Difflugia
Tea Reviewer
Member since Mar. 9th, 2017. Reviewed 36 teas.
Reviews of Teas & Herbal Teas
Page 1 2 of 2 pages with 36 results
Darjeeling from Twinings
Style: Darjeeling Black Tea – Region: Darjeeling, India60 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
May. 15th, 2017
The tea has a weak aroma, both before and after steeping. It has a vegetal smell without much complexity, like cut grass or sugarcane. The aroma has a sweetness to it, but again, not as complex as other Darjeeling blends.
The flavor is more complex than I expected based on both the aroma and experience with Twinings...
French Vanilla Decaffeinated Black Tea from Bigelow Tea
Style: Vanilla Black Tea – Region: ?????30 / 100 Aroma: 3/10 Flavor: 1/5 Value: 3/5
May. 9th, 2017
Opening the foil pouch releases the scent of vanilla and cream, like custard or eggnog. Adding the water makes the aroma overpowering. This is decaf, so there is probably little tea aroma. Even if there were any, though, it would be completely masked by the flavoring.
The flavoring has a rich sweetness to it, but th...
British Blend - Premium Black Tea from Tetley Tea
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend60 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 4/5
May. 6th, 2017
Cutting open a dry teabag, the tea is small pieces of CTC pellets. It smells nice, but generic; the aroma is oak leaves and malt without much complexity.
Adding the water brings out the Assam in the blend. The sour, malty aroma is quite rich. The first taste of the tea is a surprise in that teas that smell like the ...
British Blend - Premium Black Tea - Decaffeinated from Tetley Tea
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend47 / 100 Aroma: 4/10 Flavor: 2/5 Value: 4/5
May. 5th, 2017
There's no aroma at all from the dry tea. Upon opening the box for the first time, there's a paper smell that is probably from the teabag material itself.
Tastes like stale, weak tea, but even so, is one of the best decaf blacks.
There's no bitterness or astringency, but there's a little sour vegetal flavor on th...
Black Cherry Berry Herb Tea from Celestial Seasonings
Style: Fruit (Herbal) Tea – Region: ?????75 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Apr. 30th, 2017
I'm a big fan of fruit punch flavors and decided to try this tea based on the other reviews. I wasn't disappointed. While slightly heavy on the cherries (which is to be expected, after all), it really does have a fruit punch flavor.
Aside from the tartness of the hibiscus, the flavor really doesn't reflect the named...
Orange & Spice Herbal Tea from Bigelow Tea
Style: Fruit (Herbal) Tea – Region: ?????50 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5
Apr. 30th, 2017
I recently tried some decaf Constant Comment and liked the orange and spice blend, so I tried this. This blend is, in a word, disappointing. Orange & Spice is much heavier on the cinnamon and while I can taste the clove if I look for it, it's very much a background flavor. I don't smell or taste the orange at all. This...
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Earl Grey Tea from Tradition
Style: Earl Grey Tea – Region: ?????85 / 100 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Apr. 28th, 2017
The oversized teabags contain tea that is quite broken, but still much larger than fannings. It smells strongly of bergamot.
After brewing, the aroma is a nice balance of citrus and an earthy and malty tea. The package doesn't say where the black tea is sourced. It tastes Chinese to me, but the only unflavored black...
Constant Comment Decaffeinated from Bigelow Tea
Style: Flavored Black Tea – Region: Blend60 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 4/5
Apr. 27th, 2017
The teabags smell really nice to me. The heaviest components are orange and clove. Adding water intensifies the aroma and brings out hints of cinnamon and sweet spice (cardamom? nutmeg?) in the background. The orange and spice overpower any recognizable tea aroma.
The flavor is dominated by clove with a taste that r...
Jasmine Decaf Green Tea from Triple Leaf Tea
Style: Jasmine Tea – Region: ?????60 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Apr. 26th, 2017
The teabags smell quite strongly of jasmine, so I only steeped this one two minutes since Jasmine can get bitter.
The brewing tea smells like jasmine, but the background aroma is sort of fishy, almost like some kinds of pu-erh. This tea tastes pretty much like most inexpensive jasmine tea. The jasmine flavor is nice...
Organic Decaf Sencha Green Tea Bag from Yamamotoyama
Style: Sencha – Region: Japan65 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Apr. 24th, 2017
This decaf certainly smells delicious. The dry teabag smells just like a sencha should. It's fresh, grassy, and a little seaweed. The tea is fine fannings, almost dust.
The tea steeps a bright green. The aroma, though a bit muted, is vegetal, like raw green beans.
The first taste is a strong, but pleasant bittern...
English Breakfast from Harney and Sons
Style: English Breakfast – Region: China80 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Apr. 24th, 2017
I bought a box of teabags at the same time as a tin of loose tea to see how different they are. The answer is not much.
The box contains twenty individually sealed, standard, flat teabags. The dry tea is chopped up as fannings and has a fainter aroma than I get when sniffing a tin of loose tea, but once it starts br...
English Breakfast from Harney and Sons
Style: English Breakfast – Region: China85 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
Apr. 22nd, 2017
I saw some Harney & Sons teas in a health food store and remembered that they got high reviews here, so I decided to try some. I got a tin of loose leaf English Breakfast and a box of tea bags. The box of teabags says that the blend is 100% Keemun, but the tin just says "blended black tea". I wasn't sure that they were...
