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Flavour: Strawberry & Elderflower

Ingredients: Hibiscus, orange leaves, elderflowers (10%), natural strawberry flavouring with other natural flavours (9%), juniper berries (8%), rosehips, orange peel, natural flavouring, liquorice

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: Around £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: It smells like hard strawberry sweets, e.g. fruit pastilles / Haribo strawberries. One of us quipped that it’s ‘berry sweet’ – groan. The flavour is very similar to the smell, but with a subtle hint of elderflower cordial. There’s also an interesting earthy flavour, likely from the juniper berries. That might all sound like a vile combination, but it’s quite pleasant. We can imagine it iced in the summer, with fresh mint leaves, although it works as a hot dessert tea, too. And despite all the ‘flavours’, it tastes completely natural. We would happily buy this again…though it should be noted that we apparently had it the wrong way. The box says you have to drink it in a ‘glass mug’!

Best time of year to drink this: Summer, especially

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoons, or after a meal

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Flavour: Elderflower

Ingredients: Pure elderflower petals

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £10

Tin Size: 125g

Our Review: This smells very planty, but the taste is much more flavourful than that. It’s a bit like chamomile flower, but not too floral. If you’re expecting elderflower cordial, bear in mind that the flower on its own is not sweet at all. It’s really pleasant and gentle. Tulsi’s son had the idea that sweetening it with honey might be ‘flabbergastingly nice’ – it wasn’t. Just take this one plain, and enjoy how soothing it is!

Best time of year to drink this: Summer

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon

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Flavour: White Tea with Elderflower and Pear

Ingredients: White tea (59%), green tea (20%), carob, natural flavouring, elderflower (1%), pear pieces (1%), marigold flowers

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £3

Bags Per Box: 15

Review: We loved this. Despite the name, there isn’t much elderflower or pear in it, and that keeps it from becoming sickly. The flavour is subtle. The floral and carob combination undercuts the white tea, keeping it from getting bitter, while the tea keeps the other ingredients from being too sweet. It’s strikes just the right balance – gorgeous, light, delicate and refreshing. It was an instant favourite that we can’t recommend enough.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer

Best time of day to drink this: Morning or afternoon

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Flavour: Minty Chlorella (or ‘minty cholera’, as one of us accidentally said)

Ingredients: Peppermint (27%), lemongrass (25%), liquorice, basil, lemon balm, white hibiscus, guayusa leaves, moringa, lime, chlorella (1%), baobab fruit, nettle

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 17

Review: This was disappointing. Knowing our tastes, we didn’t expect to like it – we just expected it to be more interesting than it is.

It smells like mint…and something unidentifiably green. The taste is very seaweedy – like sushi in a cup…with liquorice. That’s the biggest problem we have with it – the ubiquitous addition of liquorice where it is just not needed. We expect it’s there as a healthy alternative for people who usually load their drinks with sugar – but it ruins the flavour.

That said, this wasn’t as strong as we thought it would be. It’s aquatic…but mild. Kelpy, but weak. We couldn’t really taste anything else in the ingredients list. There isn’t a lot going on, here, so we don’t see the point.

Best time of year to drink this: Who knows?

Best time of day to drink this: Morning – it’s very caffeinated (guayusa leaves)

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Flavour: Natural Balance

Ingredients: Lemongrass (40%), liquorice (14%), shiitake (10%), fenugreek (10%), elderflower, linden flowers, basil, moringa, dried kombucha drink

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 17

Review: We expect there are people out there who will like this one a lot…but it really wasn’t for us.

We took it on an office tour, asking colleagues what they thought it smelled like. Responses included mushroom stock, cottage pie, stew, and ‘beefy’.

The taste is very mushroomy, and spicy, just as we expected. If that’s what you want to drink, fine. The issue is that you then get this blast of liquorice that is intensely sweet, which we just don’t understand. It’s like this blend doesn’t know what it wants to be – savoury or sweet. It’s largely savoury…so just be savoury! Why the liquorice? Still, we think someone out there will like it, so we haven’t marked it an ‘avoid’…even though we are definitely avoiding it!

