For me, nothing is more comforting than a good cup of freshly brewed tea so when I saw a place selling local flavored teas at the recent Honolulu Festival, I jumped at the chance to try their stuff. I bought a couple packages of their Hawaiian Natural Tea (Mango Peach and Pineapple Strawberry) just to taste test. It was a bit steep price-wise but hey, it's Hawaii. There were other teas I wanted to try, but I didn't have much money on me so I went with the cheapo option :D. I tried them as soon as I got home, mango peach being the first. I brewed it according to the steeping times on the box, it smelled really, really nice. But the one thing I noticed was that there was no string attached to the tea bag itself. Weird? Very much so. Was it a eco measure? I don't know but I just fished out the spent bag with my spoon.
The first sip was pretty good, the peach flavor was light, almost hidden by the mango but I figured that it had to be that way. I would prefer more balance between the flavors but that's just me. I finished the first cup and brewed another, this time the flavor was weaker and there was an unusual undertone to it. I couldn't really place it. But I enjoyed it and decided to go for broke and try the Pineapple Strawberry flavor. These teas are unusual in the sense that they blend two different teas (black/green; green/white etc) and I always thought that different teas had different heating temps and times but I'm guessing they found a way to overcome this. After following the instructions, I sipped my tea. This one didn't quite agree with my palate. It tasted a little off, almost metallic and I tried to figure out why. I'd washed out my tea cup so the flavors could not have been melding. Was it something I'd done? I dumped the tea and tried again, same weird flavor. Had several family members try it and all came back with the same conclusion.
Overall, I'd say the mango peach was decent, the pineapple strawberry not so much. I've knocked off a star because when I emailed the owners of the company about the tea flavor and I received no reply. I would like to try some of the other teas they sell (they sell a lot) but I wish they had a more convenient store. Sand Island's a little too far for me. read more