Tazo

I have had trouble going to sleep, and read Rest has Valerian Root, so I decided to give it a shot. It smells really flowery but it tastes pretty good after a splash of agave nectar. Now I shall see if I sleep better tonight.

I’m gonna be honest with you: even tea-loving happy chicks get down. Today was one of those days….I was stressed, tense as could be, had a bad headache, and was down in the freaking dumps. A couple of things had depressed me and I was rocking some major sleep debt. Fast-forward to this evening, and s’all good, thanks to a big ole steaming mug of Tazo’s Zen Green Tea. Okay, and some retail therapy, but MOSTLY due to my cup of deliciousness.

I’m a sucker for the taste of mint, especially in chocolate or tea, and this green tea doesn’t let me down. There’s something very relaxing about the smell, not to mention the taste. Spearmint leaves, one of the main ingredients, are well-known for curing headaches, possibly relieving pain, and acting in an anti-inflammatory manner. So now here I sit, once-again in a chipper, laughing (slightly annoying?) mood, at peace with all and sending many happy thoughts to the good people at Tazo.

(Guest post from my mom!)

Wondering how to get your family to stop drinking soft drinks? Give them a tastier alternative! TAZO Wild Sweet Orange Tea is a potent weapon.

As addicted as Emily (aka The Crazy Tea Chick) and I are to Tazo Wild Sweet Orange Tea, we’ve no doubt written about it before on the tea blog. Truth be told, we aren’t the only ones with this sweet addiction, the rest of our family is as hooked on it as we are.

The only problem is, it has become increasingly difficult to find this particular tea in stores. I used to buy it regularly at Kroger and Target, as well as in individual Starbucks stores. However, now it’s kind of like finding Waldo’s great uncle, the Invisible Man.

Enter Amazon! Amazon is the best kind of store, the kind that never closes and almost never runs out of anything. What’s more, they bring the goodies right to your door. Have I told you lately how much love I have for Amazon. If not, I’m telling you now. The love has actually grown even deeper because they are now my number one source for this incredible tea.

If you’re trying to switch from soft drinks and diet soft drinks to healthier drinks such as tea… or if you’re trying to get a loved one to make the healthy switch… your secret weapon is going to be fun, delicious, and addictive flavors of tea – especially with young people. If you want them to put down the cans of soft drinks which do NOTHING for them health-wise and pick up drinks that actually make them healthier, you’d better be prepared to give them drinks they’ll keep coming back for.

On ice or off ice, Tazo Wild Sweet Orange and Tazo Passion Tea are delicious and fun enough to make even the biggest soda drinker see the error of his/her ways. Take it from a gal with a STRONG Diet Dr. Pepper fixation! It’s teas like these two that have helped me make one of the healthiest transitions I’ve ever made.

This tea, my friend, tea happens to be one of the very best on the market, period. If you’ve never tried it then you MUST. Like, NOW. (I use caps when I’m all excited and stuff.) The smell is purely intoxicating, while the taste is a beautiful combination of tartness and sweetness. Correction: wild sweetness. The title says so. This exotic ”tea” (actually a combination of fruit peels and citrus herbs, along with spearmint, orange essence, blackberry leaves, lemongrass, rosehips, spices) is caffeine-free. The teabags also have a shelf life of about 2 years, but if it takes you that long to finish one box, then there’s something wrong with you. No offense, but that’s the truth.

GO GET SOME.

Starting off my Saturday morning with a cup of this before I head off to a much needed massage. At first sniff (pre and post) steeping all I can smell is the lemongrass. This isn’t a bad thing, just my first impressions of a tea I don’t think I’ve had, but then again maybe I have. The taste is pretty amazing with a perfect mix of minty and well something else. But it’s a great kick off to my day of relaxation.

I am taking this tin to work, the kids deserve some Summer happy on a cold rainy day. Maybe we will try this one sweetened with agave instead of lemonade and we’ll serve it hot today.

By the looks of things outside I should really pick up some cocoa and sweet fruit teas for the kids for this rainy season!

Mmmm, maybe I am biased but this is still so yummy! And so pretty to watch as it cold steeps in my glass of lemonade and ice! All that gorgeous magenta coloured liquor slip-sliding over ice to pool like bright red silk at the bottom of my glass, waiting to be stirred and consumed… Savoured while I click through the pages of the latest book that I have put on to my Kobo!

Oh did I mention there is a great sunset to watch too?

Damit! Contrary to popular beleive tea cups do not bounce, but luckily this one did not shatter! and I was able to rescue the teabag and use it for another successful steep. Though the sticky mess I had to clean up left me insanely miffed! and I mean MIFFED! No one wants to have to move a heavy fridge to clean underneath it on a hot Summers day!

That being said I am really, really impressed that I am able to get three steeps out of these powerhouse bags, especially when I start with a cold steep first!

Tazo and Starbucks, you maybe over priced but this resteepablility of this tea certianly makes up for it! Time to make more lemonade! :o)

This versatile tea is amazing! I was worried, as most people are, that the cost would out weigh the benifits of a full leaf tea in a bag, but I successfully steeped this bag three times!

