Tazo

Ummmm…yeah. I am on business travel and his tea happened to be in my hotel room. I was working late in the evening and decided to give it a shot. OUCH. If I steeped my jock strap from 9th grade 2-a-day football practice in creek water, I am not sure it would have been much worse.

I had this at Starbucks. I didn’t know they’d left the teabag in, so it got pretty nasty, and wasn’t very good to begin with. I think maybe I’m just not used to my Earl Grey being a latte, though. I like Tazo’s regular Earl Grey, and have it at home.

Picked up one of these iced because of Starbucks’ free coffee giveaway. Normally I don’t spend so much money on something I could probably make at home, but I love chai and was having a craving. The tea is very strong, even with the milk. It was gone in minutes.

The flavor is light, and getting the timing right can be finicky – but it can be the perfect little after lunch tea.

I tried this today iced with lemonade; it makes a great summer drink. Gives the lemonade a kick and you can still taste the green tea and mint…though I do lose the lemongrass a little bit.

Now I’m new to this tea reviewing business, and according to tazo, this tea ‘s aroma is popcorn.
To be honest, when I first had a whiff of this tea, I was a bit worried.

The smell kind of assaults your nose a bit, but then your taste buds are shown compassion.
I am always one to drink my tea straight, like my vodka.
So if you want sweetening advice, I’m not the one to follow.
My sweet tooth is rather insatiable, but I just can’t seem to revert back to my overdosing of sugar cubes and milk in my tea anymore. Liquid diabetes is no longer my preference, it’s either sickly sweet, or not at all.
Probably why I like dry reds and sweet white.
Now that my slight alcoholic tendencies have shown their true colors, Backkkkkkkk to tea.
I tend to tank cups of tea, mindlessly gulping it down, while listening to dead man’s bones and writing papers. This tea is perfect for a non earth shattering taste explosion, it’s more of a steady tasty experience. (Like a silent ninja that sets up camp on the back of your tongue, and keeps dropping popcorn and plants on the ground.) Anyway. Very smooth, and the flavor is pretty consistent. The aftertaste is what predominantly the proof that you drank the tea in the first place. Not bitter, not sweet, just kind of there, existing, with a lingering plant taste, (but not like you just licked a tree plant taste). A pleasant I just ate dandelion salad in the sun on a picnic blanket taste.
Tazo might have the tea description down better than I do, but that’s my interpretation of it anyway. Enjoy
=)

Tazo Zen Green Tea got me into tea. It’s light and minty, which I like. And I can usually get two steeps* out of the teabag. It’s my go-to workplace tea.

*Is that proper lingo? I have no idea — I’m still new to this whole tea-drinking thing.

Sipdown no. 75 for the year 2014. This is a big one.

I had a LOT of this because when I started out trying teas, I came upon some sale on Amazon that involved significant savings if you bought six boxes. I had no idea how long it would take me to drink six boxes, but it wouldn’t have taken me anywhere near this long if I’d stopped buying tea after that Amazon extravaganza. Of course I didn’t, and I just ended up with way more than any sane person should have.

By the way, embarrassingly, this was not the only Tazo tea I bought in that sale. I had a lot of Tazo for a long time. I still have some honeybush, the Lotus decaf, and the cinnamon licorice thing in quantity, but everything else has been pared down to a few bags here and there.

I would also note that the list of ingredients on the tea page are different from what is in my tea. Mine has the following, according to the packet and the box:

White tea, natural blueberry flavour and natural cranberry flavour

No huckleberries. No darjeeling! Which is weird, because I could have sworn I tasted the darjeeling in here and I even raved about it in a previous note. Damn confusing tea….

So either they changed the ingredients or they mislabeled my tea.

Whatever. I like it. It’s not planty, it’s got real flavor to it, and whatever the label says I wouldn’t be surprised if it has darjeeling in it because I’ve never seen a white tea steep this dark. It’s sort of a butterscotch color. (Perhaps it is white darjeeling?)

A poignant goodbye to a long-term cupboard occupant. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Though we’ve managed a sipdown of this at home between me, my BF, and the kids, I still have about 16 bags of this in my work stash.

That’s okay, though, because this has really grown on me.

During my recent tour of Adagio white teas, I kept wondering in the back of my mind why this tasted so different from those. Why it had what seemed like a richer flavor. It wasn’t just the berry aspect, there was something else going on. Then I looked at the ingredients again.

Darjeeling! That explains a lot.

I have a feeling I’ll be nostalgic about this one at sipdown time. It may even be one of the few Tazos I feel the need to keep on hand. At the moment I’m not prepared to say that because the other two, Refresh and Decaf Lotus Blossom Green, are really special in my view. But it’ll be close in any case.

