Trader Joe's

Non-spicy ginger overpowers the weak turmeric. Strong orange oil and licorice root, no black pepper.

Do Not Like.

A tea-drinking coworker loves licorice root so I’ll be gifting the rest of this box to her, along with another licorice heavy tisane.

This tea is going to be sour and tart. That was my first impressions when I took it from box from derk. Thank you. And as I had choice paralysis, I let choose tea my faithful friend – random.org

And it decided this one. I smelled the bag and yeah, it is going to be sour and tart.
Brewed for 4 minutes, it became deep red (as in the picture).

It is – sour and tart. But with some notes of raspberries or something? It should not be in, but tastes like raspberry jam or something. It is pleasantly sour. But yeah, it’s tart tea. It’s not bad, but nothing to really enjoy. At least for me.

I went for a walk while waiting for some new rubber seals, a boot and a lock to be installed on my truck’s camper shell. As soon as I strolled into another business’s parking lot, I ran into a coworker and her wife and two dogs… this other business being another location of the company we work for. Both of us on our days off, the four of them not visiting our employer but going for a walk along the creek across the street. I am often surprised by this ‘small town’ thing. I enjoy every encounter and learned connection I have.

After receiving dog kisses and getting a spritz on my shoe by a terribly excited standard poodle puppy, I walked back to the waiting room of the camper shell business and was surprised to find it spotless (I was scared it was going to resemble a junkyard bathroom — I’ll never go in one but my imagination was running wild after visiting a pick-and-pull last week and finding a brand new bra on the ground…) and with a selection of herbal and green teas on the counter. Picked this, something I’ve seen at Trader Joe’s but never considered purchasing.

I steeped one bag in probably 12oz of watercooler hot water and left the bag in while I sipped. I think the instructions said something like 1.5 to 2 minutes but I was feeling hypoglycemic and lazy. This tasted unlike any other tulsi I’ve had. It had a very vibrant aroma and flavor along the lines of star anise, clove and a bit of soft mintiness. No bitterness, no astringency, no flat herbaceous flavor that I was expecting. The texture was at first somewhat thin but developed into something more oily and medium-bodied as the bag continued to brew. I may have to purchase a box to have on hand until I grow my own tulsi.

Arby Advent Backlog
This one is at first pretty unremarkable. Mostly tastes like a weak bagged fruit tea. As I have more bags of it, I do find myself enjoying it more. It’s tart and the berry flavor is decent. I don’t mind this one! Thanks for sharing so many bags of this, Arby! I did end up becoming a bit of a fan of the cherry flavor mixed in there with the usual berry flavors.

I’ve always wanted to try a tea advent calendar, and, to my utter delight, my sister made me one! She’s given me a bunch of little tea samples from her own (fabulous) tea cupboard, and I am excited for the month to come.
Day one was this. It’s a pretty decent raspberry tea, not bitter at all, but not quite as juicy as I’d like.
I’ve really got to stick my head in Trader Joes soon and look at their teas.

Come for the tin, stay for the outrage over the phrase “pumpkin spice”. Historically, these spice combinations have been called “sweet spice” for they spice up sweet things. Rooibos is not a sweet thing. And the sweet spice blend doesn’t make it a sweet thing. In fact, to my palette, the sweet spice blend might as well have taken the day off because I just cannot taste it. I’m sure they are there, hanging out, being noticed by people with more refined palettes than I have.

But as for me, I wanted a cup of rooibos, and I got a cup of rooibos (with reusable tin as a bonus). Expectations were met.

Come for the medicinal properties, stay for the taste. That about sums up my experience. I was having a lingering cold so wanted ginger for my stomach, turmeric for my immune system, and black pepper for inflammation, and found this tisane which combined all of them without having caffeine (I’m extremely sensitive to caffeine so hope to avoid it whenever possible). The bonus properties of licorice and citrus compounds were add ons I hardly wanted to refuse.

But what surprised me was the flavor. I was prepared for it to be overwhelmingly gingery as an unbalanced tea would be. I was prepared for that too-much-tumeric flavor. I was prepared to be drinking hot black pepper water. I was even prepared for the flavor of the turmeric and black pepper hot water concoction that I’d made myself (because those two in combination are a dynamite hedge witch medicine combo). But no. None of that. Instead, I got a pleasant, well rounded flavor that wasn’t dominated by any one thing at all; one might even say mild and mellow. The flavor is definitely unique, and I found it yummy in an unexpected way.