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Iced Tea Blend from Tetley Tea
Style: Black Tea – Region: ?????75 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Apr. 21st, 2017
I found this tea at the Dollar Tree, so I decided to try it. Inside the box are 12 large, round, unwrapped tea bags. The total weight of the tea is 84g, so each bag contains 7g, or enough for 2-3 cups of tea. Though the tea is intended to be made into iced tea, I'm drinking it hot.
I cut open one of the bags to look...
Premium Green Decaf Tea from Stash Tea
Style: Green Tea – Region: ?????80 / 100 Aroma: 10/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 4/5
Apr. 18th, 2017
The freshly-opened teabag has a strong smell when dry, which is unusual for a decaf. Even though it isn't particularly complex, the aroma is fresh and grassy.
The tea brews into a dark amber-green and smells very vegetal, like freshly harvested asparagus. Both color and aroma remind me of the "special gunpowder" gre...
Ancient Golden Yunnan from Rishi Tea
Style: Yunnan Gold – Region: Yunnan, China80 / 100 Aroma: 10/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Apr. 18th, 2017
While somewhat broken, the dry tea is in relatively large pieces and the golden tips that the style is known for are apparent. The aroma is malty with notes of raisins.
While brewing, the tea smells wonderful. The maltiness is pronounced, but tannic, leafy and perhaps mineral elements are also present.
The first ...
Spiced Citrus Nana Mint from Wissotzky
Style: Herbal Tea – Region: ?????50 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 1/5 Value: 3/5
Apr. 17th, 2017
The dry tea is pungent, smelling of both spearmint and peppermint with a hint of cinnamon. Adding water intensifies the aroma without really changing the balance. With the first taste, I realized that this tea is all about the mint. It's definitely high quality; while cheaper mint often tastes of stems and hay, there'...
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Wild Sweet Orange from Tazo Tea
Style: Herbal Tea – Region: ?????90 / 100 Aroma: 10/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 4/5
Apr. 12th, 2017
I'm pretty sure this tea/tisane is almost artificial. While the ingredients aren't artificial, they aren't just plant parts, either. First, I think most of the orange aroma comes from a layer of orange oil ("natural orange essence" in the ingredients) sprayed on the teabag. The teabag itself is actually yellow-orange a...
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Prince of Wales (Loose) from Twinings
Style: Black Tea – Region: China75 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Apr. 12th, 2017
The dry tea is quite broken and, though there is quite a bit of dust at the bottom of the tin, most of the pieces are noticeably larger than the tea in the teabags. The aroma is faint, but malty and pleasant.
Adding the water draws out a smoky, earthy aroma that is characteristic of other Chinese black teas. The ini...
Prince of Wales from Twinings
Style: Black Tea – Region: China45 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 2/5 Value: 2/5
Apr. 11th, 2017
This tea smells great, but the flavor is weak. The aroma is both earthy and sweet. The flavor, though, is a pale shadow of the aroma. The first time I bought a box of this tea, I assumed that it had to be stale because of improper packing or storing. A second box was the same.
The tea isn't bitter or astringent at a...
Qimen Black Tea from Starway
Style: Keemun – Region: Qimen, Anhui, China95 / 100 Aroma: 10/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
Apr. 5th, 2017
Like other Starway teas, this tea is very inexpensive ($6.99 for 6 ounces) and is packaged in a red tin of the same style as other Starway teas. The leaves are broken, but in reasonably large pieces.
The dried leaves are quite pungent and smell strongly of raisins. As the tea steeps, the aroma is of earth, oak leave...
Green Tea Decaffeinated from Twinings
Style: Green Tea – Region: ?????30 / 100 Aroma: 4/10 Flavor: 2/5 Value: 1/5
Apr. 4th, 2017
This is one of the weakest decaf greens that I've tried. It brews up with a darker color than even many caffeinated teas, but the flavor and aroma remind me of dry hay. It tastes and smells slightly vegetal, but is nondescript and uninteresting.
I'm actually surprised that this tea is so bad. Twinings isn't exactly ...
Organic Dragon Well Tea from Wei-Chuan
Style: Dragon Well Tea – Region: China75 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Apr. 4th, 2017
The tea in the sachets is a mixture of broken and whole leaves, so the first appearance is of tea that would be mediocre if sold loose. The dry tea is quite fragrant, though, smelling fresh and grassy.
I typically steep green tea at 170° for four minutes. With decent quality tea, this generally gives a comfortable ...
Lemon Ginger Herbal Tea from Stash Tea
Style: Herbal Tea – Region: ?????70 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Apr. 3rd, 2017
The dry teabag smells strongly of ginger with a lemony background. Adding water really brings out the lemongrass. My first thought is that it smells like a kind of Thai soup.
Ginger tends to overpower other flavors, but in this case there's a nice balance between the ginger and lemongrass. I can taste the lemon and ...
Green Tea Decaffenated (Classic) from Bigelow Tea
Style: Green Tea – Region: ?????60 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 4/5
Apr. 3rd, 2017
It's apparently easier to decaffeinate green tea and still have some flavor than it is black tea. One thing I've learned about decaf greens, though, is to use hotter water than one would for the caffeinated varieties. Conventional wisdom for green tea is to use cooler water and shorter steeping times to keep from cooki...
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Gold Blend from Barry's Tea
Style: Black Tea – Region: Blend65 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Apr. 1st, 2017
The dry tea is strange-looking. I think it's CTC tea that has been broken up into smaller pieces. Each teabag contains 3g of tea, so expect a strong cup of tea if you're used to American teabags.
Dry, it smells like CTC Assam tea, malty, tannic and slightly smoky. Adding the water opens up the aroma, which is rich a...
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