After a week of writing about various Christmas trees, from the Lodgepole Pine to Nordmann Fir, I am more than ready for Basilur Winter Stars tea. This blend, which is part of the Infinite Moments Collection, features a black tea base with tropical ingredients and a bucket-load of flavouring.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad tea! The only way to find out how the tropical flavours will work in a winter-theme brew is to taste it. So, that’s what I’m going to do today.
In my full review of Basilur Winter Stars, you can find out what it tastes like, how best to brew it, what the ingredients are, and most importantly, where you can buy it yourself.
Basilur Winter Stars Black Tea at a Glance
- Blend: BOP1 Ceylon black tea with pineapple chunks, cornflower petals, and blackberry flavouring
- Flavour: Light blackberry jam notes and soft tannin hints, but no real body or substance
This is a pleasant tea that really pleases your sweet tooth. The black tea is incredibly smooth in your mouth, but it really lacks body. With a more robust black tea base, this would be 10x better. Still worth trying though!
Full Review – Infinite Moments Winter Stars
- Type: Loose leaf resealable pouch
- Tea: BOP1 black tea from Sri Lanka (Ceylon)
- Additives: Pineapple, cornflower, blackberry bramble flavouring
- Flavour Notes: Light, jammy, blackberry, tannins
- Aroma: Very sweet, mild black tea, blackberry compote, blackberries and cream, jam
- Milk or Lemon: Neither
- Where to Buy: Basilur UK
My experience with Basilur has been positive overall, and I had high expectations going into this tea tasting session. The aroma from the dry leaves is very sweet, unfortunately. It’s not a pleasant sweetness, but an overpowering sickly sweetness that comes from flavouring. The aroma is of blackberry compote, very concentrated and fake. There’s also a tropical hint coming through and a note of mild black tea.
Once brewed, the aroma is far more attractive. Notes of blackberries and cream, slightly jammy and tart, swirl up from your teacup. The brew itself is quite light and clear, but the sort of amber shade that holds a lot of warmth and richness. Lovely!
The flavour is lacking, to be perfectly honest. The black tea provides a slight tannin note (which contributes to a drying sensation in the aftertaste) but has no body or substance to it. The jammy blackberry notes are light, but thanks to the weak black tea base, they become the dominant flavour.
Besides that hint of tropical sweetness in the dry leaf aroma, the pineapple doesn’t make an appearance in Basilur Winter Stars.
Overall, it reminds me of eating a hot, fruity dessert (maybe a crumble) after a filling Sunday roast on a cold winter’s day. Not bad, Basilur!
How to Brew Ceylon Black Tea
Use boiling water – freshly drawn from the tap and boiled in a kettle – and pour approximately 250ml over 2g of loose leaf. This is roughly 1 teaspoon of tea.
I let my tea steep for 3 minutes, but you can go up to 5 minutes if you prefer a stronger brew. You can use any brewing equipment you like, but I opted for a simple glass jug for brewing, and the Bodhi Leaf Tea Filter to strain out the leaves as I poured into the teacup.
You can find the leaf tea filter in our tea-ware shop at Immortal Wordsmith. Free UK delivery, of course.
Why Basilur Tea?
I suspect Basilur may be a Russian tea brand. All I know for certain is that whoever writes the descriptions for their blends likes to embellish history a lot, doesn’t care much for the facts, and describes flavours in a manner that leads me to believe that English isn’t their native language.
But the packaging is also truly beautiful and the flavours are always stunning. For that reason, they’re one of my favourite tea blends and I’ve come to love their quirks.
This blend is made with BOP1 (broken orange pekoe) black tea from Ceylon, plus cornflower petals that are super pretty, pineapple chunks, and a lot of flavouring. Basilur describe this tea as have a vanilla note, and they’re right. But I wouldn’t have guessed that without reading the description – it’s secondary to the blackberry jam note when you’re tasting it.
Quality is pretty good, certainly above average for a flavoured blend, and I’m happy with it overall.
Summary
I received this tea as a gift, but I suspect it was likely purchased at a TKMaxx in the UK. The best place to buy this tea online is from Basilur’s official website – I’ve linked to the UK one below. Sometimes you can find the odd Basilur tea on Amazon, but there’s no guarantee. So, buy it directly from Basilur or stumble upon it randomly in a TKMaxx. Those are your options.
Tea Recommendation
Although the packaging doesn’t say “this is a Christmas tea” I think we can all see that it’s marketed for this time of year. So, if you want to buy this as a gift, go for it! You can find other gifts to go with it in my article Top Quirky Gifts for Tea Lovers.