Product Review: Sunrider Herbal Beverages – Fortune Delight and Calli tea

When I received my package of Sunrider Sunbreeze Essential Oil (see review here), the company that I purchased from gave me a little unexpected bonus by including a sample of Sunrider Calli Tea.

As a lifelong tea and coffee drinker, I was more than happy to try out this surprise little accompaniment, and to my delight I was able to enjoy two cups of this unique fruity-tea beverage.

At some point over the next two weeks, I headed back online to research more of the products from the business I had purchased the Sunbreeze Oils from (and Sunrider the manufacturer) and came across the businesses offer of purchasing a sample pack of their popular Sunrider products.  At almost AUD$15 (fifteen Australian dollars) for only four different health drink products was crazily expensive especially once I added postage and handling to the cost, but I had a strong urge to try the Calli Tea again, so I placed an order for not one, but two, sample packs!

                                                 

The very thoughtful people at the company made sure I didn’t have any double-ups in the flavours they bundled together – whether accidental or intentional I’m not sure.  I received eight sachets in total comprising Calli Tea, Fortune Delight and VitaDelight in various flavours – along with a small sheet of typed instructions.

                                                 
 

At work, everyone else in the office was on a (temporary, or should I just say short-lived) coming-into-winter health kick.  Each morning for about a month the kettle was switched on in the kitchen but instead of the usual coffee to kick-start the day, the females of the office (we only had one outnumbered male!) were competing to set the example by making herbal teas for themselves instead. One favourite of theirs sitting on the counter was Peppermint Tea.

Now, I don’t mind Peppermint Tea, but its strong flavour is too overpowering for me to drink with any great frequency, and these girls were drinking it by the extreme-dieting bucketful. I had recently found a Mint and Ginger Tea at my local Coles Supermarket (not to join them in their always-on-a-diet efforts but as a lovely flavoured tea). But as seems to be the universe’s – or maybe just Coles – habit when I find something I like very much at this particular Coles store, no sooner had I purchased one small box to learn that I love this tea then Coles discontinued carrying that makers herbal variety range. (I think it might have been Tetley Tea, but not a hundred percent on that now). The only choices left in the long multi-shelf tea section were nine other brands and their herbal varieties. Everywhere I looked all I could find was Peppermint Tea, Peppermint Tea, Peppermint Tea, ooh and a Camomile tea or something similar occasionally.

I think I already mentioned, “I don’t mind peppermint tea, but...” Seriously Coles, you stopped stocking my Mint and Ginger in order to put more peppermint tea on the shelf. Does anyone even buy this much peppermint tea? But I digress...

So, I was thrilled when I found a Mint Calli sample in my Sunrider sample pack.  Would it be strong and overbearing like the shelves upon shelves of Peppermint tea?  Or, would it be more like the Mint and Ginger tea that I now couldn’t even find in Woolworths, Franklins or Aldi grocery stores that I had deliberately made a trip to in order to try and stock up on.

                                                                    

 

I was even more thrilled when I read that each Calli Mint tea bag was good for two cups of tea not just one – double the money value is always a good thing for someone who only just meets the high costs of living on their way-too-low wages for the type of expertise required with the job.  So, I waited until I was in the mood for Mint Tea (that very afternoon!) and then savoured every last drop in my ‘serious coffee drinker’ sized mug.  

From that moment onwards, I could forget about drinking Mint and Ginger tea!  I wanted Calli Mint from here-on in!

Moving on, next item in my sample pack that I tried was the small packet of Fortune Delight – a powder that you then make up like you are making tea or coffee (but don’t use boiling water). I didn’t know which flavour I had chosen when I took out the tiny package with the intention of sampling it because it didn’t state the details on the shiny foil sachet, but as soon as the ‘hot but not boiling’ water hit the bottom of my coffee mug, I caught whiff of the delicious smell of sweet peaches. Oh, heaven! From first sip: I fell in love also with Peach Fortune Delight®; and knew in an instant I would be heading back online and making another online purchase before I went to bed that night.

How often do you fall in love with two different products at the same time?  I know this is a RARE thing for me.

                                                   
 

I hadn’t really ever tasted anything like it before, and yet, it still ‘hit the spot’ – which nothing else has ever quite done so perfectly. Not even my favourite English Breakfast tea which I had previously thought ‘hit the spot’ quite nicely.

And, this little packet of pure drinking heaven was actually good for me!

