This is a very unusual tea - I am a little unsure how I feel about it, so I may amend this review later. It is made with hibiscus, elderberries, and beet root and, strangely enough, they recommend steeping for just 2 minutes. I am guessing that is to prevent the tart hibiscus from stepping in and dominating the flavor, but I found that was too short an infusion. It brews up a reddish color, with noticeable beet sweetness, in addition to the flavors of the tea and other additions. It would probably be go ..read more

This makes a very sweet, floral chai, which is not surprising, since it contains 3 kinds of flowers, in addition to cinnamon and other spices. The flavor is a little extravagant, but nice. I see that my review is very different from Alex's - maybe the formula has changed, or perhaps our taste buds are different ..read more

Trader Joe's teas seem to fall into two bins: 1. Very good, which at their typically low prices for bagged tea, makes it quite a strong value, even if not nearly the best of its type, and 2. Mediocre to poor, as one expects from most store brands. Fortunately their organic Assam offering lies squarely in the first category. Compared to some top Assams (say, Murchie's loose leaf), it can't compete for density and complexity. Yet nobody expects world-class performance from a store brand. Instead, t ..read more

I enjoyed this tea! I brewed it at 175°F and let it steep several minutes with the mug covered. It did not, thankfully, turn bitter. The second cup’s flavor wasn’t as strong but still had a flavor I could taste. Loose leaf tea is still better, but for a quick bag of tea this is nice ..read more

This is a very mild, bland tea. Lemon and sugar overwhelms it, but it is decent on its own or with a splash of milk - then it is pleasant and bready, with some mild tannins coming in to the mouthfeel. Priced too high given the quality, imo ..read more

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 infusion, with modest base tea that might not be noticed at all were it omitted. If this were packaged as "Cinnamon Herb," I'd rate it higher, because it would be a quite good example thereof. As ..read more

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 teas sometimes can sit around for months or years before use, so sometimes that origin lends a musty or diminished flavor. Not here! Either the plants that US Foods uses take aging well ..read more

Seldom have I sampled a tea with such a gap between aroma (or lack thereof) and taste. It's a vast chasm, really. The Grand Canyon might be a good analog with another several million years of erosion, widening and deepening. This was a motel pickup somewhere out on the Great Plains. I don't recall where. I had about 400-500 miles to drive by late afternoon (common for me) and didn't have time that morning to brew up a cup, so I stashed it in the suitcase and brought it home. The dry-bag smell was s ..read more

Here's another new Rituals tea for me (and this website), also first sampled at the Days Inn in Hays, KS. As usual, and even though Hays water isn't bad, I also hauled a bag home to try on my well water for fair comparison with other ratings. Upon ripping open the foil-lined package, the smell that greeted my nostrils was...weak, but rather nice, and certainly consistent with the stated origin. The in-cup aroma came in a little better defined, but still nowhere nearly as sharp as the taste. Its fla ..read more

As with most Farmer Brothers teas, I got this at a motel. Some motels have nice management who offers tea, and a most-welcomed minority of them offer more than only straight Lipton, or than the cheapest possible store brand like Great Value. When they do, and it's reasonably good, I try to commend the staff directly for that choice. This offering, while not the upper echelon of fruit herbal teas, earned that level of laud. The dry-bag aroma took me aback a bit, with a decidedly woody smell, as in fre ..read more