Reviews of Teas & Herbal Teas from ?????
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 of 6 pages with 135 results
Organic Herbal Tea Supplement, Immunity from Great Value
Style: Herbal Tea – Region: ?????77 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Nov. 6th, 2024
This somewhat medicinally advertised herbal blend is mostly echinacea purpurea: American purple coneflower, a Great Plains flower that grows readily in the wild in nutrient-poor Okie red dirt, as well as in my own gardens. Nonetheless, the secondary ingredients—lemongrass, licorice and spearmint—dominate the aro...
Read Full ReviewModern Earl Grey from Teavana
Style: Earl Grey Tea – Region: ?????79 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 4/5
Nov. 1st, 2024
After a phase of pyramidal sachets in covered plastic cups a few years ago, Teavana seems to have been reconstituted yet again—this time as a line of individually wrapped bagged teas on the target-audience level of Tazo or Stash, but costlier. At a conference, I saw several new Teavana offerings, and took samples ho...
Read Full ReviewExtra Strong from PG Tips
Style: Black Tea – Region: ?????78 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Sep. 17th, 2024
PG Extra Strong is a no-frills but robustly flavored black tea that delivers a nice punch of tea for about 10 to 11 cents a bag (from an 80-ct box). This British tea (now under the Lipton/Unilever corporate umbrella) was on sale at the World Market where I bought a big box of Typhoo's same-named tea a few years ago. ...
Read Full ReviewChai Spice Black Tea from Stash Tea
Style: Chai / Spiced Tea – Region: ?????68 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Jul. 5th, 2024
Here's another tea that has been around a long time, but somehow, I haven't tried nor reviewed it until now! A restaurant in Minnesota served this tea on good water, and I got a second bag to take home and chug as well.
Both times, the impression I got was: this is a pleasantly good, herb-dusted cinnamon infusio...
Chamomile Herbal Tea from Rituals
Style: Pure Chamomile Tea – Region: ?????73 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Jul. 5th, 2024
Another in an assortment of Rituals teas I got from a couple of motels this spring, their chamomile offering made a very nice impression too. With only a very few exceptions, most chamomile teas in my experience differ very little, and when they do, tend to drop off markedly because of lack of freshness. Food-service...
Read Full ReviewEarl Grey (Teabags) from Whittard of Chelsea
Style: Earl Grey Tea – Region: ?????42 / 100 Aroma: 3/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 2/5
Dec. 9th, 2023
Here's a rare flavored black tea where the flavor itself is fairly feeble, and the tea dominates it (not necessarily in a good way, either). Save your money and get an off-brand, food-service tea at a cheap motel, for an experience that is comparable, if not better.
I got this from a gift pack of sampler boxes, wi...
White Chocolate from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Flavored White Tea – Region: ?????74 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Nov. 25th, 2023
Weird tea, but to me at least, pleasantly so! Connoisseurs of complex-flavored tea should like this, unless those flavors are not favorites. First off, the dry-leaf aroma (in the plastic sack), in-cup smell and taste are remarkably consistent with each other.
The hard part is describing what they are. I can see...
Christmas Tea from Whittard of Chelsea
Style: Flavored Black Tea – Region: ?????60 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 2/5
Nov. 15th, 2023
I could write some verbose review of all manner of subtleties, nuances, tones, and flavors here, but:
1) This tea doesn't really have any; it's pleasant but straightforward in its presentation of black tea, orange and cloves, which makes it...
2) A slightly weaker (in taste and aroma) version of Constant Comment.
...
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 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...
Refresh 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, ...
Read Full ReviewEnergy Tea from Celestial Seasonings
Style: Flavored Black Tea – Region: ?????74 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Sep. 10th, 2022
Celestial Seasonings—for decades a specialist in herbal teas—seems to be marketing more black teas of late. I got this from a sampler pack alongside English Breakfast (already reviewed), Peppermint Peak (already reviewed...very tasty) and Earl Grey Creme (soon!). This one confuses me a bit for two reasons:
1. N...
Manzanilla (Chamomile) from Tadin Herb and Tea Co.
Style: Pure Chamomile Tea – Region: ?????73 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Apr. 14th, 2022
Value-wise, I've found that cheaper chamomile really is best much of the time, since the quality doesn't seem to vary greatly from one brand to another. So when I run low or out, I just grab something inexpensive when I see it. Such was the case here, and I rate "value" highly for two reasons:
1) The tea was on sal...
Pure Green Tea (100% Green tea) from Salada
Style: Green Tea – Region: ?????64 / 100 Aroma: 4/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Feb. 12th, 2022
As with many inexpensive, bagged green teas, this didn't offer much dry-bag or in-cup aroma, but what there was had a pleasantly grassy to vegetal characteristic that carried over somewhat to the taste, which was quite mild with hints of celery. In that sense, if Salada removed the last "a" from their name, it wouldn'...
