%), rosehip, apple pieces, flavouring, blackberry leaves

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £4

Bags Per Box: 12

Review: We were worried about the peach smell, especially when there’s no peach in the ingredients list. It must be the flavouring. It was very strong and we were dreading drinking it. We had good reason. It’s not very exciting – it’s just bleh. The flavouring ruins whatever else it might be, because it is so artificial, and it lingers disgustingly in your throat for ages afterward. Chamomile and rooibos also don’t mix well together. It’s incredibly sweet. With each sip, the experience gets worse. It’s a definite AVOID.

Best time of year to drink this: Never

Best time of day to drink this: Never

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Flavour: Brighten Up

Ingredients: Hibiscus, apple pieces, ginger (10%), rosehip, flavouring, blackberry leaves (5%), blackcurrant leaves (2%), raspberry pieces (1%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £4

Bags Per Box: 12

Review: This is another of those generic hibiscus / rosehip teas, with some ginger thrown in to try to jazz it up. The smell is very strong, but the taste is almost non-existent. We couldn’t identify much other than hibiscus, and even that was watery, with a lingering tartness. It’s not bad but we don’t really think it’s worth the price.

Best time of year to drink this: Spring or summer

Best time of day to drink this: After a meal

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Flavour: Wild at Heart

Ingredients: Hibiscus, apple pieces, rosehip, blackberry leaves, blackcurrant leaves, flavouring, strawberry pieces (1%), pink pepper (1%), safflower

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £4

Bags Per Box: 12

Review: Looking at the ingredients, we immediately decided this was another one of those fruity teas that are all more or less the same. It smells very strongly of strawberry, which is nice but likely down to the flavouring more than the 1% strawberry pieces. The flavour is very strong, too, and hard to pin down. After a while, we decided it was artificial rose…and strawberry Jolly Rancher sweets. It’s not awful, but it’s quite tart. We can imagine someone liking it, but we prefer other variations of this same sort of blend.

Best time of year to drink this: Spring or summer

Best time of day to drink this: After a meal – it’s quite sweet

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Flavour: Morning Time

Ingredients: Apple pomace (37.5%), hibiscus, rosehips (24%), spearmint, lemongrass, orange peel, guarana seeds (1%), blackberry leaves, ginseng root

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: This is a generic hibiscus tea, but mixed up with lemongrass and a very mild hint of spearmint (that’s all you can smell, when you brew it). We don’t feel this mixes well with the tartness of the hibiscus or rosehips. Lemongrass also has a tendency to taste artificial, even though it’s not, and it overpowers the other flavours here. In fact, we couldn’t discern any of the other flavours, despite that intriguing list of ingredients.

It probably does wake you up…but not much. 1% guarana seeds infused in water isn’t likely to make a huge difference to your day; and the ginseng content must be less than 1% if it comes at the very end of the ingredients list. Overall, this tea isn’t bad, but we think it promises to do more than it will – and the flavour isn’t especially interesting, either.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon

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Flavour: Lemon & Ginger

Ingredients: Ginger root (37%), natural lemon flavouring with other natural flavours (25%), lemongrass, blackberry leaves, lemon peel, sweet fennel, natural ginger flavouring with other natural flavours (3.5%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £1.69

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: Twinings have a few variations on this same blend. This isn’t our favourite of them, but it’s okay. It smells lemon-scented cleaner (that’ll be the lemongrass), and the ginger makes your nose sting – but at least that means it’s lived up to its name!

Drinking it, you get quite a gingery kick…but otherwise, not a lot of flavour. Despite the aroma, it’s weirdly lacking in lemon flavour (apart from a bit of a ‘soapy’ taste). We brewed it a long time and it never seemed to develop. You feel it more than taste it.

So, it’s not bad. It’s good for digestion, too (although steer clear of it if you’re pregnant, because of the fennel). It’s just that as a drink, we think Twinings have done better versions of this, like their Spiced Ginger or Ginger & Lime. Unfortunately, those seem to be harder to find in the shops – Ginger & Lime has even been taken off the market, and we can’t understand why. After you’ve had that, these lemon blends can only disappoint.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer

Best time of day to drink this: Morning / Afternoon, after meals (to aid digestion)

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Flavour: Strawberry & Raspberry

Ingredients: Hibiscus, natural strawberry, raspberry and loganberry flavouring with other natural flavouring (16%), orange peel, blackberry leaves, apple pieces, rosehips, liquorice root

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £1.69

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: This was disappointing. It smells like strawberry sweeties – very sweet and unnatural. The taste, however, is pretty much just hibiscus. There was the slightest hint of…something…possibly a berry…but it was so subtle that it was almost not there.

