Hi everybody! I’m finally putting the byte in Black Cat Bytes- with my first set of byte-sized tea reviews! 🙂 All knee slapping and belly laughs aside, let’s check out the goods, shall we? The subject of today’s post will be a selection of tisanes from Newby Teas’ new Finest Tea Collection! Neat!

Rooibos Orange

Unfortunately I derped and forgot to take pictures of this tea before I tried it, but thankfully it is quite simply just a flavored straight red rooibos blend- pretty easy to imagine in your mind’s eye. 😛 The sweet scent of orange is perfectly present and pleasant in the dried infusion, along with the characteristic earthy “tobacco” scent of rooibos.

Brew Temperature: 100 C

Steep Time: ~3 minutes, simply waited until the brew was a rich red

At first, I was a bit bummed to find this was a red rooibos tisane, as I typically find that the baseline licorice taste of the red variety greatly overpowers any sort of tropical flavoring added to it. Green rooibos is naturally more mild and takes much more kindly to fruity, citrussy flavors. However, due to the sheer strength of the added orange flavoring in this tisane, the taste of straight red rooibos (thankfully) played a quiet second fiddle and simply served to balance out the inherent tartness of the orange. This tisane is masterfully blended, even if I don’t normally enjoy the taste of the herbal base.

Ginger & Lemon

I was nursing a bit of a tummy ache a few days ago, and thought it would be a perfect time to give this blend a try- and I’m very glad I did!

This blend looks beautiful! I love the taste of lemongrass in tisanes, and was overjoyed to see it being used as the base for this infusion with little ginger chunks dispersed throughout. Looking at the simple ingredient list of this blend is really refreshing- it contains ginger, lemongrass, lemon peel, liquorice root and peppermint. That’s it, nothing artificial! Exactly what I expect in what should be a relatively medicinal drink. 🙂

Brew Temperature: 100 C

Steep Time: 5 minutes

Admittedly, I was slightly afraid of a possible ginger/peppermint overload at my first sip, but I was pleasantly surprised by the strength of the lemongrass flavor that dominated the taste instead. Only after a few more sips did I begin to notice the peppery ginger taste on the tip of my tongue becoming more and more prominent. It definitely creeps up on you! This blend is exactly how this flavor combination should be approached- lots of lemon, with the ginger taste being introduced slowly and steadily so as not to shock the drinker. Absolutely delicious, and this is coming from someone who is normally deathly afraid of minty or peppery tasting teas. Would it be weird for me to say I wouldn’t terribly mind having stomach aches as long as I had a few bags of this around? 😛

Strawberry & Mango

Time for the Strawberry & Mango blend! Yesss! I’d been saving this one for last, as I’ve got a special spot in my heart for sweet dessert tisanes.

I was beyond eager when I finally tore into this sachet, and was so excited to see noticeable pieces of strawberry (look, you can even see the seeds! :O) and mango in the pyramid! I’ve been burned by many fruit “flavored” herbal blends before. 😛 The strawberry scent is definitely dominant here, while the light, tangy mango scent does a jig in the background.

Brew Temperature: 100C

Steep Time: 5 minutes

Yum! The first sip has the delicious taste of lightly sweetened strawberries- and though there are hibiscus petals present in the blend, they actually serve to provide a natural tangy boost to the strawberry instead of overpowering it in the hibiscus madness explosion typical of many tisane blends that contain it. I was a bit disappointed in the lack of strong mango notes, especially seeing as the fruit is present in the name of the blend itself, but- if viewed as a solely strawberry-based tisane, this infusion hits it out of the park. I was so bummed out that I only had one sachet of this! I keep imagining having a steaming hot cup of it along with a piece of plain shortbread.. Hnnnnnngg!! Talk about a taste adventure. 😛

That’s all, folks! I thoroughly enjoyed my little romp through Newby’s herbal teas. The way they package and present their blends is beautiful, and really adds much-needed elegance to drinking bagged teas. Convenience and quality is a combination you don’t find often in the tea-drinking world, which makes me truly appreciate this company all the more. Hope you liked reading these byte-sized reviews! Happy drinking!

Check out Newby’s tea selection here: http://www.newbyteas.com/eboutique/tea-by-collection-124/silken-pyramids.html

As of right now, they only deliver to UK addresses- hopefully that will change soon! 🙂