Brand:

Flavour: Spring

Ingredients: Green tea (75%), ginger root (5%), cardamom pods (5%), lemon myrtle, lemon verbena, flavouring (cardamom, ginger, lemon), marigold flowers

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £11 for 125g

Review: In the tin, this just smells horrible – cleaning products in the extreme. Once brewed, it’s much less offensive and simply smells of lemongrass. On tasting, however, all we got was green tea. Do not overbrew. Ginger literally flailed her arms on the first sip. The lemon and spices were non-existent. We can’t see the point of buying this when there are other, cheaper versions of the same thing – blends that actually succeed.

Best time of year to drink this: Spring

Best time of day to drink this: Morning

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: Fruity Vervain Delight

Ingredients: Lemongrass (27%), candied mango bits, moringa leaves (9%), verbena, chamomile, orange peel, natural flavouring, fig slices and sunflower blossoms

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £10

Tin Size: 125g

Our Review: This is another one that smells like lemon-scented kitchen cleaner. The flavour is thankfully milder, although we didn’t get any of the fig, mango or flowers promised in the ingredients list. It’s just lemony, and then sweet at the end. That said, it’s quite nice, and the other stuff thrown into the mix takes some of the edge off that lemongrass taste, which we normally find too strong. Just don’t buy this thinking you’ll taste much more than citrus. It’s more like a softer lemon drink than most on the market. We can imagine it being very nice iced, on a hot summer afternoon.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon

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: Blue Apple Lime

Ingredients: Dried apple pieces (28.5%), cinnamon, kaffir lime leaves (15%), blue butterfly pea flowers (15%), spearmint, lemongrass, lemon verbena, flavouring and citric acid (acidifier)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £10

Tin Size: 125g

Our Review: This one is so much fun. It smells citrusy – like lime – and it tastes like it, too! With some apple. Despite all the flowers, it’s not too floral until the aftertaste – there’s a bit of an ‘after-floral’, you could say. It has a subtle sweetness. It’s a hard one to describe – complex and distinct, interesting without being mind-boggling. It’s soothing and a good one for having in the evening, at the end of a long day. We also highly recommend adding lemon juice, which a) makes it taste even nicer and b) changes the colour from a rich bright blue to a gorgeous purply pink in your cup – magic! Just be careful not to overdo the lemon juice. We think it tastes best when the blend shifts into a kind of dark fuchsia rather than going all the way pink.

Best time of year to drink this: Spring / summer

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon or evening

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: Detox

Ingredients: Fennel (20%), lemon peel (16%), lemongrass, burdock root (10%), ginger (10%), spearmint, natural lemon flavour with other natural flavours (7%), rooibos (1%), natural lemongrass flavour, verbena, selenium (1%), natural basil flavour with other natural flavours

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: If you’re like us, you’re probably looking at that ingredients list and thinking that’s a lot of ‘natural flavours’. Yes, this means oils and other essences from the plant used. However, in this case, we don’t see the point. Natural basil flavour?? Why not just stick dried basil directly into the blend? And what purpose does the 1% addition of rooibos serve? We also highly doubt that 1% selenium is going to do anyone any good compared to taking a selenium supplement or eating selenium-rich nuts. This is just something to stick on the box to make the tea sound like it has extra health benefits, to make you buy it.

As you can tell, we don’t like this – at all. It smells disgusting, like lemony kitchen cleaner. Tulsi’s son said, ‘No no no no no – if you drink that tea, you are wrong.’ It tastes just as bad as it smells: foul. It’s painfully sour with that artificial-tasting edge to it that lemongrass and verbena always gives a tea, despite it being a natural plant – and there are just too many other flavours in there, competing for attention, none of them balancing each other out. Being total nerds with day jobs in the financial services industry, we couldn’t help but look at all those ingredients and declare this tea over-diversified. Even in the tea world, you really do need a more concentrated portfolio than this.

We’re marking this one 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!

Brand:

Flavour: Turmeric Glow

Ingredients: Turmeric root (40%), pin ho wild jade green tea (20%), liquorice root, cardamom pod, lemon essential oil flavour (6%), lemon whole (6%), lemon verbena leaf

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Our Review: When this first came out, there was quite a trend for turmeric blends. We saw loads of them inundate the market seemingly overnight. Not all of them worked, but this one really does. Turmeric is growing in popularity due to its anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties. Taste-wise, it works well in tea because it’s a little like ginger (being in the same family), but milder.

This blend smells a little like an Indian savoury dish. It tastes a little like one, too. We couldn’t taste the green tea at all, which makes it a great way to get the health benefits and wake-up effect of that tea but without the bitterness. It’s nice and smooth, citrusy and a touch spicy – and it just might do the trick if you’ve got the mid-morning munchies but don’t want the calories. But be careful not to spill any. Turmeric stains!

Best time of year to drink this: Any time, but especially when it’s cold out

Best time of day to drink this: Mid-morning and mid-afternoon, in place of calorific snacks

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: English Garden Tea

Ingredients: Chamomile, lemon verbena, rose petals, nettle, blue cornflowers, lavender

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-Free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £9.95

Bags Per Box: 15

Our Review: On paper, this shouldn’t be something we like…but we love it!