From Sunrider website:

“Similar to Calli® in providing antioxidant benefits, Fortune Delight is also concentrated and comes in powder form.  Catechins are naturally occurring polyphenol chemicals found in Camellia sinensis, the primary ingredient in Fortune Delight. These antioxidants have been shown effective in absorbing damaging free radicals. Delicious hot or cold, all five flavours of Fortune Delight® promote the body’s natural cleansing processes.”

Until then, I always (ignorantly) sort of equated that proper herbal foods and drinks resulted in having to put up with a disgusting taste – but boy did Peach Fortune Delight® throw a spanner in that misguided belief! (not completely, I have tried a few other Sunrider products that have reaffirmed my original viewpoint).

I somehow found the patience to try one of the other Calli Teas and one of the VitaDelight’s that day before I placed my next order. I was hooked. I went straight for the more economical sixty pack rather than the ten pack, reasoning that by the time my order took two to three weeks to arrive, if I had a ten pack I would run out and end up sweating on the next delivery to hurry up and arrive, whereas if I ordered a sixty pack, I could send off for another order well in time for the order to arrive before my first sixty pack ran out.

And what the heck, I also ordered a sixty pack of the Mint Calli Tea for good measure – my intention to visit an IGA store as last hope to find the formerly desired Mint and Ginger tea no longer a necessity. This Calli Mint tea tasted way better than even the Mint and Ginger tea, which now seemed ‘childish’ by product comparison. As if a product could be ‘childish’!

I wanted to buy it all – luckily or unluckily depending on how you see things – my limited finances restricted me from going on a Sunrider shopping rampage.  I think this was the first time in that I seriously wished I was rich and could afford to shop without restraint!

So, each morning since late April/ early March 2012, I now find myself racing to the kitchen each morning, so I can start drinking a Peach Fortune Delight; and in the afternoon, right when I am in desperate need of a pep-me-up to help me through my long, tiring, work afternoon, you can probably find me sipping on two Mint Teas back-to-back (unless I am sharing the second cuppa with my delightful young receptionist Susie who is always hoping I will offer the second cup).

Now, one thing that I have noticed about Sunrider is that they don’t advertise their products much, and when they do, they don’t make health claims about them either, unlike other companies (with far less superior products).  I think it may be part of the company’s philosophy to have its products promoted and spread by the best form of advertising there is: word of mouth.  I was unable to find anything negative about the products when I searched the internet.  And at first, I found that curious, and off-putting.  It is highly frustrating when you are trying to learn more about products and there is no information, almost as though it was some big secret that I wasn’t privileged to be in on. But now that I have been drinking, I understand why: I feel better, and the drinks have surpassed any health benefits I hoped to gain – and the company didn’t have to claim a thing!

I distrust company pages with testimonials – always have.  My reasoning is that the company is out to make money, and anyone can fake a written testimonial to support their goal to gain a sale.

Well, I am more than happy to be a testimonial for the Sunrider products I have tried and use, and to share my reasons for not liking or using the ones I won’t purchase again (not that there are many, and not really Sunrider’s fault).

Keeping in mind that the company does not want false claims out there, I’ll just share my experience, knowing that others probably won’t have the same experience as me.

It was only after I had been consistently drinking both Peach Fortune Delight and Mint Calli for about a month that I suddenly realised one afternoon:

1.      I was no longer drinking coffee – and I hadn’t gone through coffee withdrawal headaches like I usually suffered whenever I tried to cut back my too-high coffee consumption

2.      I was feeling healthier, much healthier – and the only thing I had changed in my life was substituting coffee and tea drinking with Calli and Fortune Delight drinking

3.      I had lost five kilo – and I hadn’t dieted, or exercised, so was at a loss as to how I had managed this remarkable and desired feat.

But it was also the absence of the tiny aches and pains that had been making me feel old(er than my years) when those niggling symptoms disappeared faster than they had slowly crept up on me that I truly attributed the change in my health to the Sunrider products I was consuming.  Without all those annoying creaks and groans, I was now feeling younger, healthier, more energetic than I had in a while.

I quit smoking seven years earlier with the goal of becoming healthier, and although I felt an immediate health improvement, I never regained the energy or health level quite to what I had imagined I could achieve when I first set out to quit smoking (and this is the only aspect to having quit that disappointed me in plaguing proportions). I was realistic about my expectations: I knew I couldn’t turn the clock back to having the energy levels of my youth, but was I wrong to desire that by quitting smoking that I would feel healthier and have more vitality (than what I actually had gained)?

