Bird & Blend Tea Co.

once again i’m the first to review a tea from Bluebird Tea Company! I’m very curious about this one Skinny Minny, funky name for a very cool looking blend. Puerth and oolong combined? Ginseng and ginger with fennel seeds and orange peel? Woooh thats loads off different stuff! i like cooked puerth, i’m in love with oolongs, i love ginger in my tea… very curious indeed!

Brewing the whole tea sample for 3min with near boiling water. The brew is a nice dark brown liquor. I’ve got a hard time smelling this because i’m still suffering from a cold. So i’m going to skip the smelling part…

Anyway onto sipping the cup. While its still to hot to get subtle notes i can clearly notice the ginseng because it got a distinct taste (if you ask me, not sure how others think about it). When its cooled more i can find the orange taste, the ginger and whats probably the fennel seeds (never had fennel in my tea i think).

The oolong and puerth base for the tea is exellent in flavor. This skinny minny almost taste like a good chai and thats a good thing! I’m very mutch enjoying the first cup, going to do a second brew in a while!

Another delicious sample from Bluebird Tea Co~

Mmm. I’ve never had mate before, so I don’t have much of a reference frame. This is pretty good though. It’s very lemon-gingery, and leaves a nice clean feeling. I’m not quite getting the caffeine kick mate is supposed to have, but that’s just because my body is weird. Very refreshing. I quite enjoyed it. Thanks for sending it my way, Bluebird!

I tried to take of a sip of this after eating a bag of frozen blueberries and it was just bitter and awful; I thought I had wrecked this tea sample and would have to dump it. Luckily it was just the contrast of the blueberry sweetness, and rinsing my mouth helped. Yay for half blunders and commonsense! Lesson learned: never eat something sweeter than the thing you are drinking.

Ceylon is a very cutting, bright base as is apparent here. Not my favourite, and I was expecting something smokier, but this cooled off cup does yield a pleasant caramel apple flavour that I enjoy. The Ceylon makes the apple a tart green one but the cinnamon and sweetness rounds it out a bit. It’s actually a little bit like the baked, cinnamon, brown sugar apples my mom would make for dessert every once in a while.

So, not much bonfire from this one, except for a little cinnamon spice. The Toffee caramel is there though, and that’s the important part (for me). Thanks for the sample, Bluebird Tea Co.

Received this with some other samples from Bluebird Tea Co. First can we please discuss their adorable presentation and packaging??? Their tea photos with the little ‘cut here’ graphic, the samples came in these little glassine type packets SEWN closed with baby blue thread, their website and graphics and logo and everything is just so freakin cute. Goes with the name. I notice stuff like that. And love it. So good job guys!!! I always appreciate an artistic/creative display.

The only thing I couldn’t find were steeping instructions?? Perhaps those could be added to the teas on Steepster also.

Now for the tea, I was interested in this one based on the description, sounded different.
Hmmm. This was different! I did two steeps, first time around was boiling water for 2-3 minutes. I’m at work, no timer so I wasn’t too picky since it is black tea.

The tea was very roasty. I did not get any banana taste though, possibly a very mild hint which served to soften the tea a bit. There was nothing fake about it which was nice. I imagine if the tea was more banana-y it would also taste more fake. I bet it’s hard to achieve that balance when making a tea.

I was thinking this would make a nice breakfast tea because there was a satisfying coffee feel to it. I think teas that taste like coffee are gross (ever use water from a Keurig machine to make a cup of tea?? Ew. Don’t.), but this was more the feeling of satisfaction you get from a good cup of coffee duplicated in tea form. Serious coffee fans know what I mean, there’s just something substantial about it. I drank it black but milk would probably have been nice.

It was relatively dark yet mild, and subtly sweet on its own. Probably thanks to the banana.

So that being said, steep two (5 min or so) had not much flavour, zero banana, just kind of like a black tea. I didn’t finish it because I decided to make something more satisfying instead, that’s how I roll.