Read Full ReviewRosehip & Hibiscus from Teekanne
Style: Herbal Tea – Region: ?????69 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Jan. 21st, 2022
Rosehip and hibiscus teas, by themselves, don't excite me much, because they tend to be on the sour side. I'm not a big fan of sour teas. Still, as those go, this one's among the most flavorful and naturally colorful I've had. It also has one of the stronger dry-bag aromas—more rosy than fruity, and transitions to...
Read Full ReviewDecaffeinated Black Tea from Great Value
Style: Black Tea – Region: ?????18 / 100 Aroma: 2/10 Flavor: 2/5 Value: 1/5
Jan. 1st, 2022
Brought home from a low-grade motel somewhere in southwestern New Mexico, this tea wasn't high on my priority list to try. Cheap motels are that way for a reason—well, several reasons—one being those that do bother to offer tea often buy cheap tea in bulk from Wal-Mart. The nearest Wal-Mart to this place was at l...
Read Full ReviewPurely Peppermint from Teekanne
Style: Peppermint Tea – Region: ?????81 / 100 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 3/5
Nov. 26th, 2021
The version I have simply is called "Peppermint" without the "Purely" or "Soothing" parts, though I have seen the white-box "Soothing" version in stores too. The ingredient in both simply is peppermint leaves. I don't know if it has been wholly renamed, or if this is just a relabeling of the same tea for different ma...
Read Full ReviewPeppermint from TEViVE
Style: Peppermint Tea – Region: ?????51 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 2/5
Nov. 9th, 2021
It's not hard to get peppermint tea right: just use properly grown and dried leaves and put enough in the bag to fill it when wet. They got the first part, and failed miserably on the second.
I've had a lot of peppermint teas, and the quality of the leaves they use stands with any of them, even with a few choppe...
Mixed Fruit from Teekanne
Style: Fruit (Herbal) Tea – Region: ?????62 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Nov. 6th, 2021
Teekanne markets numerous assorted fruit infusions on multiple nation-domain websites. Curiously, I can't find this product (by this name anyway, or by another with the same ingredients) anywhere on Teekanne's main dot-com English-language website, nor German, nor their Austrian site .at, which is in English. Yet it'...
Read Full ReviewWhite Chocolate Peppermint from Celestial Seasonings
Style: Flavored White Tea – Region: ?????81 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 4/5
Oct. 6th, 2021
Celestial Seasonings has produced, then retired, at least three flavored white teas, based on RateTea's listings. Is the fourth time the charm?
This apparently new offering, as of October 2021, contains white tea (unspecified type and origin), white chocolate flavor with other natural flavors, cinnamon, peppermin...
Plantation Mint® Black Tea from Bigelow Tea
Style: Black Tea with Mint – Region: ?????61 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 4/5
Sep. 22nd, 2021
RateTea has been good for my life, by motivating me to variegate my tea sampling, and opening up new flavor and olfactory worlds. How's that for advertorial testimony? :-) That, however, has included getting me to sample nasty to mediocre teas, as well as some very good ones I otherwise wouldn't have had. This clas...
Read Full ReviewDecaffeinated Green Tea from Great Value
Style: Green Tea – Region: ?????14 / 100 Aroma: 1/10 Flavor: 1/5 Value: 2/5
Jun. 11th, 2021
Quite simply, this is one of the worst teas I've tried. For starters, it has no dry-bag aroma at all. I suppose that's better than a noxious smell, since it's basically the scent of the teabag itself. Then the in-cup and wet-bag scents resembled a balanced blend of very faint green tea with wet paper. Something abo...
Read Full ReviewGreen Tea with Lemon from Bigelow Tea
Style: Green Tea with Lemon – Region: ?????58 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5
Jun. 7th, 2021
Back to traveling with motel stays again this year, and back to finding their teas I haven't rated yet! As always, I'll bring an extra bag home to try in my well water for consistency in rating, so that bad local water doesn't affect a tea's rating unduly.
The concept behind "Green Tea with Lemon" left me with a s...
Hot Cinnamon Spice (Sachets) (Formerly Hot Cinnamon Sunset) from Harney and Sons
Style: Flavored Black Tea – Region: ?????72 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Feb. 13th, 2021
One of my co-workers has been quaffing this tea with devoted fervor for a few months since I introduced him to drinking any tea. In turn, he gave me some of this. Knowing how much Harney tea tins cost even at Target, I wouldn't have bought this on my own, but it's not bad to try for free. I based the value on the kn...
Read Full ReviewPage 1 2 3 4 5 6 of 6 pages with 135 results