Overall, this is one of Bigelow's best herbal teas. Explicitly blackberry-flavored teas seem rare, yet around these parts and much of North America, it is a common, wild-growing bush, and I've seen the leaves listed as ingredients in a lot of herbal teas with other flavors featured. I also love eating the fruit, as well as pies and strudels made from them. It's also my favorite extra flavor of Dr Pepper in their years-long run of fruit boosts. As such, I just had to snag some of this tea when I saw it, regardless of the zinc.

If familiar with the "Zinger" line from Celestial Seasonings, imagine this as "Blackberry Zinger," but less tart. I enjoyed this tea a lot. Dry-bag and in-cup aromas clearly were the least impressive components of the tea experience: good, and similar to the (much better-rated) taste, but weak. The flavor was mostly blackberry, but not greatly dominant. That shouldn't be surprising, since blackberry leaves and flavor clock in at only 5th and 6th places, respectively, on the ingredients list. Interestingly, chamomile is first, but I didn't taste it much; instead, it may serve to file down the sharp edges of hibiscus' (second ingredient) tartness. Rose hips and apple pieces fill out the balance of pre-blackberry ingredients, while the following bring up the rear: blood orange flavors with other natural flavors, pumpkin seeds, zinc gluconate, orange peel, elderberries, raspberries. That's a lot of ingredients! Since most are fruity, however, they're more harmonious than a lot of the large-list herbals from providers like Yogi or Traditional Medicinals. I've never seen pumpkin seeds as a tea ingredient before, and am strongly curious what purpose they serve here, since I couldn't detect their flavor overtly at all.

Regardless, this is a sweet mix that turns almost to liquid candy when sweetened as usual; one could get away with half or less the usual sweetener and it's still rather satisfying to those taste buds. Not having any allergies or reactions to it, I'm also fine with the added zinc as a side benefit (immune booster), even though it's not necessary.

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