Based on steep 1 I will rate the tea pretty well, points off for no substantial banananess, but the lack of fakeness was appreciated. Happy to try my other samples soon!

Thank you for the sample, Bluebird Tea Co!

What can I say? I can’t say no to free samples. They sent me a nice assortment of teas, and oh so nicely packaged. I’m eager to try all of them. ^^

Mmmm this is one of those that keeps getting better and better as it cools. I don’t know why I’ve been so wary of raspberry flavored teas, because this is delicious. As it cools the raspberry flavor comes out more and more. It almost reminds me of raspberry yogurt. This was absolutely delicious.

Anyways, gonna hold off on stocking this until I try some of their other teas, but wow. What a great first impression.

So, I received this in a sample. (I wish the samples were a big bigger to be able to experiment with how to take it, etc., but that’s another story.) The smell is nice citrus with the mix of chocolate. With one of my favorite chocolate treats being those orange chocolate things (I cannot recall the names of them), I was excited for this. However, after this was steeped, I was a bit depressed to it. I couldn’t really get any taste out of this. And after I added milk to it, but it started to taste a bit off? It was a bit better when it got cold, though, not by much. The directions on the website were a bit vague for how to brew as well. (Or I thought so at least). I might request another sample of this at some point when I have the money so I can try it again and alter a few things when I have money, but I’m sad to say I was disappointed in this.

Just rediscovered TV Tropes. And the sun. It’s a wonderful sunny day in the lower mainland- a perfect day to study for finals inside.

I was worried about this one since it mentioned hibiscus. That particular ingredient tends to overwhelm certain teas for me and, while I don’t dislike tart hibby I do get bored of it quickly. It doesn’t take center stage here, thankfully. It shares the spotlight with the pepper zing, lime, and other fruity notes, much like a well prepared spicy sweet and sour soup manages to balance itself out and keep things afloat.

It’s fruity, floral, spicy, and sour… pretty much everything except bitter and salty. The cup is a fresh, clean-tasting tea, without the mouth-drying puckering that’s usually associated with some of the more citric ingredients included here. A big thanks to Bluebird Tea co. for sending this my way!

Oh hello, another B&B tea I’d already tried. Did I seriously not look up my own reviews beforehand? (I did, and deliberately ordered some I’d had before, but I might have passed on this tea, given that I’d rated it 52…)

Anyhow, wasn’t a big fan of this one. I actually thought it was an herbal, as I couldn’t taste any oolong at all. I drank it a few days ago, so can’t really describe it anymore, but it was watery and herbal-y, not very strong. I’m not sure what I expected, but something with a bit more flavour, and certainly a bit more of the base tea!

Sipdown, 784. Thanks again to Bluebird Tea Co. for this free sample :)

Although this tea certainly didn’t look like it contained any oolong at all, it does almost have an oolongy sort of flavour to it… Apparently it’s supposed to be a green oolong, which makes more sense (I was thinking dark oolong).

Anyways, the aroma is very herbally. A bit fruity, a bit of lemon verbena. Reminds me of some other tea I’ve had recently-ish (maybe Feng Shui from Tealux?). The flavour is definitely herbally, with touches of lemon and sweetness, and a flavour that I’m not quite enjoying (I’d say mint or chamomile, but I’m not sure if either is in here??) Or perhaps it’s the hibiscus I’m not enjoying? (Although it’s not a tartness issue here, just a flavour thing.)

I think, actually, that it might be that this reminds me to some degree of either Earl of Anxi (Verdant) or Citron Oolong (DavidsTea), both of which I like… but at the same time, had a bit of an aversion to that I couldn’t figure out. Something about flavouring a green oolong??

I’m not sure, this isn’t a bad tea at all, but something about it isn’t quite clicking for me. Perhaps I infused it incorrectly (I just went with my standard oolong parameters)? Oh well, they can’t all be winners! Don’t let my review discourage anyone from trying this tea though! It’s just not for me :)

i had a second cup off this one later in the evening but forgot to mention this in any off my notes. The second cup was orange/yellow in color due to the hibiscus stopt giving the pink color. It was a very sweet and fruity cup, i even enjoyed the second brew alot more then the first!

