where drinking tea is what matters
A brand new tea came out at Trader Joe, the “Apple Cranberry Herbal Tea Blend”, so of course I had to drop everything and try it! It is the second tea in this brand new line. The packaging has the same design language as the new Winter WakeUp Blend. The Apple tea is all herbal, no black tea.
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As of review time, it is the middle of Pumpkin Season at Trader Joe (TJ), but surprise-surprise, a Winter Tea made its premiere (I don’t think I’ve seen that before at TJ) in the middle of the pumpkins. It is the “Winter Wake Up Blend” (20 individually wrapped tea bags, $2.50), an attempt at the not uncommon “Winter Blend” with some modest holiday decorations sneaked in the design of the box 🙂
How does it taste? Is it a must buy or a “mindless drinking” tea? Read on to find out…
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This was an impulse buy of a doorbuster sale. The Stash Cinnamon Vanilla Herbal Tea blend has been going in and out of stock, when it is on sale, you get six sealed tea boxes (of 18 tea bags per box) for around $5 at amazon.com.
That’s under $1 per box. Each individually sealed box has 18 tea individually sealed tea bags inside. That means $5 for around 108 tea bags. They arrive in a Stash branded cardboard box. So you can share them with friends and family, you can hand them off a sealed box, or individually sealed tea bags.
The price is great, but does it taste good enough to justify buying so much of it?
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Trader Joe is launching new teas faster than I can drink them, and derailing my tea blogging plan, because “shiny new tea”! This organic Moringa, Mango and Ginger herbal tea blend is a sister tea to the Organic Peppermint/Cinnamon, they both came out at the same time, they are both organic from Sri Lanka without any additional materials (no flavors, natural or artificial), and they have similar packaging, and a $3 price for a 20-pack of tea pyramids.
I didn’t even know what Moringa was before I bought this tea. Sadly I haven’t developed any superpowers after drinking it! It is, according to the packaging, leaves from the “moringa oleifera trees” [see Wikipedia for all the details on moringa].
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This is a real Peet’s tea, with the wonderfully designed tea wrapper. They had them on a clearance sale online, so I scooped up a few boxes before they disappeared into the Mighty Void 🙂 The tea wrapper is the best thing about them!
As a big fan of Peet’s Tea, in those iconic tea tins and their no nonsense approach to tea, I am still getting triggered by the thought or mention of the Mighty Leaf versions of their iconic teas, in the wanna-be Teavana styling! #TRIGGERED On the plus side, the Peet’s Tea Guru Eliot Jordan is running the Mighty Leaf show.
But I’m not triggered when it comes to teas that are original to Mighty Leaf 🙂 Their “Organic African Nectar” is probably my favorite Mighty-native herbal tea blend. A review of that coming later!
Anyway, I’ll save those rumblings for another time. This post is a review of the Mighty Leaf Vanilla Bean tea, in nicely stitched tea pouches. I really like how this tea tastes hot, the blend of their vanilla with the mild black tea is a nice treat early in the morning. However, the vanilla flavor comes from two sources: vanilla bits in the pouch but also unspecified “natural flavor”. So if you are avoiding natural/artificial flavors, you have been warned!
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This was supposed to be Genmai Cha month here at the blog, but as with most things tea, there’s always more tea to distract me! First it was a Matcha Starter Kit impulse buy, then the Trader Joe Harvest Season iconic teas arrived! First it was the dorky foxy Harvest Blend and then the good old Pumpkin Spice Rooibos in its very orange tin!
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This tea has a special place in my heart. It was one of my very first “breakout” teas when I was struggling with the switch from Colas to Teas. Looking at it more critically now, years later, it is not as magical as it felt at the time, but let’s not forget, it’s still a $2 box of tea 🙂
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We begin a series of Genmaicha Tea posts as Fall 2017 is upon us! First up, it’s a review of the Harney and Sons Genmaicha Loose Leaf tea, purchased with mine own money from the interwebs in an 8 ounce tea tin.
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I drink all kinds of tea, any tea that’s in front of me. In an effort to avoid becoming a strident elitist tea snob, I vowed to drink it all, even dollar store tea.
