Tetley

Currently sipping this down after a couple coffees and black teas have made me a jittery, studying mess. Actually very happy with this cup. Details to follow (post-midterm!).

This was my introduction to tea. It was a good choice as an introductory tea because it never got bitter or anything by oversteeping it or using boiling water. I always have my green tea with honey, and this one really took the honey well.

Never steep for recommended 8 min.

My parents gave me a whole box of these when I was over at their house for Easter dinner this year – apparently none of them care for it. Oh well, more for me. ;)

I swiped a packet to try when I was over at my parents’ house a couple weeks ago. Basically what it is is a little pouch of flavoured tea concentrate and you add it to water and stir – voila, instant (sweet) iced-tea.

I didn’t really have high hopes for this, but it turned out surpringly decent. It’s lightly sweet but not overpowering and not artifical-tasting. It actual tastes more like apples than pomegranate, the flavour crisp and refreshing.

I’d buy it – maybe not now, but in the summer when my iced-tea consumption goes way up. :D

A pleasantly strong flavored tea. Good with milk and sugar.

Its funny, I tried this at my in-laws, and assumed it would be pretty mediocre. Was I ever surprised when this turned out to be the best rooibos I have ever tasted and by far one of the smoothest cinnamon blends. You can taste the little notes of anise and cloves as well, it just feels like you glow when you have a big mug of this in hand. My favorite way to enjoy the coppery liquor is to blend in some dark honey that adds sweetness but also another layer of richness – my husband also likes this one with a little dollop of dulce de leche for a dessert drink with a slug of brandy in it. Devine.

This is my ‘normal’ tea for home at the moment. I’m often not the person who is drinking it though, because I often make it for my housemate while I make myself something more interesting. He invariably compliments me on how good it is and asks me what it is (he’s very good at showing an interest in my tea obsession). I can’t say it’s wonderful, but it does the job it’s supposed to, and it does it pretty well

I had to drink this all day at work today and I’m sick of it! We only had horrible UHT milk. You get hot water from a machine that only fills the cup just over half so you have to find a solution like getting a partner to join you. Then you can press the button to fill your cup, press it again and then transfer the second half of the water into the next cup so that both cups get 1 1/2 servings each. It wasn’t worth the effort, urgh

It’s standard, but it’s what they have at work and it’s one of the better of the mainstream black teas in my opinion. Not great with the UHT milk they also have at work…

Backlogging:
Blech! This tea was pretty nasty. I picked up a bottle on my trip to Vancouver on the 26th because I needed something cold. The first thing you taste is a wave of very artificial-tasting blueberry flavour. Then there’s a bitter, slightly astringent, tang which to me seems to indicate improperly brewed white tea. Then there’s sugary sweetness on the tail end; it’s like they try (and fail) to cover up the tea’s short-coming by drowning it in sugar.

Christmas Eve dessert time at my grandmother’s house, and this was the only tea she had in the cupboard. Since everyone else was drinking coffee (and I hate coffee), I steeped this up to join in on the hot beverage fun.

And let me tell you, this really didn’t taste like anything. At all. I kept steeping it and steeping it, worried that it was going to get bitter (as bagged tea really does if you keep it in the water too long), but that NEVER happened. I kept tasting it and tasting it, and the flavor was not there. By the 6 minute mark, I just pulled the bag and drank it. It’s hard to even have an opinion on this, since it’s pretty flavorless and inoffensive. It’s so flavorless and inoffensive that I kind of dislike it, a lot.

But the tea was NOT important at all. Being with my family on Christmas Eve was the important thing. The bad tea was inconsequential!

This was my everyday tea for a really long time. Still kind of is. Decent, quick, convenient. Unfortunately, I rarely, if ever, drank this for the tea taste, I always added milk and sweetener because it was to wake me up and get the morning going.

I always oversteeped this, I was definitely looking for a darker tea here.

My favorite version of this tea: decaf. It’s my late night tea; best with milk and sugar and a good book. Side note: my family has found that using several of these tea bags makes some of the best decaf iced tea when paired with some bags of decaf green tea.

My Mom’s staple tea for the last few months, but I have no idea why. It’s BEYOND INFURIATING. There’s promise of taste that never delivers. You could put five bags in one mug and still not taste a bloody thing.

The American blend is different from the UK blend. This is because the UK blend is not 100% decaffinated (I think it’s 2%). That does have a taste to it, but the US version is a crime (or should be a crime). Even the cheapest chamomile bagged tea has more taste and better aroma than this.

I have very fond memories of this tea when I lived in the UK, but I’ve never seen it upon my return to America. As it’s name suggests, it only needs breweing of 30 seconds or less to get a rounded, full-bodied basic cuppa. When you come in from a bad day or a drecnching downpour, this helps warm you up fast. It also helped when you had company suddenly drop in unannounced. When I was homeless in the UK, it also helped that it brewed so quickly because I needed the hot drink quickly when living in the woods. Some fellow homeless told me to use instant tea, but my life was bad enough already.

British Blend? As if! American Blend is a more accurate name. I lived in England for five years and this Tetley tastes like a pale shadow of the Tetley in England.

Fine for mornings when I hardly taste the first cup. Better with milk and sugar.

Didn’t want anything herbal, but also want a good night’s sleep tonight, so I popped in some fresh mint leaves from Peppermint Patty (the potted mint plant we’re coddling through frost weather by hauling it inside every night) … that helped fill in the flavor gaps.

Still looking for a good stout black decaf tea for those mornings when I don’t need to be revved up like a jet engine. This isn’t it.