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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: Exceptionally Ordinary

Ingredients: Orange, hibiscus, rooibos, peppermint leaves, liquorice, lemon balm, lavender, passion flowers, milk thistle, marigold flowers

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7.99 for 50g

Review: Ooh interesting, having more orange and hibiscus than rooibos. It’s quite a medley of ingredients you usually see in different blends. Sadly…maybe there’s a reason they aren’t usually mixed together, because the flavour is mild hibiscus and hot water, with a slightly minty aftertaste. It’s like one of those ‘a touch of fruit’ water drinks but boiled. One of those rare teas that lives up to its name, it truly is ‘exceptionally ordinary’.

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime?

Best time of day to drink this: Anytime?

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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: Christmas Tea

Ingredients: Rooibos, cinnamon (13%), liquorice, coriander, honeybush (6%), orange peel, cloves, black pepper, anise, dried lemon juice, star anise (3%), cardamom, roasted chicory, lime, orange oil, cinnamon oil

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £3

Bags Per Box: 17

Review: This is gorgeous. We wish we could find it all year round! It smells like herbal chai, but milder, and with a slight fruity sweetness from the orange. The flavour is soothing and warming. It’s lightly sweet but with a warm spicy after-kicky-thing…and some refreshing orange. It’s a perfect, well-balanced blend that we would have every day, if we could. We hope it comes back next winter!

Best time of year to drink this: All year round (but obviously it’s marketed for the winter)

Best time of day to drink this: Evenings – perfect for unwinding after a long day

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Flavour: Fresh Inspiration (formerly Pure Freshness)

Ingredients: Spearmint, peppermint, ginger, anise, cinnamon, lime, black pepper, cardamom, lemongrass, fennel, cocoa shells, liquorice, peppermint oil, dried lemon juice, cloves, spearmint oil, ginger oil

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 17

Review: It quite literally smells like toothpaste. The flavour is initially very startling (no one expects to drink toothpaste!)…but then it gets better. It’s just so minty fresh…then bitter…then spicy (the black pepper KICKS at the back of the throat)…with a lingering feeling of coolness. It’s a highly confusing drinking experience. It’s definitely wakeful, and it would clear your breath after a meal out. The oils are just so strong that we wouldn’t personally drink this casually.

Best time of year to drink this: Whenever

Best time of day to drink this: After a meal

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Flavour: Feisty Turmeric Guru

Ingredients: Ginger, turmeric, lemongrass, liquorice, lemon peel, clove, natural lemon flavour, natural ginger flavour

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: All organic except the flavouring

Price Range: £4

Bags Per Box: 15

Review: Lemongrass again…so, it smells like cleaning products, this time mixed with the savoury aroma of turmeric. It’s a drink that makes you think of dinner time. Unfortunately, the flavour leaves much to be desired. Even if you leave the bag in for a long time, the taste never really develops. It’s incredibly watery, with a hint of turmeric. There’s a slight fiery kick, but it’s very brief, and then nothing. It’s not awful. It’s just pointless, especially for the price.

Best time of year to drink this: Whenever

Best time of day to drink this: Whenever

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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: Bee Happy

Ingredients: Peppermint (30%), apple (14%), chamomile flowers, liquorice, hibiscus, rosemary, sage, lavender flowers (2.5%), thyme, yarrow, oregano

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 17

Review: This is a hard one to describe. There’s something very pretty about it.

If you look at those ingredients, they’ve taken lots of savoury herbs and mixed them up with fragrant flowers, plus refreshing mint, tart apple and hibiscus, and a hint of sweetness (liquorice). In combination, the blend is harmonious and milder than we expected – not too sweet or savoury but just right. It’s a great one for after meals – refreshing and, despite the long ingredients list, simple. We’re not sure how to the taste into words, but we highly recommend this one. Both the aroma and the flavour is soothing and cheerful, just like the name suggests.

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime

Best time of day to drink this: Anytime, but especially after meals

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Flavour: Sun Salutation

Ingredients: Cinnamon (26%), roasted chicory (21%), cardamom (16%), barley malt, orange peel (8%), liquorice, black pepper, orange oil, lime

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 17

Review: This was an instant favourite. We’ve had a hard time finding it in physical shops, so the last time Tulsi visited Glastonbury (where she first found this one), she bought 6 boxes. You can easily order it online, as well.

It tastes just like it smells – smooth, warming and wakeful. Although the aroma is largely chicory with a hint of orange, you can’t pull out any one ingredient on its own, when you taste it. They’re perfectly balanced to create a drink that’s lightly spicy, richly earthy, and not too sweet. It’s refreshing but somehow hits the same spot as coffee, likely due to the chicory and barley malt. It’s a great one for the morning, or after meals, or in the evening when you want to wind down. We could drink this all day and never get tired of it – one of the best in Yogi’s whole range.

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime

Best time of day to drink this: Anytime

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