Hello, juicy flavours. If you want something that’s sweet and thirst-quenching, your top choices are usually peach, mango, or passionfruit. And this cold brew from Whittard of Chelsea has all three. This tea is part of their new cold brew infusions line – tea specially blended to brew quickly and easily in cold water, so you can get cold-brewed tea in minutes rather than hours.
Last week I reviewed the Cherry and Mandarin flavour and was quite impressed with how it worked… but the flavour was a little weak. So, let’s see if this new flavour does a better job of keeping me cool and sated on a hot August day.
Whittard Passionfruit, Mango & Peach Cold Brew at a Glance
Izzy’s Rating
- Blend: Fruit pieces, sugar, natural flavouring, and herbal ingredients
- Flavour: Tart and refreshing with a strong peach flavour and hints of passionfruit
The mango and passionfruit flavours may get a little lost, but overall, this is a seriously juicy cold brew tea with an elegant colour.
Full Review – Passionfruit Cold Brew Teabags
- Type: Tagged pyramid sachet
- Ingredients: Apple pomace, hibiscus, sweet blackberry leaves, peach pieces (peach, sugar), passionflower herb, mango fruit granules (mango, maltodextrin), citric acid, natural flavouring
- Flavour Notes: Tart, refreshing, juicy peaches
- Aroma: Citrus, passionfruit, fruit punch, floral
- Milk or Lemon: Neither
- Where to Buy: Whittard of Chelsea
The first thing that hits you is a strong citrus kick. It emanates from the teabags, followed by a concentrated passionfruit aroma. It’s like a fruit punch – bold and sweet. But after 10 minutes doused in cold water, that all changes.
Cold brewing this punchy tea produces a soft blush-pink beverage that reminds me of pink lemonade. It’s so elegant! The aroma lightens too, swirling notes of peach and passionfruit so gently that they take on an almost floral quality.
As for the flavour, it’s certainly balanced. There are refreshing peachy notes on every inch of your tongue, with a battle between tartness and sweetness on the edges. Peach is the predominant flavour, though I did find a few hints of passionfruit in the aftertaste. Any notes of mango are totally lost, which is a shame.
The texture of Whittard Passionfruit, Mango and Peach is incredibly slick but also slightly drying – a great combination for hydration if you are feeling parched.
How to Brew This Peach-Flavoured Cold Brew
Normally, cold brewing tea requires letting your tea leaves or teabags soak in cold water for 8 hours or overnight in the fridge. But by choosing fast-infusing ingredients and balancing the ratios to get a good flavour in cold temperatures, Whittard has whittled that down to just 10 minutes.
Brew 1 teabag in 250ml (roughly) of fridge-cold water for 5 to 10 minutes. Don’t use room temperature tap water – it isn’t cold enough to temper the sweetness properly.
As it is caffeine-free, it makes a great evening drink. But, actually, the floral-like aroma and blush pink colour make this feel like a very special beverage. I could even see this being served as an alcohol-free wedding drink or a champagne alternative.
Why Use Whittard’s Cold Brew Infusions?
The main attraction to these cold brew infusions is the speed at which they infuse in cold water. But that speed comes with compromises. First, let’s look at the three main ingredients:
- Peach pieces (peach, sugar) 1%
- Passionflower herb 1%
- Mango fruit granules (mango, maltodextrin) 1%
Making up only 3% of the total ingredients, Whittard relies on herbal ingredients to create a full fruity body (I imagine the hibiscus and apple are doing a lot of the heavy lifting) and natural flavouring to make peach, mango and passionfruit the stars of the show.
If you had the time to brew for 8 hours, you could potentially forgo the natural flavouring and allow the actual fruit and herbal ingredients to infuse fully.
As for the sugar, most iced beverages need a little help with extra sweetness. The cold temperature lowers the sweetness you can taste (compare a cold glass of cola to a room temperature one – the sweetness grows as the temperature rises), so adding more is a common practice.
There’s a small amount of sugar with the peach pieces, plus maltodextrin with the mango fruit granules. Maltodextrin is a sugar substance like corn syrup that’s commonly added to help sweeten and thicken foods. It’s considered safe, but it has a high glycaemic index, and it is a highly processed ingredient, so many people choose to avoid it altogether.
When you’re DIYing a cold brew, you can either add sugar and/or honey at the start to slowly dissolve as the tea brews, or you can add a liquid-based sugar at the end – this could be a simple syrup or fruit juice.
Summary
Despite my minor gripes with the processed ingredients, I can’t deny that this is a delicious and well-balanced tea. It sings with notes of peach and passionfruit, while blushing shyly in your glass with pink lemonade shades.
If you want an elegant caffeine-free cold tea to sip this summer, I highly recommend giving it a try. The best place to buy this is from Whittard, and you’d better hurry before the line is discontinued to make way for their autumn flavours!
Tea Recommendation
If Whittard Passionfruit, Mango and Peach Cold Brew is a little too fruity and you’d prefer something that actually tastes of tea, I recommend trying Two Spoons Tea’s Green Tea. It’s smooth and grassy with a bright quality that will only grow brighter when you cold brew this tea overnight in the fridge.