This would be my absolute favorite tea, but for the single-use plastic envelopes that each individual tea bag is wrapped in, within the box. If other boxes of turmeric/ginger/black pepper tea blends can manage paper wrappers or no wrappers to their bags at all, that tells me that this blend isn’t using the plastic envelopes for any purpose I would appreciate. I just don’t like the amount of landfill trash that one box of these tea bags produces since I know that there can be boxes of tea bags that produce no landfill trash. While this isn’t a tasting note, the plastic envelopes left a bad taste in my mouth, and so I’ve simply stopped buying this tea. Please, Trader Joe’s, do something about that!

My stomach is hell this morning, so I’m having to give up my morning cuppa of black tea to make something more soothing that might settle the nausea a bit. My go-to for nausea is either mint tea or ginger tea, so I’ve had a box of these teabags on hand for a while that Todd mailed me (I don’t have a local Trader Joe’s and always seem to be rather unimpressed with the bagged mint offerings I find around here… at least the Bigelow one I found retchid). I have liked this one a lot, though. I think I enjoy my mint blends more when they are a mix of peppermint and spearmint, and the touch of lemon helps add another slight note to cut through what would otherwise just be that heavy menthol taste. This one is nice and strong and minty which is precisely what my tum-tum needs, but I do get just a bit of citrus and my tongue is left cool and tingly. The mint is strong enough that the lemongrass doesn’t come off very herbaceous in this particular tea, so while I do prefer other lemon herbs more, it works okay here. This also makes a nice iced tea, as I’ve dropped 4-5 teabags into cold water and let it sit overnight (or 2-3 in a water bottle to take on the go) in the past before to have minty ice cold refreshing tea too.

This one came from a ten-pack of loose leaf teas presented in plastic vials. I think I like it better cold. The vanilla flavor comes through and the rooibos is sweet and lacking any sort of unpleasantness. I’m a rooibos lover, but I think it’s very nice. I only tried a sample, but it reminded me that I need to order a plainish rooibos somewhere since I don’t have anything like that right now.

(Steepster is behaving strange again. I wanted to write another tasting note for this one, remove it from cupboard et cetera. And when I click on the main page of tea, it shows like on mobile and can’t do anything there. If I click on “Rate this tea” it brings me back to main page.) As of 16th January

So, at least somehow, late. It’s copied from yesterday comment :D of first my tasting note.
Thank you derk for this tea. It had got unique property – when I wanted to brew it, I couldn’t find it. When not, it was there. But today, when I was preparing teas for you I found it and… took to some other place so it won’t disappear again. And of course, it hid again.
But I have found it.

It is still somehow same tea, even after 6 months. Certainly more on melon side this time. It is quite weird to drink this while outside is 0°C, but why not. It reminds me nice summer weather. I really hate this season, when it is freezing, but no snow outside.

Derk, thank you for this one. Although it is summer tea, it is enjoyable even in winter.
As for 17th January, tea site worked without any problems. Weird things…

A tea bag I have received from derk – thanks a lot for all I have received. Now I am really having lots of tea. No more tea for me, need to drink my stash down a bit. Thank you Izzy too, for envelope from you.

I prepared this tea traditional – hot water, one bag per cuppa. I wanted something simple, not really in mood for doing gong-fu. I steeped it for maybe four minutes, while fresh melon aroma comes out.

It has got typical, bronze, colour, with aroma of melon (naturally) with little refreshing mint notes.

In taste… it is cold now, meh… nice watermelon, maybe bit more watermelon seeds with refreshing mint note. Black tea base is not present at all.
Not bad, though.

It’s hard not to associate the taste of watermelon-flavoring with candy, and the smell of it with like, scented bath products. To be fair, I’m not the biggest fan of flavorings a lot of the time. I also haven’t tried it iced—I could see that working better. Maybe if the black tea was stronger, I’d enjoy it more, but the watermelon just smells and tastes overpowering.

We’ve never lived near a Trader Joe’s, so whenever we visited a town that had one, we’d always stock up on everything, including this tea. We’d absolutely demolish pitcher after pitcher of it iced. Unfortunately, they stopped carrying it a few years ago, and I saved my last bag to have on a special day. It’s just as good as I remembered. I’ll miss it so much! I’ve had a lot of honeybush and rooibos, but for some reason this one makes the best iced tea. It’s so smooth and sweet and truly different from other blends. I’ve been meaning to email them and see where this tea is sourced from, but I keep forgetting.

I love the jitters-free caffeine boost from mate, but I have to really be in the mood for mate in order to make myself a cup. And I’m only in the mood for it like, once a year.
I like this one better than the Guayaki kind. It has a milder flavor.
But yeah, it still tastes like grass.

