A Surprisingly Tasty Tea

 I've been migrating away from coffee and sliding into becoming a tea drinker. (Don't get me wrong, I still love my coffee but am down to 1 or 2 4-oz cups of espresso in the morning.) 

The first tea I took on as a favorite quite a while back is the Maui Mango from Tiesta Tea. Remember my rant about that?

This tiny bag is too pricey
& the can is even more so

It's rather pricey so I really have to limit myself. I was looking for something similar - a tasty and aromatically pleasing tea with real fruit - when I found this:

The jar is bigger than it looks.

Thank goodness for translator apps - 
or I might know this is "food, food, and food!"

It's a dried fruit tea - I call it Berry Tea - and I did not like it at first. As a matter of fact, I was composing the angriest review ever right after making the first cup. I pushed the tea aside, still steeping, as I wrote about feeling duped. I said that I'd expected fruit tea and had gotten some kind of expensive fruit cake remnants! I was so mad and being so dramatic that I forgot what I was doing when I picked up my mug and took a second sip of the tea. And my tastebuds fell in love with what I now call liquid manna.

The tea smells amazing and looks pretty. Having a cup makes for a relaxing few moments.

BTW, I used too much for this cup.
About half of this would have been fine.

The ingredients are delicious

The trick with this tea is to let it steep much longer than the suggested 3 minutes. I now let mine steep for at least 6 minutes. This gives the fruit time to release all its flavor and goodness. When I add some honey, the tea goes from delicious to "yummly". That's the only word I could think of to describe it.

I was happy for the seal
& the expiry info.

As pro-USA as I have become (as a consumer), I have to admit that this tea out of China is the best fruit tea I have ever laid my lips on.

The Tiesta Maui Mango has real fruit in it but it doesn't really compare to the Berry Tea. For one thing, I really can eat almost every piece of fruit in the Berry tea once it's well-steeped. The Tiesta tea has several pieces of rind that I find too bitter to eat. Also, the fruit pieces in the Tiesta tea are much smaller. The Maui Mango has a stronger fragrance but the Berry tea tastes richer and fresher. Also, the Berry tea is much much more affordable in the long run. I do have to store it in the fridge though. That's how good the fruit is. The only problem I had with the Korean tea was naming it. I was going to call it the "food, food, and food tea" but I settled on "Berry Tea".

Both the Tiesta and the Berry tea are about the same per-ounce price (the Berry is about 1 cent cheaper), I have to use more of the Tiesta tea than I do of the Berry to get the best flavor. I notice that I use almost twice the amount of Tiesta than of the Berry. Also, I enjoy the Berry tea both cold and hot. The Tiesta tea is best only hot - at least for my taste.

Anyway, now I have 2 fruit tea choices. One benefit of Tiesta is that it's more likely to be available. That Berry tea coming from China could disappear from Amazon at any time!

My goal now is to find a local Asian grocery and locate more of this type of tea. I do miss the diversity of the Alaskan population. I especially miss all the various ethnic grocers... Living in lovely but culturally bland Iowa, I will probably have to go to another state to find a decent Asian market! It will be worth it though.

Peace

--Free

P.S.: I run everything past my doctors. When I  told my kidney doctor about this, he had no problem. He said that at least I won't be adding a bunch of sugary creamer to it!"