It smells just like an English garden – fresh, flowery and bound to make you smile. However, that lovely aroma made us worried about the taste, because normally floral blends are like drinking perfume – it’s just too much. But this isn’t like that. The balance of ingredients is just right: instead of perfume, it’s soothing and relaxing, particularly perfect for winding down in the evening and preparing for bed.

We like it so much that it’s gone straight onto our Must-Have Teas list – but it’s expensive, so we thought we’d compare it to two other similarly floral blends we’ve reviewed before:

T2 Gone Surfing – this has several ingredients in common with Liberty’s blend (lavender, chamomile, rose petals, and lemonbalm as a substitute for lemon verbena). The main difference is that T2’s blend includes spearmint, which makes it refreshing and wakeful, whereas Liberty gives us a cup of pure wind-down tea.

Pukka Love – Again, this includes chamomile, lavender and rose petals, as well as elderflower, marigold and limeflower. We loved this one when we tried it, but both T2 and Liberty take this blend and crank it up a few notches to make something even more special.

In conclusion, Liberty and T2 both give us a moment of magic in a cup, with Liberty carrying a much higher price tag. Even so, it’s definitely worth the money, as a once-in-a-while treat.

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime

Best time of day to drink this: Anytime, especially evenings when you want to relax

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: Mint Mix

Ingredients: Peppermint, spearmint, lemon verbena

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £7.50

Cups Per Box: 40 (approx.)

Review: As you would expect, this one smells strongly of lemon sweets and menthol – in a bad way.  It’s pretty disgusting.

On drinking it, we couldn’t understand the inclusion of lemon in a mint drink.  Yes, in food, you might get such a combination…but with real lemons, not lemon verbena!  All it does is make the mint taste slightly bitter and leave a tacky feeling in your mouth.

The experience of drinking this tea is like drinking shampoo – it’s a soapy feeling, not refreshing at all.  Despite that, we don’t necessarily hate it…we just think there are far better options out there.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer

Best time of day to drink this: After lunch, 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: Lemon, Ginger & Manuka Honey

Description: A welcoming cup of spicy sweet organic bliss

Ingredients: Ginger root (32%), licorice root, elderflower, fennel seed, lemon verbena leaf, turmeric root, lemon essential oil, lemon myrtle leaf, whole lemon (4%), manuka honey flavour (2%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: When you first brew this infusion, it smells just like Pukka Three Ginger.  The taste, however, is different.  It’s like Three Ginger, but with a lingering artificial aftertaste, a bit like soursop (probably because of the manuka honey flavouring).  It doesn’t help that it’s chock full of all those lemony plants that are 100% real, yet taste like they were cooked up in a laboratory.

That said, this is probably a good one if you have a cold, to act as an antiseptic and a throat soother; so this blend has its place, even if we don’t fancy it as a casual treat.

Best time of year to drink this: Colder months, when you feel a bit poorly

Best time of day to drink this: Anytime, really – it works as a morning wake-up drink (because of the lemon), but it’s also soothing in the evening

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 & Madarin

Description: ‘An organic citrus sensation to cheer your senses.’

Ingredients: Licorice root, sweet fennel seed, orange peel, rosehip, hibiscus flower, lemon balm leaf, lemongrass, lemon verbena leaf, lemon myrtle leaf, lemon whole (4%), mandarin essential oil flavour, lemon essential oil flavour (4%)

Caffeine Factor: None

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Our Review: Just look at that ingredients list: it’s every artificial-tasting lemon-like plant thrown into one drink.  Does the thought fill you with as much horror as it did us?

This blend smells just as worrying as the ingredients list looks; like factory-produced lemon sherbet.  Surprisingly, it doesn’t taste as bad as we expected.  It’s sort of warm and pleasant, though it carries a sweet, synthetic-tasting aftertaste.  There might be some people who would enjoy this as a snack tea.

That said, it’s been over three years since we first bought a box of this stuff, and Three Tulsi STILL hasn’t managed to get through it.  She keeps seeing it in the tea cupboard at home and thinking, ‘No, no, not that one,’ and pushing it aside.  It probably ought to be binned, now.  It won’t be purchased again.

Best time of year to drink this: All year round, if you like this sort of thing

Best time of day to drink this: Again, if those lemony plants are to your taste, this is a good all-day tea

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: Lemongrass & Ginger

Description: ‘An uplifting organic lemony zing with a flying finish.’

Ingredients: Lemongrass (48%), ginger root (28%), licorice root, lemon verbena leaf, lemongrass essential oil flavour (4%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Our Review: The smell of this one is gingery – a little fiery, but with an earthy undercut, which is pleasant and warming.

Unfortunately, even after five minutes’ brewing time, this is quite a watery drink lacking in flavour.  There’s no kick like you’d expect from ginger; and as it cools down, the sweetness of the licorice becomes sickly.

It’s not the worst drink we’ve ever had, but it’s definitely not worth the money.

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn / winter, if you’re 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!