So when I call a tea an Abomination, it’s a high bar 🙂 This tea is an abomination. The combination of various natural and artificial flavors make the Twinings Pumpkin Spice Chai an undrinkable tea. And it’s not for lack of trying. I tried it hot, I tried iced, I tried it at room temperature. Plain or with cream. Heck, I even tried it with my favorite “Pumpkin Spice Almond Beverage” hoping it would “average down” the yuckiness of its spices.
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Yes, dear Tea Friends! We have a new blog achievement unlocked! Back to back days with new blog posts! Today too we have a Trader Joe tea, this is another one of their new product arrivals. It is a RED tea, Melisandre red!
Continue reading “Tea Review: Trader Joe RED Refresh: Taming The Hibiscus, Nice Iced”
Trader Joe has been bringing new teas the last few weeks, that’s why you see more Trader Joe teas mentioned these days.
Today we take a look at the first of two Organic tea pyramid teas. The Organic Peppermint Cinnamon Herbal Tea has just two ingredients, organic peppermint and organic cinnamon, product of Sri Lanka. Nothing else! No flavors, nothing else!
UPDATE: the second tea that came out with this is the Organic Moringa, Ginger, Mango Herbal Blend…
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This was a mild surprise, I found it at the Grocery Outlet. You can find a random selection of teas there, so I always check every time I’m there. It was an 8-pack for $1, so it became an impulse buy. It turned out to be not bad given the price, and for something in a simple flat tea bag.
Each tea bag is sealed in its own wrapper. The tea bag is a flat square, no tags, no string, no staples…
Continue reading “Tea Review: Davidson Organics Mandarin Chai with Anise”
And we are back with a new review! This time we are taking a look at the 11 oz Cool Gear tea cup with a built-in infuser. This is my go-to cup for slow-drinking hot tea at home, especially during the winter months and cold nights. I found these on clearance at a B&M store (I believe Staples) and got two of them. The one in the pictures is the unused one. The one in use has a visual stain history of many of the teas I drank (it is a light green color) 🙂
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We are back with another tea review. No drink is left behind here, I literally drink every tea that’s in front of me 🙂 Today’s review is the Ambiance Orange Jasmine Green tea, delivered in tea bags. I picked this up at Smart and Final B&M stores, where this brand typically goes for under $3 in 25-packs, such as the one I got.
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I have dozens and dozens of teas to review, but as fate would have it, it’s another Trader Joe tea that drew the assignment! This is a relatively new addition to their line-up, a flavored tea bag mix, the Chocolate Mint Black Tea! You get 20 tea bags per box. The price is $2.49 per box. [updated]
The taste is as the name suggests, you get a reasonably good mix of the three advertised flavors (chocolat-i-ness, mint-i-ness, black-tea-ness) ~ considering the price. There are various Natural Flavors, in addition to the tea leaves (peppermint, black, spearmint) and the various chocolate-y ingredients (cocoa bean shells, carob pods and such) and glueware (sunflower oil in the roasted chicory). So definitely not something for a tea purist 🙂
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There is plenty of tea content on YouTube, but if you also like to watch documentaries on the subjects you are interested in, this is my quick review of the documentary “Mr Tea” that came out in 2009 and has a 61 minute runtime. I found this on the streaming service IndieFLIX, when T-Mobile Tuesdays gave all T-Mo customers a free 3-month subscription. So of course the first thing I searched for was tea 🙂
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It’s tea time! It looks like this is the first tea review on this blog. Finally 🙂 I was supposed to be writing a lot more and a lot faster, but things happen, procrastination wins, etc, etc, etc.
Continue reading “Tea Review: Trader Joe Organic Mango and Chile Black Tea”
Adding to my infinitesimal tea cred, I used the Amazon Black Friday book coupon to purchase a brand new tea book, the “The World Atlas of Tea” (September 2016, Firefly Books) by Krisi Smith. This review is based on the Hardcover edition. I should point out I am not a tea guru, and it will take a few centuries before I become one, so this is not a tea master level review 🙂
A very visual book, great for beginners and intermediate level tea fans. It avoids many of the tropes of pop-culture tea books (only one page talking about health benefits, no food recipes). It looks great as a gift or a coffee table or waiting room book. Tea evangelists can use this to lure the general population into the tea cult 🙂
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I found the 40 ounce Primula PTRE-4203 tea pot at a Ross store and the price was right, just $7, in new condition, so I had to buy it. It turned out to be a great bang for the buck general-purpose tea pot!
