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Review of Bora Bora & Double Walled Glass Cup from The Tea Makers

25th June 2015

Last week I was sent some tea by The Tea Makers. I received Bora Bora, White Peony and Tangerine & Coconut Green Tea and also an amazing double walled glass cup. I’ll be reviewing these over the next few weeks, starting with my first review today. I decided I’d start with a fruity review of Bora Bora.

Bora Bora is described by The Tea Makers as a “Sensational Flavoured Exotic Fruit Tea Blend”, read on to see if I agree! 😉

Bora Bora Packaging

Bora Bora Loose

The Look
I’ll start with the packaging which is phenomenal, the overall quality and presentation is exquisite with striking red text set against a matte black background. It’s really nice to see a change from the usual brown and relatively plain packaging loose tea is traditionally sold in. The back of the package has a really cool zip opening the first time you open it, a nice touch that furthers the feeling of luxury.

Looking at the tea for the first time I can certainly see why the tea is described as exotic, there’s all kinds of fruit in this blend, from raspberries and blackcurrants to strawberry pieces and papaya cubes. The smell is beyond words, the first inhalation transports you to white sands and bright blue sea, if paradise has a smell, this is it! The fragrance just bursts out of the packet, with a fun and bouncy vibe.

 

Bora Bora in Double Walled Cup

How It Tastes

As the kettle boiled I felt sheer excitement and literally couldn’t wait for the tasting to begin. Pouring the water creates a whole new smell, the initial fragrance becomes softer and sweeter, sweeter is GOOD.

I take my first sip, probably before the tea is even cool enough, the taste is fresh and succulent, with a rich quality to it. I often find tropical type fruit teas a bit sickly, usually pineapple is the ‘go to’ fruit, but there’s no pineapple to be found in this super tropical blend! Bora Bora has a deeply satisfying fruity flavour, with slight floral undertones that create an aftertaste that dances on the roof of my mouth.

 

Final Thoughts on Bora Bora

Overall I’ve gotta say this is one of my favourite fruit teas of all time. Fruit tea was my first love but in all honesty I was getting bored, bored of every fruit tea tasting the same! Bora Bora has reignited my love for fruit tea, I now cannot wait to try more fruit tea from The Tea Makers 😃 Bora Bora excels because it avoids the tart sharpness often found with fruit tea and steers bravely away from adding pineapple.

 

Double Walled Cup Empty

The Double Walled Glass Cup

I was also lucky enough to receive a beautiful doubled walled glass cup with the tea, which is pictured above 🙂 The cup is beautiful with perfect curved sides on the outside wall and matching contours on the inner wall. It’s a really nice size, as it fits in my hand just right, you can just slide your fingers round it and curl up with it. A few of these would be a gorgeous choice for a dinner party, pair your favourite blend with these cups and you’ll have a perfect finish for your guests.

The double walled finish is not only easy on the eye but is very functional and keeps the outside cool for your hands and your tea warm for a lot longer than a mug. The smooth rim of the glass is blissful to sip from and the cup has a steady base when placed on my coffee table. The glass looks like it would be really fragile but after a week of using it and washing it, I haven’t felt that it would break easily which is a massive plus. Overall I really love this cup, from the look to the functionality and the ease of use, it’s all good.

 

I’ll be reviewing the other 2 teas sent with the Bora Bora in the next couple of weeks so please do check back soon or join my newsletter to read it first!

I’m always looking for new and exciting fruit teas and I’d love to hear any suggestions you guys have in the comments below 😊

The Tea Makers London have a large range of teaware and beautiful glassware, with great prices which are really worth taking a look at.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read my review of Bora Bora from The Tea Makers London. You can check out their online store here.


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Fruit Tea Iced Tea Recipes

Sparkling Whittard Summer Strawberry Lemonade Iced Tea Recipe

10th June 2015

So it’s been a bit sunny in the UK huh? Perfect time to make a sparkling Summer Strawberry iced tea with 3 simple ingredients!

The recipe is simple and only needs 3 ingredients!

Ingredients

My favourite fruit tea was always Summer Strawberry from Whitard of Chelsea which has now been discontinued but their new Strawberry Serenade works fantastically too. I decided I’d use posh lemonade to get the extra sweetness but Tesco’s own is probably just as good if you’re on a budget 😉

 

Lemonade

So the first thing you’re going to want to do is grab your favourite jug, hopefully as large as possible as you’ll want to be drinking this all afternoon! Either chill the lemonade bottle first or pour it in to the jug and pop it in the fridge until it’s chilled. You’ll want to fill it with the lemonade to about two thirds of the way full.