So seven years of non-smoking didn’t produce the health goal I had hoped but one month and a number of purchases of the different flavours of Fortune Delight and Calli tea later, I finally got that right ‘feeling healthy’ feeling I had believed I would gain. One month of drinking the products daily, and I was feeling alive and new and darn-better than I had in a long time!

Now, the drinks don’t produce miracles and probably never will. But...

My hair has greyed over the last ten years at an increasingly noticeable rate.  Drinking Calli and Fortune Delight have not reversed the clock (what a shame!), but... I haven’t become any greyer since I started drinking Sunrider Herbal Beverages, which is a plus.  It is almost like it has put a stop to my aging clock. Almost.  I know I am still aging, unfortunately. Or maybe, which is probably more accurate, it has just slowed down my sped-up-aging clock back to its slowest speed rather than the sped-up one.

My hair shines and I have far less ‘bad hair’ days.

My finger nails grow nicely and aren’t breaking all the time like they had been.

And well, other, more private issues have resolved themselves as well, which I am very pleased about.

My doctor, who wanted me to have full blood work a while back (which I never got around to having done), and who was starting to frown each time he took my blood pressure because of its slowly rising pattern (even though it was still within the healthy level, just), was amazed when I recently attended after a fall and discovered that my former slowly rising blood pressure had returned to its ‘perfect’ state.  He asked me if I had changed my job, or had started a relationship.  I replied, “No?”  And he said, something like, “But something has changed. For the better.” The only thing that had changed was that I was now a fully-fledged Sunrider customer.

I had been steadily losing my eyesight abilities over the last eight years.  One minute I had perfect eyesight.  The next I needed reading glasses.  Then I needed stronger reading glasses.  Then I’m having reading and distance glasses.  Finally, I was back requesting bi-focal’s. But since I have been drinking Calli and Fortune Delight, I don’t think my vision has declined any further either.  I’m still comfortably using the same glasses I bought a year ago, and before that I was having to change them about every six months.

These days, I now order my Sunrider products directly from Sunrider Australia (woohoo!  No more foreign conversion fees hitting my bank account).  And I purchase two boxes of sixty Peach Fortune Delight every month. I get anxious if it looks like I will run out before my order will be delivered.

I drink Fortune Delight hot or cold.

I have a Peach Fortune Delight (or another flavour, like Raspberry, instead sometimes, but I really prefer the Peach as my favourite) to get me going for the day – no artificial stimulants, just a highly enjoyed taste – and even one or two ‘cups’ (meaning I drink it hot) throughout the day.  In the afternoon, I generally have a Mint Calli tea to perk me up (again no artificial stimulants) for the afternoon.

When I work out on my treadmill, I have taken a shine to grabbing a bottle of water, taking a sip out of it, and then pouring Peach Fortune Delight in, and giving it a shake. I find that drinking it cool like this quenches my thirst far better than water alone, but doesn’t leave me craving food or water like some other drinks.

If there was a five star rating system for all this, I would rate things like this:

Peach Fortune Delight – 5 stars

Calli Mint – 5 stars

Calli Cinnamon – 5 stars

Calli Sleep – 4.5 stars

Fortune Delight Raspberry – 4.0 stars

Mint and Ginger – 3.5 stars

English Breakfast tea – 3.5 stars

Other flavoured teas, including peppermint tea – 2 stars

Anyway, I have ranted enough for today’s post on trying to give the reasons why everyone should drink Fortune Delight and Calli tea. And I do strongly recommend you start drinking Calli and Fortune Delight too, and get over any ‘it’s pricey’ issues you may have – the benefits are way stronger than the costs.

If you would like assistance to find a consultant then please email me at Char Mesan at gmail dot com [no spaces and no Capital letters]

Or,

Purchase via Amazon.com by clicking on the image below.

                                                    
 

Or,

Visit Sunrider website at www.sunrider.com

Join as a customer or consultant

Sponsor details

IBO Number: AS008168204

Email: SRIBO.QuinC@yahoo.com.au

If I have successfully convinced you to give Fortune Delight and or Calli tea a try, I would love to hear what you think.

And just a reminder: you can find me on Facebook and Google+. Please Like my page, and or Add me to your circle!  And, if you don’t want to comment publicly, I’m happy for you to send me an email.

Until next post – have a wonderful day.