Bigelow

It’s not the most flavorful or complex Earl Grey out there but in a pinch, it will do. More of a citrusy Earl Grey with very little of the flowerly undertones you find in some blends.

Saw this at work and decided to try it. Not too bad. Lots of mint, not much black. Enjoyable, but not an everyday drink.

Steep Information:
Amount: 1 teabag
Additives: none
Water: flavia hot spigot, 1 mug full
Steep Time: a little over 2 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: cinnamon, but you had to get close and sniff
Steeped Tea Smell: cinnamon, again you had to get close to it, it didn’t hit you from say the desk while it was sitting next to me
Flavor: weak black tea, light cinnamon
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: bitter, astringent
Liquor: dark brown

One of my coworkers shared the tea love and gave me a few bags of this tea (yea!).

I was hoping for more of a hot cinnamon heart POW, but it was more a subdued cinnamon flavor. I may add sugar next time to try and round the tea out more.

Post-Steep Additives: none

Images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/03/bigelow-teabag-black-tea-cinnamon-stick.html

I love cinnamon. I love ginger. I love nutmeg, allspice and even a little clove. This tasted to me like straight cloves and a hint of pumpkin. Not terrible, but not something I’ll buy again.

I was never a big fan of this tea but it seems to have gotten worse. I’ve recently realized that the tea falls out of the teabag within seconds of steeping it (I’ve been seeing this for a couple of weeks now). Either the boxes I’ve been drinking were defects or Bigelow has changed something in the bag manufacturing that renders it nearly useless

A friend of mine recieved a box of this tea as a Valentine’s Day gift, and she gave me a couple of bags to try it. It’s very nice. not really strong in the flavor department, but still tasty. I added milk and sugar, and it turned out nice and creamy. I’ll have to find myself a box.

Sipdown no. 55 of the year 2016 (no. 266 total).

The last of my bagged teas, except for a few random samples. I do have some bagged tisanes (Refresh by Tazo and I Love Lemon by Bigelow) because I just like them better than the other mints and lemons I’ve tried. I’d buy them loose if they came that way, but I have yet to find them in loose form.

Constant Comment was a favorite of a college room mate of mine, and I feel nostalgic whenever I drink it. It’s got that distinct citrus spice flavor profile, and though I have tasted other teas with that profile that I like better, the Constant Comment brand is so strong in my psyche that my first thought is always “hey, that tastes like Constant Comment.”

I’m sure our relationship isn’t over, but I am so so glad to record another sipdown. Slowly, the stash is starting to shrink. Very slowly. Maybe too slowly, but it’s something.

Like other posters I have an emotional attachment to this tea, and it is hard to separate the memories from the experience of the tea itself. The ingredients are black tea, orange rind and “sweet spice” which to me is heavy on the clove and cinnamon. This combination is iconic in my olfactory memory. In college I had an apartment mate who was a tea drinker and she introduced me to this tea. So the smell reminds me of my youth and my first taste of independence, and it’s hard to avoid pleasant associations with that time of my life.

The taste, too, brings pleasant associations. If I try to be objective and drill down into the flavors, the tea itself is unremarkable either way, the orange is a little sour and doesn’t sweeten up as it lingers, and the spices are what one would expect from clove and cinnamon. It’s not fabulous, but it doesn’t approach horrible in my view, and the thumb on the scale is the Proustian value of transporting oneself on a rainy day present, to another rainy day when life was opening up like an oyster and anything was possible.

This is a pretty basic cup of green tea, it may not be the best cup in the world but it is far from the worst.

I spent the day manning a table at the graduation fair at the University I work for. It was FREEZING and tea was available – and this was the most palatable offering. It somehow tasted like lemon powdered sugar (!!!) but it kept me warm.

I buy this when I’m at a grocery store that doesn’t really have any other good decaf options. Like a lot of decaf black tea, it’s too weak and I have to use 2 bags per cup. When I do that, this makes a fine chai tea with milk and sugar. By itself it’s kinda bland, but I really like it with the milk.

I love peach anything, so this is yummy. But again, the artificial flavoring is a turn-off for me.

This tea is available at my work, and is largely responsible for converting me to a tea drinker. Love the orange flavoring and the sweet aroma.

