Brand:

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: 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: 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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Flavour: Fair Maiden

Ingredients: Hibiscus petals, mallow flowers, rosehips, strawberry pieces, apple pieces and natural flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7

Cups Per Bag: 40 (approx.)

Review: Another one from the fairytale collection. You can smell it from a long distance – it’s so sweet and strong, and very red – reminiscent of hardboiled strawberries and cream sweeties. Thankfully, the flavour is a little milder. It manages to be tart and sweet at once, without getting overwhelming like you’d get if they had thrown in liquorice (people, stop putting so much liquorice in every tea!). You might think this is yet another one of these hibiscus and rosehip teas, but they strike a much better balance than a lot of similar blends on the market. It’s a delicious dessert tea that manages to be strong without going over the edge, and we got through the bag very quickly. Highly recommended!

Best time of year to drink this: Summer

Best time of day to drink this: After a meal, especially in the morning or afternoon

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Flavour: Tropical Burst

Ingredients: Dried apple pieces, hibiscus, candied mango (10%), candied papaya, rosehip peels, beetroot, natural flavourings, fig and acai bits (acai, apple, apple juice, citric acid, rice flour)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £10

Tin Size: 125g

Our Review: Another truly bizarre, unnecessarily imaginative list of ingredients. It smells very strongly of fruit, and the taste is way too sweet for us. It overrides all other flavours, like someone lumped in buckets of sugar. That said, it is tropical, so if you are the type to add loads of sugar to your tea, this might be for you, as an after-meal treat. But we couldn’t have more than one sip because it was just so sickly.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer?

Best time of day to drink this: After a full meal, like lunch or dinner

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Brand:

Flavour: Cilegia (…possibly…)

Ingredients: Hibiscus, rosehips, currants, apple, cherry, blackcurrant

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: Є4.50 for 100g

Review: This infusion can only be described as pleasant. It smells mildly like cherry cough drops, but in a good way. The flavour is quite mild, but that’s a good thing when you have all the usual berry tea ingredients like hibiscus and rosehips. It’s not too tart or sweet – it’s just nice. We thought it was one of the better fruit teas out there, because it’s so natural – natural enough to be eaten as a snack, if you feel peckish.

We’re just not entirely sure if we have the right brand, because it wasn’t listed on the bag. However, it was gifted to us alongside another one we worked out is from Caffè Ninci, and the ingredients list seems to match their old Cilegia blend…which is no longer available on their website…so, um…good luck finding this! It really was lovely!

Best time of year to drink this: Summer

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon

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Flavour: Infuso Menta e Eucalipto

Ingredients: Orange peel, hibiscus, rosehips, eucalyptus leaves (12%), peppermint (3%), elderberries, natural flavours / essential oils

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: Є4.50 for 100g

Review: …elderberries…. As you can guess, this wasn’t for us. You can smell the feet through the bag, before you even open it. When you brew it, the foot odour combines with the menthol to create something that immediately reminded us both of toilet cleaner. It isn’t inviting.

The taste is extremely bitter from the orange peel, the peppermint is very strong (essential oil), and the elderberries bring their usual footy flavour. On drinking it, we had the ‘what have you done to me?’ face. It’s just elderberries – yes, they have health benefits, but we can’t imagine why anyone has them for pleasure. Elderflower, sure. Berries, no – just like this infusion.

Best time of year to drink this: Never

Best time of day to drink this: Never

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Flavour: Organic Pu’erh Ginger Treasure

Ingredients: 5-year aged organic pu’erh tea, organic ginger, organic hibiscus, organic schizandra berries, organic liquorice root, organic rosehips, natural orange and tangerine essential oils

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: See above

Price Range: Around £7 for 100g

Review: GORGEOUS. The aroma is very gingery, like the fresh root, not like dried ginger tea at all. There’s also a hint of tartness, probably from the hibiscus and berries.

The flavour is fruity, but with an earthy under-taste and a subtle ginger kick felt sharply at the back of the throat. The pu’erh is subtle but gives a more substantial, ’rounder’ flavour than your standard black tea. Then you get that delicate citrus hit at the end. Everything about it is soothing and warm.

We loved this one and went through the bag very quickly, eager to buy more. Best of all, it’s not too expensive, despite having an organic pu’erh base (which can run into the tens of thousands, for some varieties!). If you’re intrigued too, you can order it at www.tealyra.co.uk.

Best time of year to drink this: Spring / summer

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoons

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Flavour: Peach & Rhubarb

Ingredients: Apple pieces, hibiscus, rosehip, natural flavourings, sweet blackberry leaves, red beetroot, citric acid

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £2.20

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: Just stop, stop, stop putting peach flavouring into tea blends – stop it! It’s always awful. It always comes out fake tasting, no matter how ‘natural’ it is. Rhubarb – same advice. And stop telling us it’s peach and rhubarb tea when it’s just hibiscus, apple, rosehips and sweet blackberry leaves…AGAIN. There must be a hundred thousand of these on the market. Can we please do something different!?

The smell of this one is overpoweringly artificial and sweet. The flavour is similar – but pretty much all peach. We couldn’t taste the rhubarb at all. Who even knows what the beetroot is doing in there! Then there is a horrible after-taste of citric acid – an after-sourness, if you will. If you have to try that hard to create the taste you’re aiming for, it’s not worth doing. Go make something genuinely herbal.

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: 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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