Looks like i’m the first to review tis funny named tea Retro Ted!

Seems like this blend is made up out off many fruit ingredients like coconut, orange, pineapple and alot off lemongrass and hibiscus. The smell of the dry ingredients is very sweet and fruity. So i’m going to brew a cup for 3min with near boiling water.

The color off the brew turns out the be a pink/red like liquor and still smells great! My first few sips are when the tea is a bit to hot, but it tastes very sweet. my taste buds can seperate the hibiscus and lemongrass pretty good but the sweetness really comes from all the other fruits in there.

A very nice cup sweeter then i expected but then again i’m not used off drinking alot off fruit infusions. This is infact why i so appreciate to be able to sample 5 different blends from bluebird company. If the other samples are just as good then this one i’m going to order there for my summer fruit blends!

I don’t know why I don’t drink more mate, I like the kind of mellow alertness it tends to leave me with, different than the buzz I tend to get from coffee or strong tea. I suppose It has to do with a bad experience I had with a jarring tasting lemon mate I had once, where it tasted harsh and unpleasant. However my other experiences were positive. My first experience with mate was at the debriefing after a contract I had in Ecuador. One of the other people I was with had been in Rosario, Argentina and she shared a pleasant sweet tasting mate with us while sharing stories of riots in the streets after the bank collapse there. In Ecuador I had very little tea but I did have some great coffee, even the chain coffee was great. Anyways that first experience was pleasant and mate is a really nice tea to share among friends.

Anyways, I think this tea has helped to cure me of my mate aversion. It is really quite a pleasant and balanced tea. Once brewed the tea has a scent of green tones from the lemongrass and the mate, and hints of ginger, lemon, and of something floral from the calendula. It brews to a nice light amber yellow.

Flavour wise it has top notes of lemongrass and lemon (creating a toned down baked lemon flavour), and ginger. There is a sweetness provided by the mate and calendula. These notes are all over a sweet and savoury vegetal note. Everything is done to a nice balance, neither the ginger, nor the lemon or the mate over power each other. Ginger provides a light bit of warmth but not too much heat and the lemon and mate help to create a sense of alertness and clarity. I am quite enjoying this cup and it would probably be nice cold as well.

I’ll start this tasting note by saying that I love the name of this tea. So great! Onto the tea itself.. the dry leaf smells of rooibos and tart raspberry. After water has been added, the raspberry scent still remains.

Sipping… this tea is surprisingly creamy! I was expecting there to be more rooibos + plain old raspberry, but this is more of a raspberry dessert tea. It might just be the characteristic of the rooibos… it’s not terribly woody, but creamy and sweet instead. A great pairing!

I think that I like the birthday cake blend a bit more than this one, but this is certainly yummy. Thank you, Bluebird Tea!

This is a really nice banana flavoured black tea that avoids the traps of
tasting artificial or overly sweet. Throughout the cup it tasted of green fresh bananas, a banana smoothy and a good quality banana muffin. It’s really tasty, but still lets the qualities of it’s base shine through. Thoroughly enjoyable.

A more thorough discussion of this tea is below.

The dry leaf is black and wiry with pieces of fruit and some pieces of calendula petals. It smells lightly fruity, but not of distinct banana, and has an almost chocolate like smell.

I steeped this tea for around 3 minutes.

Brewed tea is a copper colour.

There is a scent of chocolate, a slightly savoury spice like rosemary from the calendula, and dried banana.

At first sip there is a taste close to slightly green fresh bananas, or the flavour of a banana smoothy, or good quality fresh banana chips. It is not artificial tasting and not overly sweet. The tea base is smooth, sweet, with a faintly vegetal undertone melding into a taste of a semi-sweet chocolate. The calendula lends a brightness and a spicy taste to the tea and makes it taste like fresh banana. The tea has just enough tannin to give it some body. It leaves a slightly drying feeling in the mouth but is not overly astringent. The flavour compliments and blends well with the tea but does not overpower it. There is a hint of raisin and biscuit in the base. It tastes a little bit like really nice banana muffins towards the end of the cup.