Rating this as an average between the bags (bleh) and the K-cups for my Keurig machine (tolerable).

The bagged version of this didn’t taste like anything special to me – just a typical light flavored green tea. We had this in our kitchen, but most of us tea drinkers have decided it isn’t for us.

The K-cup version seemed to have a stronger “green” taste to it, which was acceptable enough for me to drink but I don’t plan on ordering another set of Bigelow Green Tea K-cups again.

It was getting close to bedtime when I decided I wanted a hot cup of tea to settle down on. I wanted something light on caffeine, like this one good can of green tea from Andrew&Dunham that I drink. The problem lies in how I feel pressured to re-steep and get as much out of it as I can(I bought it out of a set of three cans for twenty-five dollars, and this college student has not much to spend on tea with). Since I was going to bed soon, it seemed inefficient to make only one cup of it. In the back of my tea caddy sat an ignored box of Bigelow’s Plantation Mint. It was given to me by my sister sometime late last year, and it would be easy enough to put together. So I gave it a shot.

While most bagged teas yield a high amount of particles in the water, the liquor was exceptionally clear. I attribute this to the deliberate shredding techniques that Bigelow uses in preparing their tea. Whereas a tea company like Lipton uses the dust, or fannings, sifted from regular tea leaves, Bigelow simply shreds it all and sends that to the stores. As expected, the aroma was strong with spearmint.

A few initial sips allowed me to get a hint of the tea flavor. No bitterness or astringency to be found, but the mint coated my tongue with a slightly metallic flavor, probably as a result of the high temperature of the tea. I had to wait for the tea to cool off before I began the evaluation in earnest. A full sip yielded a rather weak flavored black tea with a powerful mint taste. It was almost as if I wasn’t drinking a tea, but more of a herbal mint tisane. The metallic sensation did go away though. The minty-ness was strong, and almost sweet at times, but it was far from unpleasant.

Ultimately I found the tea to be particularly lacking. It is… sufficient, for those lazy moments when setting up a cup of loose tea is too much effort to be worth it. The mint was soothing and honestly, the cup was enjoyable. I just wish there was a stronger tea flavor to it is all. I should note that this is my first taste of American-grown tea, and it was underwhelming. I reckon that there may be a stronger or more distinct flavor that would better define it though. Bigelow has a huge selection of black and green teas, and on account of the strong mint presence, this one was more of a tisane than a proper tea itself.

I’m still feeling like crap, so excuse me while I rant for a second.

Why, in the name of all that is holy, are there ROSEHIPS AND HIBISCUS IN A MINT BLEND??!?!?! This makes me want to smash things. Instead of a nice refreshing mint tea I get a hint of mint followed by that ridiculously awful rosehips/hibiscus/red flavor. UGHHHHHH.

This tea is pretty good and tastes stronger than I expected. It has a nice orange flavor, but it isn’t too tart.

This is my favorite of all teas and I so hope it doesn’t get discontinued. I have bad luck with things I love getting discontinued (like spiced peaches are no longer in area grocery stores).

Unlike most people, I’ve only tried this tea plain and love it that way, so am not sure if I ever want to try it with sugar and/or milk as it’s nearly no calories this way and likely the better way for me to enjoy it. I host high teas pretty often and am thinking the people who have loved this tea at my high teas have also had it plain (and I know they’ve all loved it and raved about it to other people who came to later teas and specifically requested the tea due to having heard friends talk it up).

This is what we have at work. Good enough for a midday tea. Strong on the bergamot, but I really like that about it. This is what got me hooked on Earl Greys.

I love ripping open the little individually wrappted packages and getting hit in the face with the delicoius sweet smell of peppermint. I’ve used this tea as a base for drinking chocolate, which was fantastic. I’ve also combined it with gunpowder green for an improvised Moroccan mint.

Personally, I don’t enjoy the added lemon flavor as much as the regular Bigelow green tea.

Very simple green tea. Great for a quick craving or if you’re on the go. Fairly bland flavor, but it still tastes decent in my opinion.

The ginger in this tea is a lot mellower than other ginger teas I’ve had, which is a welcome change. Also, the lemon adds the perfect touch. Very tasty!