After an extended winter and spring, the weather has finally warmed up immediately in the Seattle area. As much as I drink more high mountain oolongs and young sheng in the summer, I still enjoy a solid iced tea. Today I got some samples from Fava Tea, which has a huge catalog of flavored teas. I got the Summer Sampler Box of 12 teas, but I’ll just be drinking the oolong and black tea today.
All teas I used 3 to 5 grams of “leaf”, steeped in a small quantity of 200F water, and poured over iced for around 5-6oz serving. For teas with more fruit chunks than tea I used more dry “leaf”.
Chilled Rhubarb Oolong from Fava Tea
Chilled Rhubarb Oolong is a Fujian Oolong with flavoring, freeze dried rhubarb, and rose petals. The scent of this is clearly rhubarb.
Chilled Rhubarb pairs well with the oxidized oolong. It’s distinctively sweet rhubarb and lightly tart, with a gentle rose floral. The oolong adds a nutty and creamy flavor, making this iced tea taste like a rhubarb pastry with a bit of rose. I didn’t add any sweetener to this – it didn’t need it as it wasn’t that tart. It likely doesn’t need it, but if you have a sweet tooth you might want a little.
Raspberry Burst from Fava Tea Summer Sampler Box
This tea has a heavy scent of raspberry fruit roll ups or opening a package of gum drops. My tea hating husband loved the smell of Rasberry Burst. Raspberry Burst is made up of black tea, rose hips, and flavoring.
Raspberry Burst is heavy sweet red raspberry with a brisk citrus woody black tea, with an aftertaste of tart raspberry and rosehips. The flavoring is on the high side, but you can still taste the brisk black tea. I could drink this as is, but with a bit of light agave, the tart and brisk elements are removed and left with a smooth sweet raspberry, similar to a raspberry gummy candy.
Sunny Sangria from Fava Tea Summer Sampler Box
I haven’t had Sangria in over a decade – all my drink money goes to tea, not wine. Either way, this tea smells the most potent of the bunch of sweet tropical.
Sunny Sangria has a big list of ingredients: black tea, blackberries, pineapple, mango, orange, tangerine, marigold, safflower, strawberry pieces, blackberry leaves, and flavoring.
The tea itself is citrusy – heavy on the pineapple before a blackberry flavor settles in and the aftertaste is mixed berries. I somewhat taste the tea in this, as the background is a bit brisk, but the main flavor is fruit. With a bit of sweetener, it brings out the fruit more, adding a sweet tangerine note, and more mixed berries.
I am not sure if this tastes like Sangria, but Sunny Sangria black tea is tasty citrus, pineapple, and berry drink that’s flavoring heavy over tea taste.
Sunny Sangria is a bit watery compared to Raspberry Burst, due to less leaf and more chunks of fruit. It tasted a lot better with more “leaf” added. “Trail mix” fruity bits do not add as much flavor and increase weight, so getting a good steep is more difficult.
Kokomo Cooler from Fava Tea
If I complained the previous tea was “trail mix”, Kokomo Cooler is worse. Kokomo Cooler has black tea, coconut, pineapple, apple, hibiscus, rose hips, blueberries, mallow blossoms, yogurt, and caramel pieces – a lot going on. This tea smells like caramel candy and tropical fruit.
Kokomo Cooler is nutty caramel, with the main tea flavor of tart hibiscus, creamy coconut, and assorted fruit explosion. It is quite tart as is, so it demands sweetener. With light agave, it’s a mysterious taste of milky caramel drizzled over a tropical berry fruit salad, topped with nuts and coconut. It strangely grew on me, but I rather drink the other teas.
Fava Tea’s Summer Sampler Box is a good way to try a big variety of teas that are great iced. These teas are heavy on flavoring – great for those who enjoy this style of tea or love iced teas. Some teas here can be a bit trail mixy, but others like the Chilled Rhubarb and Rasberry Burst, are tea fronted.
Price wise, Fava Tea is pretty inexpensive. The summer box is $25 for 4oz of tea, but individual teas are $3.95 – $4.80 an oz, (and can be cheaper with a volume discount). They ship from Wisconsin, so great for US tea drinkers.
(teas provided for review)
