__________________________________
I got a sample pack of this tea a few months ago and it got buried in my tea bowl (yes, I have a big bowl of tea). I found it while I was digging around in the bowl for something to drink a few nights ago. I saw the little, gold, TeaCo sample pack sitting near the bottom and decided it was high time I brewed some of it.
Upon opening the bag the first thing anyone should notice is the smell of blueberries. If you pick through the leaves you will find whole, dried blueberries. There are plenty of advantages and disadvantages to dried fruit. When it comes to storage or travel, dried fruit is the better way to go. It's easier to carry around with you in a baggie or container without having to worry about it spoiling or going bad. A disadvantage, and a big one, lies with the nutritional values of dried fruit. The heat involved in drying out fruit decreases some heat sensitive vitamins...such as Vitamin C. What it loses in vitamin C, it retains in being high fiber. Dried blueberries, specifically, are approximately four times higher in antioxidants than their fresh counterparts.
Now, since we're not going to be actually eating these blueberries, the question might be is the goodness in these dried blueberries released into tea? Yes and no. Tea will never have all the benefits that eating a handful of dried fruit or fresh fruit will. But many of the vitamins, minerals, etc are put into the tea when you brew it.
For this tea specifically, there are no secondary players in this tea. It's all about the blueberries. Blueberries are wonderful. The little dark-blue balls of joy. Seriously, they are. The Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry has linked wild blueberry juice in helping with the symptoms of depression in adults. There is little these berries can't do. From being linked with helping depression to Alzheimer's disease to urinary tract infections. It's just fantastic what the things grown in nature can do.
This tea is just everything good about blueberries. It's flavorful and it smells like sticking your nose into a blueberry bush. From the moment you open the sample bag/canister to the last drop of tea, it's all blueberry. I only put two dried blueberries into my tea ball and that seems like more than enough. It blends so nicely with the green tea. There is no bitterness or dry mouth feeling like you get with most green tea. Even after steeping it for 5 minutes (which average is 3-4), it's not bitter at all.
Now, this tea is called Blueberry Cheesecake Green Tea, not Blueberry Green Tea. So where is the cheesecake?! Unfortunately, as much as I hate to put down a tea that tastes so good, there is very little that is 'cheesecake' about this drink. There is a hint of something sweet that is obviously not blueberry that runs over your tongue and it does have that sweet smell of cheesecake behind the berry. It's a creamy flavor and smell that is definitely not blueberry. I really think they could have done better with the cheesecake flavor. Maybe add some cream bits like they do in the Orange Cream tea. Or even find a way to put actual cheesecake bits into it (I'm pretty sure it can be done these days!) to add a more cheesecake flavor to it.
This will never replace real blueberry cheesecake and I would never want it to. It's a wonderful blueberry tea that happens to have a sweetness to it. Even the color is nothing much to write about. It's a green tea. It's good, flavorful, and light. Very nice for an after meal drink, maybe lunch or breakfast. While I don't plan on buying a canister of this one, I do recommend it to people that like blueberries, green tea, and lighter teas.
