Reviews of Teas & Herbal Teas
Page 1 2 3 ... 12 13 14 of 14 pages with 340 results
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...
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Royal 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...
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Apricot 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,...
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Warrior'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...
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Earl 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...
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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, ...
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Chai Masala from Vermont Artisan Coffee & Tea Co
Style: Chai / Spiced Tea – Region: Blend37 / 100 Aroma: 3/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 2/5
Oct. 9th, 2022
I first tried this tea on vacation, at a breakfast cafe in Stowe, VT, that was way overpriced for what's offered. That's a description fitting pretty much everything in the area except for the fabulous Piecasso Pizza and any of the Trapp Family's Austrian desserts. That I naively paid about three bucks for a small cu...
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Green Tea Tropical from Mighty Leaf Tea
Style: Flavored Green Tea – Region: Blend68 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5
Sep. 21st, 2022
As customary for Mighty Leaf packaging, this blend comes in a sachet sewn on three sides with cotton threads, which then extend out to the string and the paper tag. Within the sachet, one easily can see the chopped green tea—mostly leaf pieces, but a few stems—and several assorted dried flower pieces that presumab...
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Energy 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...
Organic Orange Vanilla Creme Rooibos Tea from 365 Everyday Value
Style: Flavored Rooibos – Region: South Africa79 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
Aug. 28th, 2022
Orange-vanilla isn't a rooibos flavoring I had tried yet, but it's a favorite in general, both for black tea and going back to the childhood Creamsicle days. It's also labeled as naturally flavored. Therefore, even though I ordinarily wouldn't buy a 40-pack of a new tea taste-untested, I figured a gamble on this offe...
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Indian Love Tea from Native American Tea Company
Style: Herbal Tea – Region: Blend55 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 2/5
Aug. 14th, 2022
This tea isn't easy to love, since the smell is weird, but I don't hate it, since the taste is decent, which may be the "love" in the tea offsetting my lack of love *for* the tea. If you can make sense of that, you're well-prepared for the ingredients list. It looks like something out of the Yogi Tea bazillion-herbs ...
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Cranberry Pomegranate from Stash Tea
Style: Flavored Rooibos – Region: Blend66 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Jul. 29th, 2022
I got this tea for my wife, who likes cranberry flavor, but she has avoided it because the main aroma and flavor is from the rooibos (which she doesn't like). So to please her, I drink it instead. ;-)
This is one of the very few flavored or herbal teas I've had containing rooibos where the rooibos clearly dominate...
Green Tea with Coconut & Ginger from Harney and Sons
Style: Flavored Green Tea – Region: Blend73 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 2/5
Jul. 3rd, 2022
Substantively, this doesn't seem to be different from Harney's Bangkok tea (which I liked a lot and reviewed highly), but in even costlier sachets. Expensive stuff. Very expensive stuff. Did I mention it's pricey?
The value really drags on this product, because while it smells and tastes very good, paying ten b...
Blackberry Sage from Republic of Tea
Style: Flavored Black Tea – Region: Blend54 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 2/5
May. 17th, 2022
Republic teas usually are on the costly side; however, I grabbed this one on sale at a Dallas Whole Foods. "Value" is based on the normal prices for other Republic teas (retailing upwards of 8-10 bucks for 50-pouch columnar steel tins), and how this tea doesn't pack the punch it should for reputably strong flavors of ...
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CBC Radio Blend Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Green and Black Tea Blend – Region: Blend80 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
May. 8th, 2022
This tea was blended originally in 1996 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, though I don't think CBC markets it directly. Murchie's website touts, "choice Ceylon and China black teas, Jasmine and other green teas with a touch of citrus".
Another in a remarkably large select...
Irish Breakfast (Loose) from Twinings
Style: Irish Breakfast – Region: Blend59 / 100 Aroma: 4/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Apr. 27th, 2022
The version I'm rating is from the "American" tin (packed in Greensboro, NC, but presumably shipped over in bulk to parse out for that purpose). It doesn't look appreciably different from the photo I uploaded off Twinings' website.
Dry aroma was surprisingly weak for an Irish Breakfast blend, but pleasant to the e...
Vanilla Caramel Black Tea (Vanilla Caramel Truffle Tea) from Lipton Tea
Style: Flavored Black Tea – Region: Blend49 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 1/5
Apr. 24th, 2022
Here's another case of a tea with multiple marketing personalities across target audiences. RateTea states this product is retired/discontinued, and perhaps it is in the U.S. However, it's still available on amazon.com with an "imported" label, as of this writing (for nearly $12 per 20-ct box!). I got the remainder...
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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...
Balmoral Blend Tea Bags from Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend84 / 100 Aroma: 10/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Apr. 7th, 2022
This Ceylon/Assam blend is yet another in a long line of Murchie's teas paying tribute to British royalty in some way. According to the website: "Murchie's Balmoral Blend Tea was originally blended for York House School—a private school for girls which has been an institution in Vancouver for over 75 years. This b...
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Mango Ginger from Yogi Tea
Style: Wellness Tea / Medicinal Tea – Region: Blend79 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 4/5
Mar. 30th, 2022
I liked this more than most Yogi blends I've tried, probably because it has tropical fruit flavors I enjoy greatly (mango and passion fruit), a spicy kick, and "only" nine ingredients. [For the uninitiated, that's extreme simplicity for Yogi Tea.] Those ingredients are (organic): ginger, cinnamon, rooibos, mango flav...
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