What’s in Basilur Raspberry Infusion?

Fruit teas are infusions made with dried fruit pieces and often some other herbal ingredients. They don’t contain any Camellia sinensis tea leaves, so they are technically not teas, but infusions. Some fruit teas are made only with fruit pieces, and many contain other herbal ingredients, too.

Basilur Raspberry Infusion contains hibiscus flower, orange peel, apple, stevia leaves, natural raspberry flavour and citric flavour. It comes in a classic, individually wrapped tea bags.

It smells sweet and deep, with a light, dusty note. Since hibiscus is the key ingredient, it’s also a dominant scent. Most fruity blends are made from one main ingredient, usually hibiscus or apple, secondary ingredients and flavourings. Although not a fruit, hibiscus is great for adding a deep crimson colour and unique deep and tart flavour. Another interesting ingredient in this tea is stevia, a natural sweetener with a distinctive sweet flavour and no calories. The first thought? This tea would be great for making iced or cold-brew tea.

What does it taste like?

To make a cup of fruit tea, use freshly boiled water and steep it for 5-10 minutes. Fruit teas will rarely get bitter, unless they contain lots of orange peel. This is mostly true for loose blends, rather than classic tea bags.

Once brewed, hibiscus gives it a pretty deep crimson colour. This tea smells like a rich hibiscus tea, with key notes of regular fruity teas that contain tart hibiscus. However, raspberry comes as an under flavour and really comes into a focus as an aftertaste. Raspberry scent is also pronounced, accompanied by an intense sweet note.

Basilur’s Raspberry infusion is a flavourful, strong and deep tea. It’s quite sweet but not sugary sweet. You can definitely feel that the sweetness is coming from an herbal ingredient rather than refined sugar. It has a light zesty note from hibiscus, and a light raspberry aftertaste. Raspberry is not an actual ingredient in this tea (which is often a case with raspberry flavoured teas, and the flavour is added with natural raspberry flavouring). This tea doesn’t need any sweeteners as it already contains stevia leaves. However, if you prefer very sweet teas, both honey and white sugar are a good choice.

Because of its strong flavour, this tea is a good choice for making iced teas. Steep it together with some fresh raspberries to give it a real raspberry punch.

Who would like this tea? If you enjoy strong and bold fruit teas with hibiscus, you’ll enjoy this tea too. If you are looking for a strong raspberry tea, this may not be the right infusion for you. That said, many raspberry teas are rather light in raspberry flavour, and mostly contain other ingredients including natural flavourings too.

Interestingly, the flavour is deep, and complex, even though it’s made with tiny particles. Because of its rich flavour, this tea is a great alternative to regular supermarket fruit teas.

Tea Recap

Water or milk? Water

Day or night? Day or night

Hot or iced? Hot or cold

Sweetened or pure? Pure as it already contains a calorie-free sweetener.

Caffeine? No

What’s the price? S$8.15

Where to buy? Get it from Basilur website

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What’s in Basilur Jasmine Green Tea

Classic jasmine green tea is made with Chinese green tea leaves, scented with fresh jasmine flowers. This process is repeated until the tea is fragrant enough, and all flowers are removed. Today, there are different ways of making jasmine green tea. Some blends may contain dried jasmin blossoms, other are flavoured with natural flavourings. Scenting and flavouring are different processes that result in different flavours as well.

So what’s in Basilur Jasmine green tea? First, it’s made with Ceylon (Sri Lankan) green tea, rather than Chinese tea. Next, this tea is flavoured with a natural jasmine flavour, rather than scented. And you’ll see both things immediately upon opening the pouch.

The first thing you’ll notice is an intense sweet jasmine scent. There’s no deep smokiness like with many other jasmine green teas. Instead, it’s very sweet and floral, on the verge of being perfumy. As it is extremely strong, this scent may not be for everyone. However, it’s also extremely pleasant and inviting.

How does it taste?

To make a cup of jasmine green tea, bring fresh water to a boil and let it cool down to 80-85 degrees Celsius. Use 1 heaped teaspoon or 1 tea bag per cup of water and steep for 2-3 minutes.

This tea has a very perfumy flavour that feels sweet. There’s absolutely no bitterness at all in this tea. It feels very delicate, which is quite uncommon for jasmine green tea, especially tea bags. Classic tea bags contain dust and small leaf particles and often result in a bitter and strong infusion.

Green tea in this blend is light, and the jasmine flavour is lighter than the scent might suggest. However, it’s strong enough to serve it iced. It would be a perfect treat for spring and summer afternoon tea parties.

If you love the scent of jasmine, especially jasmine essential oils, rather than classic jasmine teas, you will love this tea, too. In fact, even if you don’t like classic jasmine teas, you may find this tea inviting. This tea would appeal to those that like strong flavours, but don’t like the bitterness common in jasmine green teas. It’s quite surprising for a jasmine green tea in a traditional tea bag not to have any bitterness at all. However, if you don’t like perfumy blends, you won’t like Basilur’s jasmine green tea, either.

Tea Recap

Water or milk? Water

Day or night? Day

Hot or iced? Hot or iced

Sweetened or pure? Pure or with honey

Caffeine? Yes

Where to buy? Get it from Amazon.

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Is white tea in tea bags good?