 

Steeping Concentrated Tea

To get the strawberry flavour you want to steep about 3 teaspoons of Strawberry Serenade in an inch or so of water in a mug so it’s really concentrated and won’t unchill (not sure that’s even a word?) the lemonade.


 

StrawberriesTo add more of a fresh succulent taste to the iced tea it’s great to add some fresh strawberries and it’s even greater eating them when the iced tea is finished! Just cut them in half so they’ll infuse the water. You can also freeze the strawberries and use them instead of ice, I prefer this method over ice as it doesn’t slowly water down the iced tea.

 

Strawberries Side View

Now you want to carefully pour the concentrated tea in to the lemonade but try it as you go so you get it the right strength. Then top it off with the strawberries and leave it in the fridge for a while to let the natural flavours from the strawberries infuse the iced tea. You can also add some sugar if you feel that the lemonade is too sharp and/or doesn’t already have enough sugar in it!

 

Finished Sunny

That’s the iced tea complete, only thing to do now is grab a friend, find a patch of grass and lounge around drinking it!


 

I hope this recipe has inspired you to make your own iced teas. You can use any fruit tea you like really but if at all possible do stay away from teabags for this approach as you’ll probably end up with red lemonade but no strawberry flavour. I used Summer Strawberry which Whittard of Chelsea have now replaced with Strawberry Serenade, which works just as well!
, feel free to experiment and let me know if you find a better flavoured iced tea! :

As always I hope you’ve loved reading this as much as I’ve loved writing it(and drinking the iced tea), you’ll get more recipes, reviews and a load more tea fun if you join my newsletter!

 

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Fruit Tea Reviews Tea Reviews

How Good Is Dr Stuarts Blueberry and Acai Fruit Tea?

9th June 2015

Earlier this week my sister gave me some of her Blueberry and Acai teabags from Dr Stuart’s. I don’t usually use teabags but blueberries are my favourite fruit by a mile so I figured why not give these a go?

The first thing I noticed is the packaging, it’s mainly white but with a beautiful deep purple lid and the same purple styling round the box. The teabags are individually packed and have a nice length of string with a nicely weighted piece of card, which is important to avoid the string falling in the cup (one of the main reasons I avoid teabags). The other solution to this problem is to use teabags with a product called Tea Top which I reviewed last week.

Dr Stuart's Blueberry and Acai
 Teabag Packaging

 

As I opened the teabag the blueberry fragrance was lovely, really sweet and had that natural blueberry smell. I poured the freshly boiled water over the teabag and a purple swirl instantly began to fill my mug. The tea has a herby smell alongside the blueberry smell, looking at the ingredients I think this must either be hibiscus or rosehip, hibiscus is great for cardiovascular health which is always a plus!

Teabag

 

The taste is sweet but with a slight tang which surprisingly I really like. My ultimate blueberry tea has to be blueberry blaster from Whittards of Chelsea, I love it’s sweet but delicate blueberry flavour and the floral tones. I’m not sure if Dr Stuart’s Blueberry and Acai tea is on the same level but it does have an equally as interesting flavour so there’s really no reason not to drink both, after all variety is the spice of life! (cheesey enough? :p ). I wonder if the difference in the flavour isn’t so much down to the ingredients but to the difference in steeping using teabags versus loose tea, either way I like both 🙂

Tea Colour

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this review and I’d love to hear your comments below, thanks so much for reading. My newsletter is a wonderful blend of tea news, giveaways and reviews and I won’t bombard you, promise! 😉

You can find this Dr Stuarts Blueberry & Acai Tea on Amazon.

You can also get a 3 pack of 45 teabags which saves you money overall 🙂

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Black Tea Fruit Tea Green Tea Tea Reviews

Gently Stirred Tea Tasting! Russtea’s Review

19th May 2015

A few days ago I was sent some samples from Gently Stirred.

I opened my package and I was blown away by the care that had gone in to packing this for me. It was beautifully wrapped in green tissue paper and had a string tied in a bow. It looked like a present you’d receive from a good friend and I really fell in love with the presentation and attention to detail of the package. There was also a printed catalogue and small information sheets for each tea, you just don’t get such a personal service anywhere else!

