Reviews of Teas & Herbal Teas
Page 1 2 3 4 ... 14 15 16 of 16 pages with 379 results
Kenyan Black Tea with Ginger (Teabags) from Ajiri Tea
Style: Flavored Black Tea – Region: Blend71 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 2/5
Sep. 15th, 2023
As explained below, my score may be a bit unrepresentative on the low end, but only out of honesty on why. The quality of this product stands out, and it's one of the strongest flavored black teas I've had out of a bag. The base Kenyan tea, with finely chopped leaves, turns dark quickly and releases a somewhat bitter...
Read Full ReviewRooibos Coco Chai from Chai Diaries
Style: Rooibos Chai / Spiced Rooibos – Region: Blend52 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 1/5
Sep. 4th, 2023
As with their other product that I have reviewed (Bombay Masala Chai), the concept is great, but the execution is lame. The sachets only contain around 1/5 their volume of dry product, which (as can be expected with rooibos) doesn't expand very much when wet, leaving the wet bags still 1/4 full or less. What a waste ...
Read Full ReviewMatcha Green Tea Blend Asian Pear from Salada
Style: Flavored Green Tea – Region: Blend67 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Aug. 24th, 2023
First thing I noticed was the volume, so let's offer up a round of applause for Salada, for keeping 20 teabags per box. If inflation has to happen, I'd rather have it through higher prices for the same items than the more deceptive, underhanded practice of "shrinkflation", seen in other teas. Each bag is normal-sized...
Read Full ReviewChai Tea from Teapigs
Style: Chai / Spiced Tea – Region: Blend88 / 100 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 4/5
Aug. 1st, 2023
I bought this 15-sachet sack for a couple bucks less, at the same suburban Dallas H-E-B store as Chai Diaries' 15-sachet can of Bombay Masala Chai. Teapigs' chai, while still somewhat expensive, is *far* better, each pyramid sachet holding about twice as much content, filling it up when wet, with noticeably higher qua...
Read Full ReviewCinnamon Stick® Black Tea from Bigelow Tea
Style: Chai / Spiced Tea – Region: Blend77 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
May. 27th, 2023
Somehow, this Bigelow offering escaped me for many years, but it finally emerged from hiding and surrendered to my tea-greedy clutches at a Denver-area hotel—and only then, because striking a huge deer at full speed east of town totaled my vehicle. After that ordeal, and stuck at the hotel amid 30 hours of cold rain...
Read Full ReviewHatley Castle Blend Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Green and Black Tea Blend – Region: Blend80 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
May. 2nd, 2023
Here's still another quality green-black blend from Murchie's, who has a large menu of them and seems to have mastered the apparently delicate art. The blend also is over a century old too, with an interesting history: a custom job originally prepared by company founder James Murchie for Laura Dunsmuir, wife of James...
Read Full ReviewDeTox from Yogi Tea
Style: Wellness Tea / Medicinal Tea – Region: Blend44 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 2/5 Value: 2/5
Apr. 25th, 2023
To think, I was on a run of decent to good scores for teas from this brand...no more. DeTox has no real personality because it seems to be an "everything but the kitchen sink" concoction. The dry-bag aroma is interesting: peppery, grassy, a little minty or fruity, depending on the way the vapors waft across the pass...
Read Full ReviewPassion Filterbag from Tazo Tea
Style: Herbal Tea – Region: Blend53 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 2/5 Value: 3/5
Apr. 12th, 2023
Here's the most-rated Tazo product on RateTea, but haven't yet rated here for unknown reasons. So...this is that, since I snagged some at a hotel.
The blend brews up a dense magenta hue quite quickly, presumably from the added elderberry extract ("for color" on the ingredients label). Dry-bag aroma is generically ...
Bombay Masala Chai from Chai Diaries
Style: Chai / Spiced Tea – Region: ?????56 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 1/5
Apr. 8th, 2023
Here's a tea that seems to work the gourmet/artisan angle hard, presumably in order to justify the exorbitant cost, and just doesn't live up to the billing. The first thing I noticed about the dry bags (fairly standard-sized pyramid sachets with string and tag) is that the dry product only filled about 1/4–1/5 of it...
Read Full ReviewGovernment Street Blend Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Green and Black Tea Blend – Region: Blend89 / 100 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
Mar. 25th, 2023
Here's yet another in a parade of marginally different green/black blends offered by Murchie's, all of which have pleased my nasal passages and taste buds nicely on the way inside. GSB, for short, is the third Murchie's green/black product I've found with both jasmine and bergamot, this one the most bergamot-weighted,...
Read Full ReviewMaui Mango from Tiesta Tea
Style: Fruit (Herbal) Tea – Region: Blend63 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 2/5
Mar. 12th, 2023
With this, I will have reviewed a tea named Mango Maui (Hawaiian Islands Tea Company) and Maui Mango (Tiesta). They're radically different, however. The former is a very good, flavored black tea, while this one is mostly dried fruit by volume (pineapple, orange slices, mango, and strawberry) with flowers sprinkled in...
Read Full ReviewOriental Green Tea from Rituals
Style: Flavored Green Tea – Region: ?????66 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Mar. 11th, 2023
As with the remainder of this brand of US Foods teas, it's a food-service product not sold directly to the public, but still available in some hotels and motels. I got this at a Wingate by Wyndham motel in Frisco, TX, drinking some there and saving a couple others to try later.
