English Teatime Decaffeinated
This page is for the decaf version. See also English Teatime.
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Commercial Description
For this special recipe we use only hand-picked tea leaves from higher up in the mountains where the best teas are grown. These mountain grown teas give you a full bodied, yet smooth cup, making English Teatime the perfect pick-me-up tea any time of day.
Ratings & Reviews
Page 1 of 1 page with 2 reviews
41 Aroma: 3/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5Tchuggin' Okie (379 reviews) on Aug. 7th, 2019
Caffeine generally doesn't bother me, even before sleepytime (lower-case, not to be confused with the Celestial Seasonings brand of herbal tea). As such, I am still rather inexperienced with decaf teas, outside of 1) a couple of lame food-service brands and 2) a strongly flavored variety that I have loved dearly for a long time, and that uses decaf green tea largely as ballast for an excellent herbal blend (hello, Candy Cane Lane). The more decaf plain teas I try, however, the more it seems they need a heaping helping of help to overcome the aromatic and taste deficiencies the decaffeination process seems to impart.
Okay, enough pontificating...point is, this one was no exception. I've had regular English Teatime, which was okay but nothing inspiring, and the decaf version here is remarkably different and lower in quality.
Sniffing this tea, in its various stages, was mostly an unpleasant experience. The dry bag didn't have much smell at all, faintly like tea, but also a bit metallic (like the taste). The in-cup liquid and wet bag each gave off an aroma that I first interpreted as "musty", then "salty", then as "sweaty" (a combination of musty and salty). No bueno. I'd rather my tea not remind even faintly of my old middle-school locker room after football practice on a hot day. The taste was tolerable and recognizable as weak tea, again faintly metallic but still drinkable, without the sweatiness...that is, if I held my breath and did not let the vapors from the cup waft into my nostrils while drinking. Should that caveat be the norm? I hope not!
35 Aroma: 3/10 Flavor: 2/5 Value: 3/5Difflugia (170 reviews) on May. 25th, 2018
I tried this in another attempt to find a decaffeinated black tea that tastes like tea.
The dry tea bag out of the foil wrapper smells vaguely spicy if I hold it to my nose, but there's not much there. Adding water brings out a small bit of aroma, but nothing that really smells like tea. It smells lightly earthy and organic like dry soil. The tea brews up a rich red-brown, so it at least looks like tea. That's about the extent of things, though.
Since I've had a bit of luck letting other decaf teas brew for a long time, I started with boiling water and let the bag soak for ten minutes. The tea has a spicy flavor, like clove or cardamom, but it's still extremely weak.
In addition to several of Bigelow's herb teas, I do like the company's decaf versions of Earl Grey and Constant Comment because the flavorings are added after the tea is decaffeinated. The decaf English Teatime, though, is profoundly disappointing.
Page 1 of 1 page with 2 reviews
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