Bought a tin of this finally after reading LuckyMe’s review and made a half gallon cold-brewed for the house. 8 sachets overnight in the fridge made a damn fine refreshing tea that is well-balanced with black tea base, mints (mostly spearmint) and natural watermelon taste. Couldn’t discern the orange peel nor the licorice, meaning the tea doesn’t leave a sickly sweet flavor in the mouth. I suppose the licorice is there to add some thickness to the body. The only thing that gets me is the sweet watermelon candy aroma. It doesn’t quite match the watermelon flavor. But I know some people will love that!

Tried a sample of this at TJ’s the other day and was really impressed by it. The mint and watermelon taste natural and well balanced with the black tea base. I had it iced and unsweetened and could totally see myself sipping this during the summer months. Reminded me of one of my favorite summer salads: watermelon, mint, and feta…yum!

Another from my exchange with AliceG! I was pretty dubious about this one since I find the current turmeric trend to be silly. Happily, the main flavor is a tasty, spicy ginger, and the turmeric is only a sweet background flavor. I think I still prefer plain ginger tea, but I enjoyed this. Actually, now that I think about it, I think I may have had this one before, or at least we had a box of it in my house years ago. Trader Joe’s has a pretty nice line of teas. I usually find something to grab when I’m there.

Tea bag by derk, third tea today.

I just used about 70 °C water; clear glass. Keeping it simple.
Tastes quite good, with slight yellow colour. Bit opaque though.

Anyway, slight jasmine aroma and taste is green tea. Bit of floral/jasmine is there too.
I think it is nice, cheap – as I looked for prices, tea. Nothing fancy, but not bad at all.

I bought Trader Joe’s English Breakfast Tea because my regular Black Tea was unavailable. At first I was skeptical because the box of 48 seemed to cheap. I paid just under $2 for the box. I am over the moon about this tea. It was yummy. Beyond heavenly. I drank 4 cups of it the day I bought it and then invited my friends to try it. It ended up with me now needing to go out and buy another box. I have fallen in love with this tea. It’s the best I have had in a long time.

Grabbed this from the Discovery teabox some months ago. The wrap didn’t mention the ingredients so I did a fun guess before reading the ingredients on Steepster. First, the bag was certainly filled with more than a teaspoon, so at least they aren’t being cheap with the amount they’re putting in the teabag. I was guessing this had chamomile, spearmint, and some sort of lemony ingredient. I was right. There was also some extra ingredients that I wasn’t tasting here at all. This was a pleasant nighttime cup. The Steepster rating is at a surprising 82. That’s quite high for any teabag (not to be a snob about it.)
Also finished Adagio’s ancient ripe for romance: (2019 Sipdowns:6)

Discovered this one while rummaging through my kitchen pantry today. I remember buying it a long time ago and not liking it, but couldn’t remember specifically why. So I decided to do a quick taste test to jog my memory.

Prepared it according to directions by adding hot water to the matcha latte mix which had sugar and coconut creamer in it. It brewed up moldy green and smelled like boiled broccoli…not exactly inviting. It has a chalky taste typical of low grade matcha. There’s more sugar in it than green tea. The green tea flavor is there but isn’t very assertive. It’s kind of a generic green tea flavor without any umami or freshness to it. Pretty thin and watery compared to the matcha lattes I make at home.

While this isn’t the worst matcha drink I’ve had, it’s not great either. I can see how it might be appealing from a convenience standpoint however it’s not worth it when you can get much better results by throwing together matcha powder, sugar, and milk in a coffee mug.

This is THE best tasting tea I’ve had. That might be an exaggeration but this tea is seriously amazing. I’m not a big fan of tea in general unless there is a LOT of sugar or honey and lemon in it. My housemates aren’t big tea people either. But this tea. THIS TEA. We go through boxes of it so fast. It’s everyone’s favorite. It’s perfectly balanced with sweet, fragrant, savory and a very tiiiny bit spicy. You can let it steep for as long as you want (maybe even make a second cup with the same bag). It’s not as strong but still tastes pretty good. At under $3 for 20 bags, it’s very affordable and I’ll legit cry the day TJ’s stops selling it.

Steeped 2 min and drank hot. Tastes watery and flowery, but mostly from the smell – very little flavor from taste.
Tried it iced – steeped 1.5 minutes, poured over ice. Tastes like flower water. Tried several times to like it but I couldn’t finish it. Tasted 8.2018

Decided to try something seasonal, and I was pleased with my choice. Not too shabby.