Wow. You never know what you’ll find in the back of a cabinet at my house.

Both the BF and I are sick and are on something of a tea-drinking marathon today. He loves berries (mostly raspberries, but you take what you can get) so I made some of this. I also think it’s high time we finished this up as it’s pretty long in the tooth.

It has held its flavor well, though. My original notes seem to have captured the flavor I’m now tasting. One thing I’m noticing that I didn’t notice so much before is the astringency of this one. It has a rather pronounced drying effect in my mouth, which may not be the best thing to consume while one has a virus that has caused a cold sore. Or is it a fever blister? Not sure I know the difference.

In any case, I’ll end by saying something that’s been on my mind about white tea in general. I really love the idea of white tea, but for some reason it’s always the last thing I think of choosing when I go to my stash. This may be because I’m not entirely sure I’ve perfected the best way to steep it yet, but it could also be because I find the flavor somewhat tricky. You’d think I’d have learned by now, but I always expect something lighter than I get. Many white teas remind me of nothing so much as black tea, which is usually not what I am looking for when I choose a white. Maybe that’s why it tends to get overlooked in my cupboard.

So here’s a switch up. I’m boosting the rating on this one. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had as much of it as the White Cucumber or the Vanilla Apricot White, but I find this one a welcome change from those. The more I drink it the less I find the berry flavors missing. This is most obvious when drinking it after another tea, such as the Vanilla Apricot White. It most definitely has a berry flavor, though it’s something of a shy one. But then it can’t really be much more on a white tea base without completely overpowering the tea.

I don’t get a lot of tea flavor from this or any of the Tazo whites. They seem to be pretty much a platform for the staging of the chosen flavor. But of the three, this one is currently ranking highest in my estimation, probably because as I said, I have had less of it and so it still has a novelty to it by comparison and I haven’t had a chance to dwell on its shortcomings. That may come later as I close in on the last of these bags, but for now it gets a rating bump.

The bag smells of blueberries and sweet white tea, and something that might be cranberry but could just as easily be some other red berry. I got a pretty, deep yellow color at a low brewing temp with a generic, fruity and white tea aroma.

This is pleasant enough and I’ll definitely finish what I have of it, but I can’t rank it any higher than this because I can’t discern any berry in the taste. At all. If it tasted like it smelled, it would at least get into the 70s, and granted, it doesn’t advertise itself as having anything more than a hint of cranberry and blueberry. But I guess in this case I just can’t take a hint…

I was surprised by how strong this tea was. Very fruity, very sweet. Almost like drinking juice. It’s good if you’re in that kind of mood, but it’s not the kind of tea I could drink on a regular basis.

Funny story! I was cleaning my room quite thoroughly, and came across a box under my bed containing one half Christmas decorations, and one half Tazo’s Awake and Chai (and a small amount of sweet orange). So yeah, I’ve got a lot. I remember my neighbour giving it to me (along with the Christmas decorations).

We’ve always had Tazo in the house, but the few times I tried Awake it was very bitter and gross right through the milk and sugar. And now I’m going to try it with nothing!

Not as bad as I remember. No bitterness at five minutes steeping. Then again, when I drank it in the past, I just left the teabag in.

It’s not remarkable. I’m getting a dryer taste at the back of my throat, but it’s nothing like I remember. It’s probably been in that box for quite a while though, and my neighbour’s probably had it even longer.

Edit: As it cooled it got more astringent, but then I noticed something else. There’s a very faint hint of cherry.

Sipdown no. 94 of the year 2014. Bye bye sachets!

I’ve been thinking about why this doesn’t do it for me, and I don’t think it’s the chamomile.

I’ve had some really terrific chamomile lately, either by itself or in a blend without any of the following: hibiscus, mint, licorice.

It’s these other ingredients that are making this not work for me. They suck the delicious natural sweetness and creaminess right out of the chamomile and reduce it to some straw-like imposter that’s tastes like a mouthful of chamomile potpourri.

I had the same problem with the other mint/chamomile blend I had a while back.

I think I’ll stock a chamomile blend when all is said and done, though I don’t often crave it. But at this point, I think it’s going to be Harney’s Yellow and Blue unless something else comes out of left field and bowls me over. (How’s that for a parade of cliches? It’s late. Night night all.)

In an effort to find non-caffeinated alternatives for the kids to enjoy, I steeped a cup of this tonight and gave them each a taste.

We have discovered that neither peanut is a chamomile fan.

After having quite a bit of the Independence Coffee Co. Chamomile/Peppermint Plus over the last couple of weeks to put out the five alarm fire in my virus ravaged throat, this was perhaps not the best choice for me this evening. I need a little distance from the flavor so I can stop associating it with pain.

