Celestial Seasonings

What can be said that hasn’t been already? It’s not elegant, refined, subdued, understated—and that’s the point. I can’t think of a tea that’s a bigger ‘f*** you’ to subtlety than Cinnamon Apple Spice, which puts ‘cinnamon’ first in the name because it wallops you in the olfactory from the second you pour the water over. You could put some sweetener in this to soften the punchy taste of apple and hibiscus or to round out the bite of eye-watering cinnamon, but why? Wild horses shouldn’t be tamed. Just enjoy the ride.

just a touch of sugar for balance

I think this is the last of my wedding party favors.

I poured boiling water over the bag and let the teabag stay. Wow, the blueberry smell from the brewed cup is amazing.

I mainly taste blueberry, with some sour candy notes that are probably from the hibiscus. I suppose some people might be put off by the sour candy, but I love it. It’s amazing that this tastes so much like candy while having no sugar or sweetener. I may have to buy more of this!

(Skip this part if you just would like to get to the tea note)
My bad health ‘day’ has lasted a little over a week now basically right around the time classes resumed. So I’ve switched to just drinking herbals mainly for the meantime. This past year I was finally going to try and see some new specialists to problem solve my chronic pain/health issues etc. Then Covid hit and I was informed that the medical offices were closing temporarily only doing zoom call appointments. So my waitlist spot is back at the beginning again.

This is one of my go to I’m not feeling good teas. It’s one that I grew up drinking even before I had decided I liked tea. This is a good vanilla mint cheap herbal tea. It’s creamy even without milk added and the chamomile works really well with the other flavors. Love this one. I often rotate between the original Sleepytime tea and the Vanilla one.

This is another wedding party favor. I poured boiling water over the teabag and left it in.

It was pretty good hot, but I liked it better once it cooled off, and I added ice.

This is a real fruit punch of an herbal. The hibiscus stands out nicely and balances well with the raspberry. Sweet and sour. If you don’t like hibiscus, this probably isn’t your cup of tisane. Oh, I wonder how well it would do, steeped in a lemonade. Mmm.

It tastes kind of like hanging out at a nude beach when there’s no pandemic going on, very relaxing.

My MIL gave this to me after a trip to Vermont. I just rediscovered it in my cabinet. I enjoy this very much. It’s very sweet and great plain with a little spice

Just bought a box of this today and made a cup. For some reason it’s tasting very peachy. The aftertaste is like those gummy peach candies. Hmm Still a yummy herbal bagged tea though but now I want some candy.

This is not a boldly flavored holiday tea, but a subtle and smooth cup of peppermint goodness. Sometimes I wonder if some holiday blends just try too hard by adding extra ingredients. This one is simple and delicious if you are expecting a mellow, minty cup.

1 bag for 250mL water @100C, steeped 8 minutes.

It takes a while to get many tisanes to taste of anything at all, and the risk with a long steep and a fruit tisane from Celestial Seasonings is giving space for that bully, hibiscus.

In this blend, hibiscus is fairly far down the ingredients list. Rosehips shine here, and the peach aroma is quite convincing, if the flavour a little less so. Still, I really like it, and it’s definitely cheap to buy and easy to make. I think I’ll toss a bag of this into a pot of steeping black tea and see what I get.

1 bag for 250mL water @100C, steeped 4-7 minutes. Sometimes I just leave the bag in.

An old favourite form university days. A rare fruit tisane that does not just smack me upside the head with hibiscus — Celestial Seasonings relies way too much on hibiscus — though the dreaded H is in there. Still, this is a gorgeous tisane, with the orange and spices able to stand up to the hibiscus and make it behave. I really dig the cloves and coriander here. Strong and comforting. One caveat: like many tisanes, it needs a fairly long steep to taste of anything at all.

This will forever be a fav tea of mine and I can’t explain it. It has this weird unique flavor that reminds me of those butter mints that my grandma always had with a hint of candy cane. I can’t pick up any green tea flavor at all . But whenever I see this tea in a grocery store, I get super excited and grab as many boxes as I can. You can’t over steep or under steep the tea either.

As much as I wanted to like this one, the sugar cookie flavour was lacking. Not only that, but the mouthfeel was so thin, with not much of a finish to savour. Making this herbal into a latte is what saved it for me. Milk and some sugar helped to better solidify the idea of sugar cookies in my mind. Shortbread even. Latte will definitely be my go-to method of preparation going forward with my remaining handful of tea sachets.

Despite not loving this blend, it’s the best representation I’ve tasted of sugar cookies (in tea form) thus far.

Took an evening ceramics class today. It’s held in a big warehouse in Oakland which is bound to get cold, so I bundled up, tossed this in a thermos of hot water and let it steep until the cinnamon was almost overbearing. Should have only used one bag. Because of masks and covid, any time I wanted to take some sips of this and burn my mouth until layers of my cheeks were peeling I had to step outside the class area to remove my mask and sip. Hard way to enjoy tea. The second night of the class is next week and I was so disappointed with the class that I’m going to skip the second night. It wasn’t the class I was expecting. At least I have this hot cup of sweet cinnamon to thaw me out. I legit like this tea, but I killed it with the two hour long steeping. ’Twas a night of let downs!

April Sipdown Alphabet Challenge: “W” Tea
I’ll be happy when my box of this one is gone. I just don’t really care for it. It has kind of an artificial taste to it and the strong cardamom taste isn’t pleasant here. When I think of a white chocolate tea or even a peppermint bark-inspired tea this is not what I think of. I love Republic Of Tea’s Peppermint Bark tea but that one is a lot pricier than this box of CS tea of course.

Definitely hits that pumpkin spice craving. I do wish that it was a little stronger on the pumpkin, but so far the pumpkin chai from tazo(weak), pumpkin spice from adagio (no pumpkin flavor), and pumpkin chai from twinings (minimal pumpkin flavor) have all been a letdown. Will continue to buy this every PSL season as long as I don’t find one that blows my mind.