The re-steep has an indistinct sweet baked good flavour with a hint of floral, and chocolate. Pleasant but not really banana. The base looses its astringency.

Tasty.

Thanks yet again to Bluebird Tea Co. for another free sample :)

So one thing that I’m very thrilled about with this tea company is that none of the three teas I’ve tried so far taste anything like a tea I’ve previously had. They taste unique, which is great (but also terrible) because that means that I’m eager to try out more of their flavours, particularly ones I dismissed as likely being “too similar to other teas I’ve had before”.

So this tea? No exception. I was expecting generic chocolate/florally rose black. Nope, not here. Yes, there’s certainly some chocolate. Dark chocolate. But it’s unlike any chocolate flavour I’ve previously had in tea… darker and more satisfying. And there’s rose, a bit of fruit (strawberry?) and a sort of creaminess…. this kind of is tasting to me like a gourmet truffle of some sort. Like… a truffle I would like more of. There’s almost an alcoholic taste here as well, like a liqueur-filled chocolate… but not too intense that it puts me off.

Uh… so this one’s really good… debating just drinking up the other sample of two I have of it that were technically supposed to be for other people… (I kid… kind of… :P)

ETA: Like Tealizzy, I didn’t see any candy hearts in my sample – but I would really prefer it that way, as I dislike their presence in tea. The rose petals make this one pretty enough!

additional notes: I’m really enjoying this one and then remembered that it’s one of the blends that B&B took out of their rotation. Dang it. Why. I remember they culled so many of my favorites back then, and I’m less thrilled with the blends that have stuck around on the tea wall. meh. I guess David’s blend is quite similar to this, and I do have some of that left.

Additional notes: My sipdown of this one was so tasty, I just had to restock on my last order. Couldn’t help it. I was a BIT worried it wouldn’t be the same after so many years, and I’d say the coffee isn’t quite the same. Even upon opening the pouch, the aroma was more like a bitter, older coffee already, rather than the old blend which somehow seemed more sweet? Maybe I’m confused as to what “old” coffee smells like, because this is certainly fresh from B&B! It was probably more of an artificial coffee flavor that was used in the old days, especially as it never seemed to age, but I liked it for what it was. The pu-erh also seems to have some lighter coloring to the leaves now. Much more golden than before! The flavor is still good though — three solid steeps with only one heaping teaspoon. I just wish it could capture that perfect coffee flavor from before though.

Additional notes: Sad sipdown! This is a five year old blend and tastes brand new (somehow with COFFEE BEANS??) and I just love this mix of flavors. I really would like to buy more. Oh the trick of having sipdowns not lead to more orders… It’s dark yet sweet and not a gross sort of coffee. This is the perfect coffee puerh and so happy it ages so well. If a reblend is like this, I will be impressed. Raising the rating from 93 for consistency alone.
Edited to add: Also, previous steep sessions have had at least seven coffee beans in the infuser, and I only see ONE coffee bean this time… so all of that lovely coffee flavor must be a flavor addition of some kind? I guess I like that much more than real coffee.
2020 Sipdowns: 60

Additional notes: I woke up thinking of this one and sadly I’m almost out. It’s a very solid tea that is almost like a flavor combo of dark pu-erh, black tea and coffee and I really crave it sometimes. This is way better than coffee. I’m very shocked it is so tasty still, with these coffee beans included. It’s still very delicious! I wouldn’t mind more vanilla… can’t really taste it. I’m glad Bird & Blend keeps this one in stock. (Though they should also keep others in stock… like Jelly & Ice Cream!!) I was able to enjoy two and 2/3s mugs. It’s all in the temp/time of the steeps!
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for mug // 10 min after boiling // 3 min steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 min steep
Steep #3 // 2/3 mug full of tea just boiled // few minute steep