The mint in this one is milder than in the Independence, and the flavor is more subtle and complex. Bumping it a few points higher than the Independence for subtlety and complexity.

In the “full leaf” sachet, this tisane is like a miniature bouquet of dried pinky red and yellow flowers complete with accenting greenery. Quite charming looking.

Its scent is hard to pin down as there is so much going on. I do smell the chamomile and the mint, but the overarching fragrance is floral with a tinge of spice. It smells like something you might take a bath in — bath-salty, without the salt.

The main flavor I taste is chamomile, and it’s a nice one. Some chamomiles have a tendency to taste a little like a mixture of paper and dried straw that’s been “flavored” with chamomile. This doesn’t. It’s a fresh-tasting chamomile, possibly aided in that respect by the touch of mint.

I don’t get an overpowering taste of mint as some other tasters have. It’s a suggestion more than anything else. There’s also a suggestion of something that is probably the hibiscus, a tangy, herby/earthy taste. It’s interesting to me that I don’t really taste lemon, though both lemongrass and lemon balm are listed in the ingredients. I taste lavender more than lemon, and that’s toward the end of the ingredient list.

It’s not bad, and I’m not a chamomile-hater. I like this much better than the Numi chamomile. The main thing I find objectionable about this is that it’s too busy to be calming. I can’t chill when I know there are nine different flavors, as I keep trying to account for all of them and how they interact with each other. It’s like trying to meditate and being unable to keep track of the mantra because the thoughts are coming too fast and furious.

Calm should be simpler than it is.

Had this yesterday when I felt like going to Starbucks but didn’t want any extra calories. Every time I try this I am surprised that so many people hate Tazo tea (and particularly the black blend), because I think this might be my 2nd favourite readily available iced tea. They always seem to steep it to exactly the right strength and I really enjoy the taste (plus it’s very inexpensive)!

Yep, it’s a big tea day today (I really need the caffeine). I know people have complained about the black Tazo blend before, but I really like it… it’s different than the usual Lipton or Bigelow that most places serve, and I appreciate the fact that there are never any floaty tea leaves at the bottom when I get this kind!

I always get mine unsweetened (I’m so not a fan of sweet teas, unless we’re talking chai), and it’s always perfect (and calorie-free). Big fan!

Celebrating bidding farewell to this today as I polished off the last of the bags in the home stash (never mind that I still have about half a box left at work).

I became used to it, and the lemon flavor was ok, but it never wowed me. It didn’t do much as a representative of mate either as it didn’t have enough of a positive effect on my tastebuds to make me want to try more or better mate.

Not a purchase I will repeat.

I don’t feel too badly about not loving Yerba Mate after reading at the Mayo Clinic site that some studies have shown it increases the risk of certain types of cancer, particularly for smokers, if drunk in large quantities over long periods of time. I don’t smoke (and haven’t for years) but if I’m going to be drinking something tea-like, I’d much rather drink something that’s believed to inhibit cancer, like green tea.

I like this one better than the Mate Lemon by Numi. It’s better without the imposition of a green tea flavor in the middle of the lemon/mate mix that the Numi has. The Tazo has ginger in it, but it doesn’t affect the taste as much as it does in the Green Ginger tea. It has a smooth mouth feel, and a lemony/herby flavor to it that is ok, but just ok.

I’ll finish what I have of it, but it’s not something I like well enough to replace when I’m done.

Today is back to work day :( I brought my Breville back in, but FORGOT MY BREWING MUG! Ahhhhhhhhhhh. I was craving Earl Grey, so I thought that a visit to Starbucks would be my best bet.

I have good associations tied to this tea. I used to get it before my favorite history class. So, this morning was made better by that memory to taste brain connection :) The tea is ok – I have much better Earls in my drawer at work – but that taste memory makes it my go-to Starbucks tea when the need arises. The hint of lavender is nice, too.

I had to get some coffee beans today, and I went through the usual rigmarole where the person offers me a free coffee and I ask if I could have a free tea instead then they look at me funny, go in the back to ask the manager, then come out to say I can have a free tea :)

Today I chose the Earl Grey because I was curious about how the full leaf would taste, plus I was less than happy with the Awake I had last time. I also have fond memories of getting a ritual cup of Tazo Earl Grey twice weekly before my Most Favorite Ever Class Ever Taken Ever :)

Well, I like it much better than the Awake for sure. I think part of it for me is the nostalgia factor. It has that special Europe from World War II to the Present flavor for me. Also, the bergamot livens up the bland black tea and hides some of that tastelessness yet bitterness that I found in the Awake. I think this will be my go-to cup for free-with-coffee-beans or stranded-on-campus-in-need-of-tea type situations.

I now have an overwhelming need to curl up in a chair and read Simone de Beauvoir, Camus, and George Orwell!!