Cherry Cola Bottles

What even is this?! There is some hibiscus in it, but not an obnoxious level. It’s sweetened with stevia, but doesn’t have the weird stevia taste that I find so distracting. It really does taste like a cherry cola! The lime leaves are an uncommon addition to a blend. I think I’ve only ever had them in an Arthur Dove tea, Fairytale of New York. This blend is so weird and I love it!

I bought this on a whim and I’m really glad I did. I wish I had gotten a bigger size. I haven’t found many tea blends from this company that I really dug, but they seem to be really good at tisanes. I hope they offer it for a while because I’m not ordering again until I go through the massive bag of Baby Spice that I got and I want more of this.

One of my favourite fruit teas! No caffeine so can be drunk any time of day. Nice hot and even nicer cold brewed. Strong, sour taste really is like cherry cola sweets.

After having Della Terra’s Cherry Cola and Cake this afternoon, I decided to try this cherry cola tea which I picked up on my trip to London last week. I cold brewed it for a quick couple of hours, and YUM. I genuinely wasn’t expecting to enjoy it this much. I thought there’d be less cola flavour and more hibiscus, but I think the stevia does a good job of tempering the tart hibiscus just enough. It’s still sour, but in a good way, like fizzy cola bottle sweets! Both the cherry and cola are quite prominent in the cold brew, which I was pleasantly surprised by as the other Bird & Blend cola tea I’ve tried, Lime Cola Guayusa, didn’t taste at all like cola to me. I added a little maple syrup to see if it brought out the ‘cola bottle sweet’ feel a bit more, but no, it actually brought out a touch of cinnamon which I hadn’t noticed before. It’s still really good, but I’m not sure why the cinnamon is there, and I definitely preferred it without that being noticeable. Overall though I’m really happy with this purchase, which I wasn’t sure about at the time, and would probably pick up more in the future. I’m also very happy with my decision to cold brew it, because this is really tasty! A very different take on ‘cherry cola’ to the Della Terra tea I had earlier, but both very very enjoyable.

For the sipdown prompt, “a hibiscus tea.” Prepared cold brew.

Well, I was expecting a pop/soda sort of flavor to this tea based on the name… like a Cherry Coke sort of profile, but I’m not getting any sort of “cola” vibes at all. This just tastes like one of those “mulled wine” hibiscus+spices sort of blends that pop up around the Christmas season…

The hibi is thick and syrupy, and I’m getting the strong citrusy tang of orange peel and a somewhat earthy/barky cinnamon note. Oddly enough, the combination of flavors gives me a sort of pine-like finish which I actually quite like. I enjoy the flavor, but I can’t shake the “Christmas” vibes I’m getting… More like a sharp and brisk cranberry flavor than anything I’d associate with cherry, and the cinnamon and orange takes me to mulled wine territory rather than anything resembling cola.

So, I like this, but it isn’t at all what I was expecting from the name. Kind of getting the same issue I had with the “Watermelon Sorbet” tea by T2 I had recently, which was tasty but wasn’t the taste I associated with the name in any way. If this was in B&B’s holiday line-up with a name like “Cranberry Cider” or something, I’d probably rate it higher.

Still an enjoyable profile for me, and I think the first time I’ve ever coldbrewed a “mulled wine”-esque hibiscus tea. Far more pleasant cold than I would’ve expected. I think I’ll save myself a teabag worth of leaf for a single hot cup, but brew the remember as a second coldbrew batch.

(Side note: Up until now I have stupidly been trying new teas in my huge 16 oz tumbler and wondering how on earth I will ever make it through all of the samples I’ve acquired…. today it hit me, DUH, make a smaller cup!)

Thanks to Shae for leaving a bit of this in the TTB for me to try! This is my first soda flavored tea and it’s quite interesting. It has a beautiful red color and tastes quite like, well, cherry cola! The cola flavor does come out a bit more once it’s cooled down and there’s a hint of spice as an after taste.

Overall I’m really grateful I got to try this one as I can’t drink cola due to dietary restrictions so I’m enjoying the novelty of having a cherry cola flavored tea. Even more than the taste I really love the aroma of this one!

Pulled from TTB 2022, shared by Martin Bednář.

James loved this one when he tried it hot, but I knew with the hibiscus that I would probably only really like it cold. It smelled so good that I definitely wanted to taste it as a cold brew. I mixed it together this morning and let it steep all day before pouring a glass with dinner tonight. It certainly tastes like cherry, but it’s a medicinal cherry. Very reminiscent of cough syrup. Not my favorite but not bad by any means.

Bird & Blend Advent Calendar 2021: Day 10!

Seeing hibiscus and stevia in the ingredients list had me worried, but y’know… I’m not mad about this one! The tart hibiscus and sweet stevia balance each other out, and there’s a nice zesty brightness to it. I don’t get a ton of cherry—more generic red fruitiness—but that’s OK.

I actually liked the second steep quite a lot; most of that hibiscus tang was gone by that point, and the flavor was overall a bit deeper. Not bad!

Huh this didn’t turn out how I expected based on the name and my experience with the soda blends from 52teas. The dry leaf was mostly fruit, and it smelled strongly of lime, so I decided to have this cold. It tastes like spiced fruit cider? That’s not what I was expecting at all. I prefer it to B&B’s mulled cider, but it’s not a flavor profile I’m in love with overall. I wouldn’t buy it again, but I actually did enjoy my 50g of this one.

I was craving something sweet and I wanted to open this subsciption pouch already! I think it’s from November 2020? Aaaages ago, when my country was still in state of emergency? Well, in fact, we still are. It ends midnight of Monday. And no, numbers aren’t THAT better. Rather worse. More here: https://english.radio.cz/lower-house-refuses-extend-state-emergency-raising-fears-a-set-back-fight-8708160

But I am here because of the tea. I had maybe twice cherry flavoured Coke. I had cherry flavoured Czech alternative to Coke called Kofola (which I drink way more than Coke.) And then there is Dr. Pepper which, I am not sure if it is considered as cherry flavoured cola drink, but I noticed it there for sure. The last one I have tried at maximum, 5 times.

This tea tastes like the gummy in cola bottle shape, that’s right. Somehow more cherry-hibiscus tartness here than in the sweets. The stevia is have that typical sweet and sticking* note. Not a fan. Missing a kind of creamy note. Maybe being chilled it would turn out much better. Maybe as a tea-pop.Maybe… cold brew?

*wrong word, couln’t come with better one.

I used two tea spoons and it should be 7 grams? Somehow crazy, isn’t it? But I won’t mind having this tea sipped down faster than usual.

Bird & Blend Advent Calendar 2021 – Day 10

I only used about 12 ounces of water for these two sachets instead of my usual 16, because it just didn’t look like enough leaf to me. Plus fruit tisanes always tend to need extra leaf to have a strong enough flavor in my experience.

This feels very similar to Day 1’s Christmas Cranberry Pie tisane – red fruity with hibiscus and spices. But I think this does have a somewhat more “cola” flavor to it, whether it’s from the kola nut or the spices. There is stevia here, but for me it’s just enough to temper the hibiscus tartness a bit. The spices are well-balanced, and the cherry flavor isn’t overly candy-like. There is a slightly acrid taste from the apple that I could live without, and a hint of that powdered-sugar-like stevia aftertaste.

Overall, I quite like it, which is saying something for this sort of tisane. It has a nice balance of sweet, tart, fruity, and spicy. Very festive and something I could see myself drinking in the evening during the holiday season. :)