The bag came in a sealed foil-paper...
Genmaicha Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Genmaicha – Region: Japan59 / 100 Aroma: 3/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Mar. 2nd, 2023
My experience with genmaicha is very limited, and it's not my favorite tea type, so take this for what it's worth in that context. If the dry smell alone were the basis for evaluating a tea, I would have launched this stuff into the compost heap, untasted, with prejudice. Maybe I'm just not well-adapted to genmaicha ...
Read Full ReviewOrganic Lemon Ginger Green Tea from Stash Tea
Style: Flavored Green Tea – Region: Blend72 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 4/5
Feb. 22nd, 2023
Now, ginger isn't my favorite tea flavor, but having never tried explicitly ginger-flavored green tea yet, I figured this would be worthwhile, especially on sale. I liked it more than I thought I would.
Dry-bag aroma was sharp, crisp, a distinctly peppery ginger that reminded me of a really good "ginger beer" soda....
Toasted Coconut Almond Bark Black Tea from Bigelow Tea
Style: Miscellaneous Blend – Region: Blend63 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Jan. 18th, 2023
For a few years, Tazo and Bigelow, in particular, have gone on a bender of producing explicitly dessert-flavored blends, which doesn't bother me, even as it might annoy some tea purists. Hey, who doesn't like some yummy sweet treats after a good dinner? However, Bigelow may have overplayed its hand here and missed th...
Read Full ReviewRoyal English Breakfast from Harney and Sons
Style: English Breakfast – Region: Blend67 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 2/5
Jan. 1st, 2023
As with their "Green Tea with Coconut & Ginger", I got this at a last-day estate sale for a quarter (proportionate fraction of a bulk pantry buy). Not per bag, but for the entire tin! That's the best value I've had for a good tea. However, you probably can't match that. So how costly is it, for real? A peek at the...
Read Full ReviewApricot Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Flavored Black Tea – Region: Blend81 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Dec. 23rd, 2022
Murchie's has a large repertoire of teas; most last, some don't. This one has been around since at least the mid 2000s, when we started ordering from them, so it must have built a following. I finally decided to order it at the behest of my wife, who likes all things apricot. It doesn't disappoint.
The aroma and...
Earl Grey Filterbags from Tazo Tea
Style: Earl Grey Tea – Region: Blend61 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5
Dec. 11th, 2022
Another "conference tea" here...I had a couple bags there, and brought another home to steep in boiling well water. Water quality at the meeting was good, so my impressions were consistent in both places.
The best part of this tea was its dry-bag smell: potent, high-quality bergamot, but still not too much to ove...
Holiday Spice from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Flavored Rooibos – Region: Blend90 / 100 Aroma: 10/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Dec. 1st, 2022
This blend of rooibos, orange peels, hibiscus, and cloves (the visually obvious ingredients...I think there's some cinnamon and ginger in this too) wasted no time rocketing to the top of my flavored-rooibos list, and very nearly the top of all herbals for me. The website says the tea is modeled after pomander oranges,...
Read Full ReviewWarrior's Brew from Native American Tea Company
Style: Flavored Black Tea – Region: Blend67 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 2/5
Nov. 24th, 2022
This is quite a tasty and well-conceived blend, novel yet nice in both aroma and flavor, holding its own in those departments with any herbal/black bagged combination out there. However, I wish it were stronger, more befitting its name.
The rectangular, stringless tea bags are small, about half the volume of Celest...
Earl's Gold from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Earl Grey Tea – Region: Blend92 / 100 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
Nov. 18th, 2022
This is the second loose-leaf Earl Grey I've had from Murchie's, and an outstanding example of the type, especially for someone like me who likes a bold, assertive tea. It is made from Assam, Keemun and Yunnan, and you bet the Assam asserts itself boldly in all phases of taste and aroma. Upon opening the bag, the dry...
Read Full ReviewEarl Grey Crème from Celestial Seasonings
Style: Earl Grey Cream – Region: Blend72 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Nov. 16th, 2022
Here's another in Celestial's fairly recent run of new black-tea blends. For a mass-marketed brand commonly available in retail stores, this rendition holds its own, but better quality can be had.
The dry aroma (especially when opening the sack or pouch in which the bags are packaged) may be the best part. This is...
Platinum Jubilee Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend71 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 5/5
Nov. 13th, 2022
While still good, this was the least desirable of the Murchie's "Jubilee" line I've tried so far. Blended this year (2022) in honor of the late Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee, it contains a mix of Darjeeling, Assam, Yunnan and Keemun. Given the strong history this company has with teas of those origins individual...
Read Full ReviewRefresh Mint Filterbag from Tazo Tea
Style: Mint Tea – Region: ?????65 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5
Nov. 2nd, 2022
My first in-person conference this decade yielded a few new teas to try and to rate. This was one. As always with such "freebies", value is based on the online and/or local store price.
This is a tea I would call "socially awkward" if it were a human. It hides quietly in the corner when you expect a meaningful i...
English Breakfast Black Tea from Rituals
Style: English Breakfast – Region: ?????63 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Oct. 17th, 2022
Not great, but decent and tolerable: that's how I'll characterize this blend. In my relatively limited experience, many food-service black teas (including English Breakfasts) taste rather flat, hollow, sometimes excessively bitter, or often weak, as if they've either been allowed to sit out in the open for 20 years, ...
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