White tea is one of the most interesting types of tea. Partially because many of them have a very light and delicate flavour, partially because a good one is often difficult to find. This type of tea is not as common as green, oolong or black tea, and is not as often available in traditional tea bags as other tea types.

One reason is that 2 of the most popular types need to have a specific leaf shape. For example, Silver Needle is made purely of tea buds covered in fine white hair. White Peony will have tea buds, stalks and leaves. But what really makes white tea a white tea is the production process. It includes fewer steps than making other types and results in a unique flavour profile.

Now let’s get back to Strawberry and Vanilla white tea from Basilur.

What’s in Strawberry and Vanilla White tea?

Strawberry and Vanilla white tea from Basilur is available as loose leaf and in tea bags. Loose leaf blend contains unbroken leaves, jasmine flowers, rose petals and strawberries. Tea bags are made of white tea and vanilla and strawberry flavourings. Since traditional tea bags contain fannings and dust, they will always brew into a stronger tea, often with bitter notes. That’s why white tea is usually better than loose tea. Usually, but not always.

So, is this tea different?

What does Strawberry and Vanilla white tea taste like?

To make a cup of tea, bring fresh water to a boil and let it cool for a few minutes. Although white tea is gentle, you can still use a slightly hotter water and steep it for 2-3 minutes.

Basilur’s Strawberry and Vanilla tea smells lovely. It’s as close to strawberries and cream as a tea could be. It’s quite a surprise for a tea in a traditional tea bag to taste this light and natural.

Flavour is lighter than scent, with no bitterness or deep hay notes. Strawberry flavour is very light though. The best description would be that this is a delicately flavoured vanilla white tea with hints of strawberry and cream flavour. This tea doesn’t need any condiments, and it’s best served with no milk. It leaves the same lovely light aftertaste. It’s suitable for making an iced tea too.

Strawberry and Vanilla white tea is a perfect choice for daily drinking at home or in the office, as it’s very easy to make and tastes light and lovely. If you love lightly flavoured white teas, this tea is a brilliant choice. Even if you drink only loose tea, there’s a very high chance you’ll like this one too.

Tea Recap

Water or milk? Water.

Day or night? Day.

Hot or iced? Hot or cold.

Sweetened or pure? Pure.

Caffeine? Yes.

What’s the price? Starting from 3.99 GBP.

Where to buy? Get it from the Basilur website: 20 tea bags or loose tea

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What are cold brew blends?

If you ever tried steeping regular tea bag or tea leaves cold water, you may have noticed that the results were pretty mild, and often not quite as tasty as when steeped in hot water. Cold brew blends are still pretty much a novelty. In the last couple of years, many big tea producers introduced their own cold brew tea lines, and many of them are available in supermarkets as well. These blends were crafted to give the maximum flavour when steeped in cold water for only a few minutes. With special cold brew teas you don’t need to have a kettle, you don’t need to use hot water, and you don’t need to steep it overnight. They are also not an instant teas, as they won’t dissolve, but they will give you an instant cold tea.

What’s in the Pomegranate Blueberry tea?

Pomegranate Blueberry tea is a fruity tea blend from Basilur Cold Brew line with 5 more interesting flavours: Cherry Lime, Strawberry Cucumber Mint, Coconut Pineapple, Orange Mango and Guava Passionfruit. All of them are caffeine free, which makes them suitable for any time of the day.

Pomegranate Blueberry tea contains hibiscus, pomegranate, orange leaf, calorie-free stevia and blueberry and pomegranate flavourings. It doesn’t contain any other sweeteners. This blend has a delicious, fruity, sweet and refreshing scent. It’s one of those teas you are really excited to brew immediately after opening the box.

How to make this tea?

To make cold brew teas, you need a glass of cold water only. You don’t need a kettle, any electricity or any special utensils. Cold brew teas are great for travelling, as you can make them literally anywhere and they are always available as tea bags only.

Use a regular glass or a smaller glass if you prefer a more intense flavour. Use approximately 200-300 ml of cold water, and steep for 5-7 minutes, or longer if you like.  

This is a very refreshing fruity tea with a very distinctive sweetness. Blueberry notes are incorporated with pomegranate notes and hibiscus gives lots of depth. Hibiscus is the main ingredients, but it’s not the main flavour note. Instead, as a background note it serves to carry other flavours which blend really well: a tart pomegranate note, a light orange note, and lots of fruity juiciness.

Pomegranate Blueberry tea is a very, very easy to drink tea. It’s lighter than juice but has a similar mouthfeel to a pomegranate juice. It doesn’t need any sweetener at all. You can serve it as it is or with some ice cubes.

If you want to replace sugary drinks with something as refreshing and flavourful, Pomegranate Blueberry cold brew tea is a great option. Furthermore, if you like pomegranate juice and sweet but slightly tart flavours, you will like this tea too. It’s more juicer than regular fruit teas and incredibly refreshing. It’s one of the best alternatives to sugary drinks and pre-made iced teas.

Check out other Basilur teas on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

Pomegranate Blueberry Tea Recap

Water or milk? Water.

Day or night? Day or night.

Hot or iced? Cold or iced.

Sweetened or Pure? Pure.

Caffeine? No.

What’s the price? Starting from 3.99 GBP.

Where to buy? Get it from Basilur website.

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