Best time of year to drink this: Maybe more in the colder months

Best time of day to drink this: Mid-morning, when you’re trying to keep from snacking

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Flavour: Sleepytime Echinacea Complete Care

Ingredients: Echinacea, European elderberry extract, European elderflower extract, eucalyptus, stevia leaf, chamomile, spearmint, peppermint, lemongrass, tilia flowers

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: Now, we know what you’re thinking – elderberries, no! But stick with us, because this is one of the best teas out there. It’s also significantly different from their standard Sleepytime blend.

The scent is minty, with a planty undertone. It’s earthy, restful and soothing. The flavour is more flowery, like a fruity, floral spearmint. Stevia leaf gives a hint of sweetness but in just the right dose, without overpowering the blend. In fact, even if you dislike half the ingredients that go into this one (we’re not great lovers of lemongrass or elderberries, or straight chamomile), the balance here is spot on. Every sip is a special moment in itself. It’s smooth and gorgeous and refreshing and best of all, it knocks you right out within a half hour of drinking it. You will absolutely look like that bear on the box (cap and nightgown are optional).

They seem to have rebranded this one a number of times, with a new ‘Immune Boost’ variety that we haven’t yet tried. In our experience, adding vitamins to a tea just comes out tasting like…vitamins. The ‘Complete Care’ variety, however, is a definite must-have for any tea lover, especially if you struggle with insomnia.

Best time of year to drink this: Any time

Best time of day to drink this: Bedtime

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Flavour: Earl of Dorset

Ingredients: Orange blossom, orange peel, chicory root, lemon peel, liquorice root, elderflower, flavours (bergamot, orange, elderflower)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £2.50

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: So, Dorset Tea were clearly trying to play off the classic Earl Grey blend, but without the black tea. They’ve replaced it with chicory root, and we just don’t think this works – especially because they’ve thrown liquorice into the mix. When was liquorice ever part of Earl Grey?

The smell is like old, soggy grass, with an undercurrent of orange peel. The taste is orange and chicory…and chicory…and chicory…and then liquorice. Too much chicory is bitter, and liquorice is sweet. The two don’t mix or offset each other; they just contrast sharply, so that you get one flavour assault after another.

Maybe this tea is better if you don’t brew it quite so long, but we think it’s an odd combination of ingredients either way. We’re not saying avoid…but it’s definitely not for us.

Best time of year to drink this: Any time

Best time of day to drink this: Morning

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Flavour: Blackcurrant & Blueberry

Ingredients: Hibiscus, rosehips, blackberry leaves, natural blackcurrant and blueberry flavourings with other natural flavourings (7%), liquorice root

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £1.69

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: Yet another one of these blends. It smells strongly of blackcurrant – like hot Ribena. And it tastes like that too…but milder, with no calories.

There isn’t a lot to say about this one. It’s a pretty generic fruit tea. If you aren’t fond of blackcurrant, stay away. If you love Ribena, this is a calorie-free alternative. That said, we prefer their Beetroot Burst blend, which has more flavour, including more blackcurrant.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon

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Flavour: Cranberry & Raspberry

Ingredients: Hibiscus, apple pieces, rosehips, natural cranberry and raspberry flavouring with other natural flavouring (10%), elderflowers (8%), liquorice root

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £1.69

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: Twinings clearly decided to make one blend of tea and change the flavouring each time to claim it’s something new. This is really just your typical hibiscus, apple and rosehip tea, which is the foundation of pretty much all mainstream fruit teas on the market. We’re surprised it doesn’t include sweet blackberry leaves, like the others do. Strangely, liquorice has been added, for reasons we can’t work out. Perhaps it’s to take the edge off the tartness of the hibiscus? But there is so little of it in the blend that you can’t taste it or tell what effect it has – just as you can’t taste the elderflowers.

The flavouring makes it smell very fake, despite them calling it natural. It is extremely floral, in an unappealing way. The taste is largely hibiscus and rose, but mildly so. It’s quite watery, even if you brew it for a long time. We couldn’t taste any cranberry or raspberry at all. It is very bland and, in our opinion, not worth the money. There are much better fruit teas out there.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon

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