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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What is Finlandia Tea?

Finlandia tea or Suomi Tee from Nordqvist is a black tea blend with Finnish blueberries and natural blueberry flavour, sprinkled with white and blue cornflower petals. Suomi means Finland in Finnish, so the Suomi Tee is a Finnish Tea. This tea is very simple, yet highly aromatic. It has a wonderful, deep and sweet blueberry scent and a deeper, brisk black tea base. If you love blueberries, this blend may make all your blueberry tea dreams come true. Finlandia Tea is highly aromatic, fresh and filled with blueberry scent. What’s so special about Finnish berries, and that includes blueberries too, is that they are wild-grown in forests, and they certainly won’t be lacking in flavour.

How does this blueberry tea taste?

Fruity black tea blends usually taste amazing both hot and cold. When served hot, this tea is bright, light and medium bodied, with deep berry notes and very light sweetness. When served iced, it has a brisker light flavour with light natural sweetness and a lot of natural freshness. Blueberry notes are present both when drinking and as an aftertaste, which is stronger when this tea is cold.

To make the most flavourful iced tea, use double the amount of tea leaves and steep in freshly boiled water for 5 minutes. This tea is not astringent, so it’s great with no condiments but goes really well with honey too.

Finlandia Tea is perfect for tea drinkers that like berry flavoured black teas but want more naturally tasting teas bursting with flavour and for those that enjoy black tea blends where the flavour of the tea is still highly present. Available in traditional tea bags and as loose tea.

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What is Blueberry Muffin tea?

Blueberry Muffin is a flavoured rooibos tea from the US based tea subscription company Simple Loose Leaf. Just like many other Simple Loose Leaf blends, this blend is a very simple tea, too. It has only 3 ingredients – red rooibos tea base, mallow blossoms and flavouring. With its pretty purplish-blue colour, blue mallow blossoms blend in perfectly.

Red rooibos is made from South African shrub Aspalathus linearis. It was first introduced for its potential health benefits, but later it became one of the most important ingredients for making herbal, caffeine free blends. Red rooibos is a perfect alternative to black tea. Although it doesn’t have the same flavour as black tea (it’s naturally slightly sweet and earthy), just like black tea, it’s strong enough for making tea lattes, iced teas and tea syrups. Blueberry Muffin smells delicious. In fact, it does smell like a fresh batch of blueberry muffins – soft and buttery with a touch of vanilla and zestiness.

How to brew this tea?

We brewed this tea following instructions on the packaging with 2 teaspoons of tea leaves per cup of water for 5 minutes at 100 degrees Celsius. Brewed tea has the same scent as dry leaves, only softer and gentler, with a pretty red colour. The flavour is light and soft too, with light buttery and light earthy rooibos note. Although the flavour isn’t overpowering, and this tea is an unmistakeably red rooibos blend, it has just enough of a buttery flavour and, interestingly, a long blueberry muffin aftertaste. Rooibos tea will never be bitter (unless it contains bitter ingredients such as lemon peel), so don’t be afraid to brew it longer or use more tea leaves. This tea would be perfect for making iced teas or hot tea lattes. For making an iced tea, try steeping it with some fresh crushed blueberries.

This tea doesn’t contain any sugar. Since red rooibos is naturally slightly sweet, unless you prefer drinking really sweet teas, you don’t need to add any condiments. It’s great pure, but it will go well with some honey or brown sugar too. Blueberry Muffin is a calorie-free liquid dessert that would be great for tea drinkers who like rooibos tea but want to enjoy something unique and prefer caramel, buttery and vanilla teas. It would make for a great daily tea too.

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Tea and fruits – which fresh fruits are the best?

We tried brewing simple, strong black tea with 6 different fresh fruits to see which ones give a great flavour, and which ones are better avoided.

This flavour test should give you an idea what to expect when brewing black tea with fresh fruits. It can’t tell you what pre-made blends with the same fruits taste like. Premade blends are made with dried fruits and usually many ingredients and flavourings.

1. Black tea with banana

Banana teas are steadily gaining in popularity over the last several years. While it may sound strange to give a banana flavour to tea, banana blends taste surprisingly good. But how does a simple black tea steeped with fresh banana slices taste like?

We added 3 slices and waited. First, the colour of the tea changed a little. It became a slightly less attractive, which may be discouraging. But the flavour changed for the better. Fresh banana slices added delicate banana flavour, and a honey-like sweetness to black tea. This would be a great fruit to add when steeping tea for making lattes and if you like adding honey to tea.

Yea or nay? Yea!

2. Black tea with apricot

Apricot teas are less popular than peach teas, which is a real shame. Apricots are usually more tart than peaches, but when ripe, they are super sweet and juicy. We added ½ of fresh apricot, thinly sliced. And just how nice it was! The colour turned to beautifully intense orange and apricots gave a nice acidity to black tea and light apricot flavour. This tea was a bit lighter on apricot flavour than expected, but it was quite nice. Steeping tea with fresh apricots would be great for flavouring black tea for tea drinkers that like hibiscus teas, sour fruit teas or lemon teas.

Yea or nay? Yea!

3. Black tea with blueberries

Blueberries are sort of classic. Among dozens of berries, they are one of the most popular choices for baking and making smoothies. We added some blueberries and waited. The scent was wonderful, just like a blueberry tea should be, but the flavour was delicate. Who might like it? Tea drinkers that enjoy pure and only lightly flavoured tea. To intensify the flavour, crush them before steeping them with tea.

Yea or nay? Yea!

4. Black tea with red currants

Red currants are not everyone’s cup of tea. They are pretty, but have a very unique acidic taste. They are less sweet than blackcurrants or blueberries, but sweeter than cranberries. When added to black tea, they change the colour and make it brighter and pretty, but the flavour is disappointing. They alter the flavour, and not really in a good way. There’s acidity, but the flavour is missing.

Yea or nay? Nay ☹

5. Black tea with apple

Apple tea is not only one of the most popular types of fruit tea – apple tea is the fruit tea. Many fruit teas contain dried apple pieces. Homemade apple and cinnamon teas are just as popular as a pre-made blends. But what do thin slices of fresh apple do to a black tea? They chance the colour to an orange-brown and give a dose of acidity and reduce astringency. However, it would taste better if the tea was simmered, rather than steeped, and enhanced with some cinnamon. Who would like it? Tea drinkers that like fruit and apple teas and like acidity in tea.

Yea or nay? In between.

6. Black tea with mango

Mango is a synonym for a tropical flavoured tea. Mangos are sweet, juicy, and super tasty. We had very high expectations from this one. Mango brightened the colour of tea, but not as much as apricots did. It did almost nothing to the flavour. Flavour was so disappointingly weak, especially since the mango was ripe, sweet and juicy. It only reduced astringency and added some undefined sweetness. To get a stronger flavour, you would need to use quite a lot of fruit.

Yea or nay? Nay ☹

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