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Wild Berry Zinger from Celestial Seasonings
2

Another one I found in the previously mentioned Big Tins of Mystery! It was out of a Celestial Seasonings sampler pack that a former friend (we fell out, probably for the best) once sent me for my birthday along with a few other things from CS. I remember being quite taken by the boxes. Pretty pictures. They had actually made an effort on decoration. I wasn’t particularly interested in the actual contents though, which I found disappointing on account of 75% of them being herbals. I don’t care about tisanes. They are not tea and they are not interesting. (And many of them aren’t that well tasting either) Oh and FYI as a personal little peeve, rooibos falls under this category. It is not tea.

Anyway, berries! I like berries, so while I haven’t bothered to look at the ingredients, I’m feeling semi-confident. I mean if I only have one bag out of a whole sampler pack left, then surely the others must have been used up, right? And if I didn’t like them, there would have been more than one left, right?

It smells like… sweets. Not particularly fruity to be honest. Rather more synthetic and very very sweet. I do notice though that it gets a highly suspicious bright red colour while steeping. This is worrying. I have some very bad experiences with that particular colour. I haven’t even tasted it yet and already I’ve poured the rest of the water into a small pot to heat it up and the kettle on with water for a pot of emergency Lapsang Souchong if I’m right.

Okay. Here goes. takes deep breath and summons all reserves of courage

Ack! Yuck! Spitty!

I was right about that bright red colour. It tattles about the presence of the dreaded hibiscus. That stuff seems to be in just about everything and I just can’t get it down. To me it has a dreadful metallic sort of taste that reminds me most of all of blood. No thank you, says I.

It’s a mystery though that there was only this one bag left. I must have traded the others, but why did I keep one?

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Comments

Jillian
Jillian 2009-11-07 15:35:11 -0500

Temporary insanity maybe? ;p

Yeah, I hate when the company ruins a perfectly good fruit tea/tisane by adding a ton of hibiscus. For future reference any of the CS teas with ‘Zinger’ in the title all have enormous amount of hibiscus in them. Bleh.

Angrboda
Angrboda 2009-11-07 15:44:41 -0500

Yeah, my infatuation with CS doesn’t stretch any further than their box design. I’ve never been tempted to get any of it now that in later years it’s been available in supermarkets over here. This was a reminder as to why.
(That goes to show how ancient my teabag here was. When I recieved it, CS was only available here in an extremely limited selection at an extremely limited number of places)

Jillian
Jillian 2009-11-07 16:22:46 -0500

Well their Christmas teas aren’t bad at all I’ve found, although that might just be nostalgia talking. ;)

Carolyn
Carolyn 2009-11-07 17:17:43 -0500

I used to love Celestial Seasonings. I grew up with the back when they were teeny, tiny herb company in my home state of Colorado. I used to adore Pelican Punch, which was a tea aimed at children that had vanilla, mint, carob, fenugreek and some other herbs in it. I missed it so much that when we went on a tour of Celestial Seasonings a few years ago, I begged them to bring it back. They offered Red Zinger instead which is totally NOT the same.

Real tea in my house growing up was Lipton’s tea bags steeped forever until the tea was terribly bitter. It wasn’t until recently that I discovered how magical and non-bitter real tea could be if it was made correctly.

TeaEqualsBliss
TeaEqualsBliss 2009-11-10 08:32:10 -0500

I agree with your negative ratings on this one…I didn’t like it either!

teaplz
teaplz 2009-11-12 15:23:41 -0500

I haven’t had this one, but I’m not a fan of the hibiscus invasion into every single fruit tea I see! The other day, when I tried a Tazo African Red Bush, there was the dreaded hibiscus! Is it really necessary?

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Profile

Bio

Angrboda felt her bio needed to be re-written, but she failed to consider what she wanted it to say instead.

Um…

Okay. Ang prefers black teas and the darker sorts of oolongs. She has to be in the mood for green and white and she enjoys, but knows little to nothing about, pu-erh.

Her preferences with black teas are the Chinese ones, particularly from Fujian, but also Keemun and just about anything smoky. She occasionally enjoys Yunnans but they’re not favourites.

She is sceptical about Indian blacks as she generally finds them too astringent and too easy to get wrong. She doesn’t really care for Darjeelings at all.

She likes flavoured teas as well, particularly fruit flavoured ones, but also has an obsession with finding the Perfect Vanilla Flavoured Black.

However, she thinks Earl Grey is generally kind of boring. Cinnamon and ginger are also not really a hit, and she’s not very fond of chais. Evil hibiscus is evil. Even in small amounts, and yes, Ang can usually detect hibiscus, mostly by way of the metallic flavour of blood it has.

Ang is not super impressed with rooibos or honeybush. She doesn’t care for either, really, but when they are flavoured, there have been known to be surprising exceptions to this rule.

Ang has a number of teas that she regards her Standard Panel and will always try to have on hand.
-Lapsang Souchong, any brand really, but preferably AC Perchs.
-Blackberry flavoured black or similar, any brand.
-Late Summer Blend, AC Perchs
-Raspberry Oolong, AC Perchs OR Red Fruits Oolong, Le Palais des Thes
-Caramel, Kusmi OR Toffee, Le Palais des Thes
-Something orange flavoured, black or pu-erh, any brand.
-Tan Yang Te Ji, Teaspring OR Bai Lin Gongfu, Teavivre
-A good Keemun, any brand.
-The Perfect Vanilla Black if and when she ever finds it…

Angrboda is almost always open to swapping. Just ask her.

The Formalities

Contact Angrboda by email: iarnvidia@gmail.com
Contact Angrboda by YIM: angrboda@ymail.com
Angrboda does not respond to gmail chat.

Find Ang on…
Steam: Iarnvidia
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Livejournal: See website.
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Teatra.de: Angrboda

Location

Denmark

Website

http://angrboda.livejournal.com

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