So, this wasn’t awful. We just don’t understand why you would buy this over a straight hibiscus tea.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon

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Flavour: Superfruit Infusion

Ingredients: Hibiscus, apple pieces, elderberries, raspberry pieces, strawberry pieces, blackberries, pomegranate flowers, blackberry leaves, natural flavours

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-Free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £9.95

Bags Per Box: 15

Our Review: Oh no…elderberries. Any time we see that on a list of ingredients, we already know it’s a no. In fact, generally speaking, we’ve reached a point where we’re wary of anything with a name like ‘superfruit infusion’ because we know exactly what will be in it without looking at the label. The market is inundated with each company’s take on this same blend.

We really did try to keep an open mind about this one, but it absolutely lived up to expectations. It is disgusting. It has that cheesy, footy, ‘off’ smell that elderberry infusions always have, wafting up unpleasantly the moment you pour the water. It looks like blood, the way all elderberry infusions do (not just in colour, but in thickness too). It doesn’t matter how healthy it is for you – everything about it screams, ‘I’m vile and not fit for human consumption!’

On top of that, for nearly £10 for just 15 bags (!) it tastes just like every other boring fruit tea on the market, which are all heavy on the hibiscus and apple – and flavouring. If this is your thing, you’re better off buying a cheaper version – preferably one without feet, er…elderberries. This one ‘just shouldn’t exist’, we decided – not with that price tag. As expected, this is an AVOID.

Best time of year to drink this: Never

Best time of day to drink this: Never

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Flavour: Sleepytime

Ingredients: Chamomile, spearmint, lemongrass, tilia flowers (lime flowers), blackberry leaves, orange blossoms, hawthorn and rosebuds

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: This is one of Celestial Seasonings’ staples going way, way back – a childhood memory for Tulsi. It has endured for so many years because it is such a lovely experience to drink it – and it lives up to its name: it makes you feel very sleepy.

The aroma is minty fresh, but also lightly fruity with a hint of sweetness. It’s a nice one to sit with in bed at night, just letting the smell envelop you.

On tasting, you can’t identify any one ingredient (apart from spearmint), and that’s a good thing. We’re not big fans of lemongrass (which has a strangely artificial flavour) or anything floral (it can taste like perfume), but this one blends these ingredients together in just the right way. There’s a subtle hint of lemon, and a touch of floral that adds a bit of depth, but nothing overpowering.

Although a great one for unwinding, this one is also strangely wakeful: it clears the head, allowing you to forget the concerns of the day and drift off. It would also be excellent if you’re feeling a bit run down, and the inclusion of spearmint helps sooth the tummy, aiding digestion.

We both love it, and Tulsi drinks it a lot. It’s her essential bedtime drink when she wants to de-stress, detox and shut off for the night. It is a definite must-have tea.

Best time of year to drink this: Any time

Best time of day to drink this: Bedtime

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Flavour: True Blueberry

Ingredients: Hibiscus, rosehips, orange peel, natural acai, natural blueberry flavour with other natural flavours, blackberry leaves, wild blueberries and blueberry leaves

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: If you’ve been following this blog regularly, you’ll notice we’ve been reviewing certain brands in batches. With Celestial Seasonings, we did a big order of every flavour available to us here in the UK and eagerly tried them all out. What you quickly spot is that the ingredients lists don’t change much, for these fruity blends. All of it is just hibiscus, rosehips, orange peel, blackberry leaves, and then flavouring to give the tea its name. It’s not imaginative and it doesn’t speak of a broad knowledge of herbs.

This might be the worst one we’ve tried in this range. The smell is artificial, like children’s fake grape fruit punch or even perfume – specifically, L’ancôme’s Hypnose, if you remember that one. You know: the smell of ‘purple’.

It tastes like that, too – tart hibiscus mixed with ‘purple’, and way too sweet at the back of the throat. It’s basically Welches grape juice but without the sugar, so maybe it’s a good one for kids, but we can’t understand why any adult would want to drink this – and there isn’t a hint of blueberry to it.

It’s been a while since we’ve branded a tea ‘avoid’ but this is definitely in that category.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer, if you must

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon, if you really want something painfully sweet

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