Brand:

Flavour: Celebration Gin Twist

Ingredients: Ginger cubes (sugar, ginger, citric acid), apple pieces, ginger pieces, juniper berries, acidifed apple pieces (apple, citric acid), cucumber slices, freeze-dried lemon peel, lemongrass, flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7 for 20 bags

Review: Cucumber slices, in a tea? Yes! And you can really see them! Just as the name promises, it smells and tastes just like non-alcoholic gin. It’s cucumbery and fresh, and even a little fiery, perhaps intended to be like quinine. It’s gin-like but milder – pleasant when had hot, but we can also imagine it being nice cold on a summer afternoon. Best of all, it stands out as different from many of the usual tea blends on the market.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon

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Flavour: Spellbound Cider

Ingredients: Ginger, apple, white hibiscus, pineapple bits (pineapple, sugar), roasted chicory, natural and artificial flavouring, cinnamon, orange peel, sweet blackberry leaves, allspice, black pepper

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7.50

Cups Per Box: 40 (approx.)

Review: The smell is bleeeeech! It’s so stringent – a horrid orange with an artificial something, and some pineapple sweetness. And it tastes as good as it smells. You do get used to it, but that flavouring ruins everything and leaves an oily feeling in your mouth. Fighting to be tasted is a trace of cinnamon and apple with a slight kick from the black pepper. It’s very sweet (sugar), there’s a hint of tropical fruit…and then it’s just yuck all the way. It could be really interesting, maybe even nice, if not for that artificial flavouring. It’s not an ‘avoid’ exactly, but we definitely won’t be buying it. It had potential and they just spoiled it with chemicals. Not for us, thanks!

Best time of year to drink this: Um…really, no idea. Autumn, probably.

Best time of day to drink this: Evening?

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Flavour: Eggnog

Ingredients: Black tea, sweet blackberry leaves, natural and artificial flavouring, hazelnut brittle (sugar, hazelnuts), nutmeg

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7.50

Cups Per Box: 40 (approx.)

Review: Interesting! It smells sweet and biscuity, due to the hazelnut brittle – and a bit like custard, for whatever reason. The taste is reminiscent of caramel cream, but with a bitter aftertaste due to the black tea. We had divided opinions on this one: Ginger loves it and Tulsi doesn’t. So it’s not going to be for everyone, but we think anyone who does like it will love it.

Best time of year to drink this: It’s intended for Christmas-time

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon, particularly after a meal

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Flavour: Creme Brulee

Ingredients: Black tea, natural and artificial flavouring, hazelnut praline (sugar and hazelnuts)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7.50

Cups Per Box: 40 (approx.)

Review: The aroma is very subtle – like black tea and a hint of something sweet but very mild…and, we’re sorry to say, artificial. The taste is similar. It’s black tea…and something we couldn’t put our finger on – something that’s barely there. It then leaves an artificial, grimy texture on your teeth. It doesn’t taste like creme brûlée at all – more like a non-descript flavour with an artificial aftertaste. It wasn’t any better with milk, either. It’s not awful, but we won’t be buying this again.

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime

Best time of day to drink this: Morning / afternoon

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Flavour: La Fudgy

Ingredients: Black tea, caramel bits (condensed skimmed milk, sugar, glucose syrup, butter fat, humectant sorbitol syrup, emulsifier: mono and diglycerides of fatty acids), roasted chicory root, pumpkin bits, natural and artificial flavouring (condensed milk, toffee, caramel, maple syrup, rum pot)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7.50

Cups Per Box: 40 (approx.)

Review: The name promises fudge, and the aroma fits the bill. That isn’t necessarily a good thing! It smells so sweet, and the more we sniffed it, the less we wanted to drink it. For all that, it doesn’t really taste like fudge. It’s not that strong, more like standard black tea but with a very artificial aftertaste. So much has gone int it, but it kinda just tastes of flavouring. We can imagine some people liking it as a dessert drink – like a sweet black tea – but it wasn’t for us. We didn’t hate it…but we didn’t like it either, and although we managed to finish the cup, we won’t be buying it.

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn and winter, maybe?

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon, after lunch in place of dessert…but not after dinner, when the caffeine may keep you up at night.

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Flavour: Baxter’s Chocolate Buns

Ingredients: Cinnamon, black tea, ginger, barley malt, currants, cocoa powder, chicory, chocolate drops (sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, cocoa powder, emulsifier: E322), natural flavouring, orange peel, cardamom, cloves, coriander, nutmeg

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7.50

Cups Per Box: 40 (approx.)

Review: What a long ingredients list! It smells like chai, with heavy emphasis on the cardamom or cloves. The taste is more subtle, and we love it. Again, it’s like chai, but smooth and not overpowering. There’s a mellow hint of cocoa with a lovely cinnamon kick. There’s something grounding about this, and natural tasting. It’s a good one to sink into and drift off. It’s soothing and wintery, despite it being made for Easter. It reminds us a little of Hotel Chocolat’s Ginger & Cocoa blend. It’s unfortunate that neither of these seem to be on the market anymore…but maybe one day they’ll bring these back, because they are sublime!