First steep: Done cold.
Fill cup with ice, add half cup lemonade and fill with water, add teabag and let it sit.
This tea started steeping almost immediatly! and was sippable straight away.

Second steep: Done cold
Same as above, but took longer to steep, and not as intense of a flavour.

Third steep: Done with hot water
Left the bag in until the water cooled, still flavourful! Can’t wait to add ice and lemonade tomorrow morning!

This is a full leaf tea I will be keeping on the tea shelf over the summer, each summer!! It tastes like liquid cherry pie and has less of a hibiscus taste that is so prevalant in the syrup they use when you ask for this tea iced at Starbucks! Mmmmmm!

Note: The steep time is for the last and final steep.

Starbucks serves this with lemonade… Mmmmm, though theirs is mostly syrup based; it does bring back memories of sour cherry pie and evenings sipping lemonade in the backyard with my friends.

Sipdown, 172. Hot, unsweetened hibiscus? No thanks. But cold, lightly sweetened hibiscus (with some spices and a few other fruits that don’t do a ton in this but are slightly there)? Pretty yummy. I find sweetened hibiscus iced tea so refreshing, and this was a great for that purpose. Mango and/or passion fruit, not so much, but still tasty, and the spices in this add a little something.

Thanks to JacquelineM for sending me a few sachets of this tea to try! We’ve already covered recently that I love passion fruit, but I also happen to love hibiscus. Since it’s fairly hot today and I’m at home where there is no A/C (versus at work where it is overly cold inside), I made this one iced. I brewed one sachet in probably 6oz of water for 10 minutes… I wanted it strong! I also added a bit of vanilla sugar during the brew time. Then I shook it up with several ice cubes until it was nice and cold.

Mmm… it really hits the spot this hot afternoon! Tart and sweet, fruity with a little citrus zing from the lemongrass. I don’t get much distinctly passion fruit flavor, but it’s somewhat tropical and definitely tasty. Definitely hibiscusy, so it’s probably one to avoid if you dislike hibiscus. The light sweetening brings out the fruity flavors, and I can see how it could be too tart without a bit of sweetener. Thanks again JacquelineM!

Hmmmm, there was a trend to my End of the School Year Thank-you presents, a box of this tea, some extra Starbucks cards and a few DAVIDsTEA cards… Since the giftcards have to wait I raced home and ripped this tin open to steep.

I instantly love the way these little pouches smell and am releived that the Chamomile is not prominent… but we shall see after steeping. I am sure this one will taste devine iced and I will do just that tomorrow.

Hmmm, It has a heavy milky taste and that is it, I am a little put off… the licorice kicks me pretty hard as an after taste and that is about it… Not my favourite at first steep, maybe iced with a hit of agave syrup would save this tea taste wise?

We shall see, we shall see…

- sigh – This should have been called “Licorice Rooibos”! There is no vanilla! and it has cooled for a while now!

Second steep, I could smell more honey or that “sweet rooibos smell” but it was still heavily licorice… lets see if there is a successful third steeping…

Tried this in bag form at a Starbucks-supplied bookstore cafe downtown. I was on my way elsewhere, but luckily the campus has lots of structures/seats/trash cans scattered around this particular area, so I was able to stop after two minutes or so of walking and dispose of the tea bag without too much problem. (I didn’t want this to get bitter!) As it turns out, it does have some bitterness on first taste, which I’m attributing to the too-hot water. It was “too hot for your hands even with the java jacket on the cup” hot. The smell as it’s brewing is classic fresh grassy green, with a curious sweet honey-like note. On tasting (once it cooled off sufficiently), no honey is in evidence, but the aforementioned bitterness clears off quickly and the rest is full-bodied and vegetal. Perhaps a little bit of a roasted taste, but not much. Other people have mentioned a spinach flavor; I can totally taste that now that I read it. If this is Chinese green tea, then that’s what I like, not Japanese, though there seem to be many more kinds of Japanese green tea than Chinese, and I’ve only tried a few.

If I were up to having caffeine every day, I might buy a box (or a tin—others seem to prefer it in loose form), but my low caffeine tolerance won’t let me adopt this one for my daily tea ritual. So I’ll save my box-sized purchases for low- or no-caffeine items, and I’ll savor this one occasionally at Starbucks. (Or maybe I’ll just buy a tea bag from them and bring it home so I can control the water temperature!)

I thought the tea tasted OK. There was a very strong ginger taste, almost overwhelming. If I didn’t like ginger I think it would have been too strong. A friend had given me a few packets because my stomach had been upset. I can’t say that the tea helped, but it didn’t hurt.

If you love tea, don’t go to Starbucks. Period.

When I first read that there was chicory in this tea, I was uncertain I would like the flavor, however, it is now my favorite tea. the flavor of this tea is amazing, and I love yerba mate, so after I have a cup I am left feeling gung-ho, and super happy! The cocoa and orange flavors really come through, it is a delight!