Additional notes: I’m sipping this one again. I haven’t had it in a while, as I had a sample years ago! Split a little bit in the Bluebird sale a while back. This is still very good, but maybe not as scrumptious as I remember it. Maybe the vanilla wasn’t mixed in enough with my scoop. But there is certainly coffee flavor and pu-erh flavor. Otherwise I love coffee in teas… but not coffee. Hmm.

thanks again, Bluebirdteaco.com for the samples! There are plenty of coffee beans in the mix here! After steeping for four minutes, the fragrance is telling me it’s a pu-erh but the flavor is a delicious coffee! It’s such a nice change. I’d say that coffee beans like this could turn me into a coffee drinker, but I love my tea too much! A fine example of a pu-erh and a good one to start with if you want to try one, since it is also mixed with black tea. It’s a nice mild pu-erh but you can tell it’s a pu-erh and it blends very well with the coffee. The second steep went for six minutes but there is less of a coffee flavor this time around. Very happy with this one. I’d buy this one as a tea-that-tastes-like-coffee tea. It’s like a triple threat: pu-erh, black tea and coffee!

Any tea with a cake aspect (especially a rooibos blend) jumps right into my shopping cart. I don’t really know what my fascination with cake flavored teas is.. it could be that cake is one of my favorite things to eat! Yellow, white, fruit, angel food, shortcake (I’ll pass on the chocolate, though) – CAKE CAKE CAKE!

The photo of this blend first caught my eye because of the adorable star-shaped sprinkles. It also seemed like a great new version of a cake tea.

After water has been poured over the tea, I smell a rather strong rooibos with a light medicinal note. There is something like cake in the background, but I can’t put my finger on what KIND of cake it would be. Sipping…. Hmm.. this is very tasty! I was a little concerned that the rooibos would taste medicinal, but it’s actually rather light. There is a bit of almond flavor that when mixed with everything actually tastes a little bit like cake. It’s not really a very buttery or sweet cake, but something a little drier.. crumbly.. maybe like a cookie?

I’ll likely purchase more of this in a future order. It’s light, yummy and different than anything else I have in my tea collection. Big thanks to Bluebird Tea for a sample!

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms and would-be moms out there :) It’s my first Mother’s Day (yay!) and my husband made me the sweetest card from my little munchkin. I’m basically spending the day doing nothing of note, as it’s dreary outside and bonus – I woke up with a very sore throat. Sigh.

Anyhow, I brewed up a few teas today, this being one of them, and I just had to write about it right away. I don’t think I got the full flavour of this tea in the sample I had a few years ago, because it’s much tastier than I remember. Kind of like a sweet, mild apple cider (unspiced) type tea but with a strong (but not overwhelming) smokiness. Really unique, and really good. Definitely best to sip and savour, as the smokiness can get a little overwhelming otherwise. It’s good plain, but I feel like a splash of milk could make it a bit more easy-drinking, if one desired that.

Bumping rating from 73 to 83. Not a tea I’d be likely to keep around, but I’ll thoroughly enjoy it while I have it (and would perhaps add it into a future order if it was available).

Another free sample from Bluebird Tea Co.! Thanks!

Hmm. So this one definitely smells like toffee, and kind of tastes like it too (almost a toffee apple sort of flavour??), but I’m not getting any smoke, as I was hoping for. A little lapsang souchong would go a long way here to making this tea a bit more what it’s supposed to be! That said, it’s certainly not bad, and I actually rather like it. It doesn’t taste to me like your typical flavoured black. There is some astringency, which may be why drinking it with milk is suggested.

I do prefer the other two teas I’ve tried from Bluebird Tea Co., but I’m still pretty impressed, as none of the three teas I’ve had so far has tasted generic or overly flavoured, which is certainly good in my books!

ETA: I didn’t realize that there was supposed to be apple in here until just now, after reading the tea description. Go go tastebuds!