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I nicked this teabag from the breakroom at City Hall when I was there last month for some training, and I decided to brew it up today for Sunday tea time. Had I noticed that chamomile was the first listed ingredient I probably would’ve passed (what a strange ingredient for a pumpkin spice tea!) but I’m actually not tasting it too much against the flavoring. It reminds me a lot of an herbal version of Tazo’s “Pumpkin Spice Chai” in the pumpkin flavoring. The spice blend is pretty nice too, the cinnamon hits first but the ginger comes second with a little bite that lingers after the sip.

This is surprisingly good, especially for being on a chamomile base. If you are like me and don’t like the taste of chamomile, you’d be hard-pressed to even notice it in this blend. It has passion flower too… so I guess this would be a decent evening alternative for those that like Tazo’s “Pumpkin Spice Chai” which is on a black base. The pumpkin flavoring in both is a little weird/artificial but if you like it in one, you’d like it in the other.

This has a very appealing scent… a fruity sweetness mixed with spices, particularly a nutmeg aroma on the nose. The flavor is surprisingly fruity… though the blend has sugared papaya cubes in it, the taste is more akin to teas that use apple as a fruit filler… that sort of sweet, non-descript “fruitiness.” There is also a bit of vanilla sweetness, and the spice blend is very nice. Aside from the cinnamon the rest is coming from flavoring which usually ruins a spice tea for me, but this tastes very nice… I think the cinnamon grounds it out and I can definitely pick up a bit of nutmeg flavor.

Prepared straight and plain, it felt a little thin to me, so I’d probably need to overleaf it next time to get closer to a good flavor. But this morning I prepared it as a latte (I’ve really been in a latte mood lately) and the creaminess and sweetness of the vanilla almond milk really pulls together the flavor profile. It’s very indulgent, though a bit sweetly mouth-coating with this preparation.

I really enjoy this, though thinking back on other carrot cake blends I’ve enjoyed, I don’t think it is as good as 52Tea’s “Carrot Cake Pancakes” or Bird & Blend’s “Carrot Cake” tea. That said, the former isn’t a readily available offering and the latter is ridiculously expensive and hard to get for me in the United States considering overseas shipping and the new tariffs and whatnot. This at least holds up on its own for something I can easily get (and at a quite affordable price) in the US. But I’ll probably continue to explore other carrot cake teas as I stumble upon them. I think the biggest critique with this one is the flavoring is doing most of the heavy lifting rather than having a nice blend of actual spices in the leaf (though that is probably a big reason why it is so affordable…)

Another of my coworker’s abandoned teas. As far as bagged chai go… I’m okay with this. It’s still not the best, with that really artificial/oily spice flavor, but it goes hard on the cinnamon rather than the clove so instead of being overtaken by clove oil that dominates the whole tea, it tastes mostly like one of those generic “cinnamon candy” teas… which is also a very artificial flavor, but works okay for me since I’m okay with that really artificial cinnamon flavor in candies.

This is pretty nice as a latte with sweet vanilla almond milk (though I did burn my mouth on it terribly at work yesterday when I went in for a drink during a boring customer service staff meeting without waiting for my thermos to cool properly). I’ll probably just keep making it that way until I use up the teabags, since it is so serviceable that way.

Drinkable but nothing to write home about.

This is another of my coworker’s abandoned teas… I took pretty much all the hibiscus ones she had left in the breakroom, since nobody likes it but me. (I’m pretty much just a hibiscus rehoming sanctuary at this point…)

This came as quart-sized cold brew packets, so that is how I prepared it. It is very unseasonal, I admit, but I was starting to get tired of my mugicha coldbrew and welcomed a change-up. This is very tangy, which I of course enjoy. The hibiscus provides a nice full texture with a strong tart, fruity background, and the orange is quite zesty. The orange flavor is also very nice, rather than that weird artificial note it sometimes can have. I find it quite gulpable cold and plain, but I don’t know if I could recommend it to anyone else… if you a) like hibiscus b) like orange c) like things on the tangy/sour side, then you’ll probably enjoy this like me. But if you can’t check all three boxes, this isn’t going to be for you.

I had a craving a while ago for a “Chinese restaurant” teabag oolong… The only bagged oolong I could even find at my local grocery was this one, so I figured I’d try it out. Sadly, it just isn’t quite what I was hoping for. It has a bit of that roasty note and a subtle florality in the background, but its just so flavorless… It comes out really bland tasting. Adding an additional teabag helps the flavor substantially, but then it also gets a bit bitter/tannic at the end of the sip, which isn’t ideal either.

It’s a shame I live in an area that just doesn’t really have foreign speciality grocers around, which would probably have what I’m looking for in regards to a simple bagged tea oolong that gives that classic Chinese restaurant flavor… but this Twinings offering is not it. I won’t be purchasing again.

This is another abandoned breakroom tea.