Best time of year to drink this: Winter

Best time of day to drink this: Anytime you’d drink normal black tea

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Flavour: Mangoes & Cream

Ingredients: Apple, white hibiscus, mango bits (mango, sugar), sweet blackberry leaves, mango, coconut flakes, natural and artificial flavouring, coconut pieces

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £7.50

Cups Per Box: 40 (approx.)

Review: This is definitely one only to have cold. The smell is intensely artificial – coconutty and sweet in a way that isn’t appetising. We aren’t fans of putting sugar in tea, so the moment we see sugar listed as an ingredient, we know it’s not for us. And we have no idea why sugar is needed, when you’ve already got two forms of mango and two forms of coconut in there – how sweet is sweet enough!?

We had it in our local T2 shop, put on ice on a summer afternoon, and it was delicious – like tart mango, with a sweet cream flavour. At home, we made it hot and we couldn’t taste mango at all. It was more like acid, with a strong coconut after-taste – and flavouring. The artificial flavour, and the acid, lingers in the throat and is simply bad.

But there’s no getting away how lovely it was on ice, so maybe this is best enjoyed as a sweet iced treat and not really as a tea. For that reason, we’re not marking it ‘avoid’ – but we recommend that you don’t drink it hot.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer – and only when it’s on ice

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon

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Flavour: Chocolate & Mint

Ingredients: Cocoa husk, peppermint (34%), chocolate chips (sugar, cocoa, soya lecithin), natural cocoa flavouring, natural peppermint flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £4-5

Bags Per Box: 15

Our Review: There are a growing number of chocolate-mint blends on the market, these days, and this isn’t our favourite.  As expected, it has the After-8 mint smells, but with a hint of earthiness and a touch of what Three Tulsi’s mother-in-law described as ‘the scent of changing rooms at a swimming pool’.  Odd, yes, but we know what she means.

The taste is mostly peppermint tea, but a little smoky and very bitter.  There is also a highly unpleasant aftertaste that we can’t define (‘changing rooms at a swimming pool’, Three Tulsi’s mother-in-law chimed in again).  What’s missing?  The chocolate!  Somehow, despite throwing in ‘flavouring’, they failed to make the flavour they were aiming for – an artificial failure.

We offered it to Three Tulsi’s husband, who said, ‘It tastes like car sweets…oh wait…oh, is it meant to taste like After-8s?  No, I’m not keen.’

This is ridiculously overpriced for what it is – it’s not even natural.  If you’re looking for a good chocolate-mint infusion, go for Yogi Choco Mint – or, if you’re willing to pay a bit more, Hotel Chocolat’s offering is definitely worth the money – but Teapigs is NOT.  AVOID.

Best time of year to drink this: NEVER

Best time of day to drink this: NEVER

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Flavour: Cool as a Cucumber

Ingredients: White hibiscus, roasted chicory root, cucumber, lemongrass, woodruff, apple, eucalyptus leaves, sweet blackberry leaves, lemon myrtle, lime, melon pieces (melon, sugar, acidifier, citric acid, flavour), flavouring, raspberries, sunflower petals

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £7.50

Cups Per Box: 40 (approx.)

Review: This one has a pleasant aroma.  It’s fragrant and fresh, like lemons and limes.  Already, we anticipated putting this one on ice and drinking it on a hot summer’s day.

Then the flavour…is just STRANGE.  The first sip is so punchy – REALLY bitter (probably from the chicory), with an aftertaste that WON’T. GO. AWAY.  You can’t really discern any of the individual ingredients.  We didn’t feel cooled; we felt annoyed and confused.

This is one of the weirdest drinks we have ever tried.  It’s like they tried to shove three different infusions into one, just to see what happens – and it doesn’t work at all.  There’s far too much going on in one cup.  We’re marking this one AVOID.

Best time of year to drink this: It smells like a summer tea, but it tastes like something you would never drink any day of the year

Best time of day to drink this: Never

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Flavour: Toasty Warm

Ingredients: Semi-Fermented Tea, Nougat Bits (Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Almonds, Honey, Egg White, Natural Vanilla) and Flavour

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £7.50

Cups Per Box: 40 (approx.)

Review: An interesting one that both smells and tastes of caramel.  It’s creamy (because of the nougat) with an almost artificial aftertaste (the flavour).

Ginger Tea liked it, but Three Tulsi didn’t (she hates caramel), so it probably depends on your taste.  It’s also worth noting that it’s not suitable for vegans, as there are egg whites in the nougat.

Just remember that one box gives you up to 120 cups, if you’re regularly re-brewing.  So, you really have to love this one to spend the money.  But if caramel’s your thing, to the point where you don’t mind having it early in the day (because of the caffeine in the oolong tea base), you might want to try this in the winter time.

Best time of year to drink this: Winter

Best time of day to drink this: Morning or afternoon (maybe as a post-lunch treat)

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