The Flavours

I received Cucumber & Orange Marmalade, which is a black loose tea with character! I was also given a tea bag of Uki Uki which is a black tea with a tropical fruit flavour, amazing or what?! The third tea I sampled was Saint Clement’s Green Tea, this was also in teabag form.

The Taste

Cucumber & Orange Marmalade Bag

Cucumber & Orange Marmalade

I decided to get stuck in straight away with the cucumber and marmalade, I was a little hesitant about the cucumber but also really excited to try something different. The smell of the tea is very strong, it overpowered the smell of the others. The pieces of cucumber and orange are HUGE, I’ve never seen such big bits of fruit in tea before!

I began steeping the tea and watched as the water turned a beautiful amber colour, the cucumber and orange erupted out of the mug. I steeped the tea for 2-3 minutes using one teaspoon of tea and it was just the right strength.

Saint Clement's Teabag

Saint Clement’s Green Tea

This is a gently fragrant tea made using Gently Stirred’s popular Pai Mu Tan as a base. Added to the Pai Mu Tan are oranges, lemons and bergamot oil. Green tea is renowned for it’s health benefits which is an added bonus with Saint Clement’s. It has a slightly floral taste, which usually I’m not a fan of but this was different, it was there just enough to sweeten the blend, without feeling like you’re actually eating flowers.

The tea turned a slightly pink colour and smells fantastic every time you take a sip. I used my teabag 3 times and all three mugs were different, the first was sweetest and then the other 2 were more savoury but just as delicious. The other thing I could detect was a herbal taste which was really lush!

 

 

Uki uki

Uki Uki

The third tea was a black tea with tropical fruit called Uki Uki, this was an absolute dream. Instantly it smells like a tropical paradise, or at least how I’d expect a tropical paradise to smell :p . It tastes so sweet and is so addictive, unbelievably fruity, even to the point where the fruit is stronger than the black tea, which is really rare. There’s also no bitterness, even if it’s steeped to quite a dark strength, I assume this must be due to the sheer amount of the succulent fruit flavour that’s packed in.

My boyfriend said that he felt that the tea had a slight spicyness to it which I didn’t really detect, it became less sweet when we made additional mugs with the same teabag but that’s to be expected, and all of them were immensely pleasant.

 

Conclusion

Overall I was thrilled with these teas, I love it when I find something a little different and these flavours really are unique. There’s just a handcrafted pleasantly warm feeling to all of three of the teas Gently Stirred sent me. I’d like to thank Gently Stirred for giving me the chance to try these three teas and I urge you to go and check them out!

If you’ve loved this review then you’ll have a lot of fun with my newsletter!

You can check out Gently Stirred’s website here.

What teas have you found that are a bit different? 🙂 xXx

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Fruit Tea Tea Reviews

Find Out Why Tea People’s Tropical Burst Was My Biggest Surprise At VEGFEST

15th April 2015

Recently I attended VEGFEST in Brighton with my boyfriend, I’m vegetarian and he’s vegan so it’s quite a heavenly event with a ton of free samples. I expected to only find vegan food but I was joyfully surprised when I stumbled upon Tea People.

 

Tea Peoples inspiring ethics:

Tea People are a great company that donate 50% of all of their profits to educational and social projects in underprivileged tea growing areas. So even if the Tea was average it would be worth buying to help a good cause. Tea People’s tea is far from average!

I bought 5 flavours which I’ll be reviewing over the next few weeks as I get a chance to taste them all a few times. I decided to go with their Tropical Burst flavour first.

 

The Flavour:

Tea People’s Tropical Burst is an all fruit caffeine free blend which primarily tastes of Mango. Immediately upon opening, the mango smell really does “burst” from the packet. You know the tea is high quality by the size and quality of the enclosed fruit.

As I made my first mug of Tropical Burst I waited in anticipation for the kettle to boil, as soon as I poured the boiling water in to the mug I knew it was something special. The taste is sweet but not sickly sweet, the mango flavour feels almost smooth like mango juice. To balance the sweetness of the mango there’s a slight spicy taste that lingers in the background, offering a comforting warmth.

 

Bang for Your Buck:

A little goes a long way with this tea, half a teaspoon for 5-7 minutes and you’re good to go. If you’re using a teapot or flask that allows the fruit to continue to infuse, the yield per teaspoon will be even better.

 

What I LOVE:

What I love about Tea People is not only their ethics, but most of all the taste! I also like that small tester packs are available on their website so you can try the flavours without investing in a whole box, a sure sign of their confidence in their product.

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