Brewing it up, it has a very strong citrusy aroma… I was expecting it to be quite tart or even puckering based on the aroma, but tasting it, the stevia really comes out and it’s much sweeter than I was anticipating. The ashwagandha also comes out far more strongly than I was expecting, as there is this sort of hay-like, herbaceous note in the background. Something about that herbaceousness and sweetness hits together at the end of the sip and leaves a bit of an unpleasant aftertaste. The orange flavor is good, and far less artificial than I often get with orange teas, but the ashwagandha and stevia just kind of ruin the overall experience. I also don’t taste any of the spices despite seeing cinnamon, ginger, and clove all listed in the ingredients… maybe a hint of cinnamon in the weird aftertaste?

This is drinkable, but I definitely won’t be grabbing any more teabags of this one. I grabbed Tazo’s “Wild Sweet Orange” from the breakroom at the same time as this one, so I’m curious to also try that one and see how it compares.

This was one of the teas my coworker had abandoned in the breakroom. I had no idea Bonne Maman had teas, I’ve only known them for jam. I was immediately interested when I saw star anise as the first listed ingredient, then became wary of the Brazil pepper, which I didn’t know anything about and feared it would be a spicy tea. At first I passed for that reason, then changed my mind and decided to take just two bags from the box to try it.

It’s… an interesting tea. The star anise is indeed very strong, and for that reason I can’t really recommend it to many, since most people hate the flavor of black licorice (which I happen to love). But while the flavor note is there, it doesn’t come across as very licorice-like since there is no licorice root, so the texture is very thin rather than sticky/coating. There is still a sweetness to the tea, but not quite to the levels you’d get from licorice root. The second main note is the black currant, and while I enjoy both anise and black currant the taste of the two together was just… kind of strange? Not exactly unpleasant, just very different. A bit like a fruity licorice, if you dialed back the sweetness a bit. I kind of liked it…? But I wasn’t wowed by it. I’m still on the fence if I’ll take the rest of the box out of the breakroom or not… mostly I just feel like none of my other coworkers would be able to tolerate it. Team Black Licorice is very small in my workplace, and the overlap of liking that and tea even smaller…

As for the Brazil pepper… nothing to worry about. I didn’t even taste anything I’d consider peppery. And apparently it is similar to pink peppercorns which I’ve never had issue with. The tea definitely is not spicy.

This was the other unmarked tea from my coworker’s de-cupboarding. The paper wrapper of the teabags was simply white with a green leafy pattern that said “Davidson’s Organics” on one side, and the other side just had some verbage about the benefits of organic ingredients. There was no tea name or ingredients list. Several of my coworkers asked me what it was and I was like, “Until I brew it, your guess is as good as mine.” I was brave enough to take it home and uncover the mystery.

Ripping open the bag, I immediately could see and smell the orange tumeric powder. There were only two teas I could find from Davidson’s that has turmeric and the other looked like a pretty chunky tea, so I had a feeling this was their Tulsi Turmeric Ginger. But I needed to use up just a little bit of milk I had lingering in a carton, and after adding milk, while I could taste the tumeric and ginger and some other lovely spices that tasted great as a latte, I couldn’t taste any tulsi, and decided I needed to do another experiment to be sure.

So I pilfered the rest of the teabags and brewed it up today plain with no additions. Ding ding ding! I definitely taste the tulsi, which has such a fresh flavor bordering on citrusy/minty/peppery that goes great with the spices. It isn’t aggressive in its spiciness either, despite having turmeric and ginger… I get a bit of pepperiness at the back of my throat but not a burning sensation. Also a better blend of warming cinnamon and cardamon notes. It’s really nice! I like it, so I’ll probably just finish off the rest of the teabags instead of returning them to the breakroom with the tea name revealed, heh. I will probably make my last remaining cup as a latte again, it tastes very nice with a touch of sweet vanilla almond milk.

Rating: 30

My coworker decided to clean out her teabag collection and after carefully picking through it in the breakroom with the 2-3 other employees besides me that like tea, I came home with several teabags to try. A few were unmarked and no one was adventurous enough to try something without a name or ingredients list… except for me. This was one of the unmarked teabags. It was a sachet that just said “Vitacost” on the teabag tag sitting in a clear plastic baggie.

Looking at the sachet, I could see cinnamon and ginger, and after steeping… I think that is all that was in it? At least, I didn’t taste anything else discernable. It was quite barky/earthy, and the ginger was pretty strong, causing a peppery taste and a burn at the back of my throat after the sip. Maybe there was something else in there adding to the earthy notes, but overall it was pretty non-descript. I finished the cup, but the level of ginger hedged on the side of a bit too much for my extremely spice-sensitive self.

I’m all out of pumpkin spice teas and the seasonal cravings have been horrible. But I remember I snagged this out of the City Hall breakroom when I was there for required leadership training… I just got back from the dentist and had to forego my morning cuppa, so I was really hankering for this cup.

Sadly, it doesn’t really hold up… not that I was expecting much from Bigelow, as I rarely enjoy their teas. It just has the same problem I tend to have with grocery store bagged chai tea, in that all the spices taste really artificial and oily, especially the clove. I’m fine with clove, but clove flavoring or oil just absolutely wallops the whole tea. It’s all I really taste. I’m definitely not getting the “natural pumpkin flavor” and the spices just taste like clove rather than a spice blend. It reminds me of the “Double Spice Chai” by Stash I tried not long ago and also didn’t care for. Meh.

At least it was just a single teabag… I definitely would not buy this if I stumbled across it.