Tazo

Tastes great. Sometimes straight mint teas are too strong for my liking, but Refresh has a very nice balance. I can’t pick out the tarragon, but that’s probably what mitigates the normally overpowering mint presence.

so…. on a masochistic whim, i decided to give this tea another go. (retroactively thinking i had been unfair in judging this tea so harshly in february of this year)

i even used my porcelain tea cup in an attempt to perhaps appreciate the color of the tea and so i wouldn’t immediately drop the cup.

thankfully for my cup, i exercised some restraint. porcelain cup and saucer remain unbroken.
the tea still looked and smelled like hot tang.
i never add anything to my tea, but this tea is soooooo tart, my tongue curls up in fear just thinking about it.
and it’s not the pleasant sour patch kid tart, or even the lemon after the tequila shot tart. just straight up foul.

even after turning the tang into liquid diabetes, i lacked the willpower to consume it.
it wasn’t even suited for the drain i poured it down. my poor kitchen sink.

for all of those who enjoy this tea, i admire your courage. and your steel tongue.

this tea is essentially an epic fail. it’s where tastebuds go to die.
(granted i don’t enjoy most herbal teas, or anything fruit flavored- but even so)
i jacked the teabag from a hotel stay and tried it once i got home.
i did give it an honest shot, and…. i basically injested orange pine sol.
yum

This tea was really pleasant with the fault of having a little funky orange aftertaste. Didn’t last long though. The smell is just wonderful. I found myself just inhaling the orange spicy aroma every time I took a sip. With the taste and pleasant aroma I can forgo the aftertaste and for sure have it again.

It went very well with my pumpkin loaf

Favorite Starbucks drink right now. Green Tea latte comes in second.

All I could taste in it is the hibiscus. It said to have lemongrass in it and I wish i could have tasted it more.

Enjoying a very standard cup of vanilla rooibos tea latte on a half-cloudy March afternoon. Standard isn’t bad with this flavor, though. Nothing like a dependable cup of creamy appleish goodness with newish Paramore bangin through the car speakers. I wish Starbucks would invest in tea-specific cups, though. This whole double cup business is a messy affair; my tea latte’s dripping all over my hands. :X

Afterthought: I wonder how this drink would benefit from a touch of chai spice, if at all…

I’ve had this tea latte from Starbucks a few times in the past, and each cup is slightly different from the ones before it. This might have something to do with the size cup you order, since I suspect each teabag is the same size. The smaller the cup, the stronger the tea flavors since there is less water volume for the tea to diffuse through.

Today I ordered a Starbucks tall, which is their smallest size. Consequently, I was able to really taste the flavors coming through the large, fine mesh Tazo teabag that @steepedintruth mentioned in his tasting note. I’ve never seen a teabag this big before, let alone made of such a high quality mesh compared to the normal paper stuff I’m used to (then again, I haven’t been a big tea drinker at all until recently). First thing to hit was the vanilla; like everyone has mentioned, there’s definitely an artificiality to the taste of vanilla in this drink, but it’s not unpleasant to the point of ruining the drink. Reason being the apple cinnamon flavors that hit soon after.

Again, I’m sure the flavors were twice as prominent because I ordered a smaller cup, but man could I taste the apple cinnamon flavors! Not too strong that I’d swear I was sucking on a sour apple Jolly Rancher, but just strong enough for me to acknowledge that the flavors are there… more akin to eating a bowl of Apple Jacks cereal in milk. Soon the apple cinnamon takes over—in a good way—as the vanilla takes a backseat to the fruity spices, offering quite a sensational tea latte that gets better over time.

Steeped this for the perfect amount of time, thankfully. Hit the spot today—my stressed out stomach couldn’t handle the usual chai but I really needed the caffeine.

Had this over the weekend (without the syrup, as usual) because I didn’t want the calories of my usual drink. Sometimes this tastes fantastic, and sometimes I’m just not as impressed and this was a “not impressed” time. It was on the verge of being bitter (they must have steeped it a bit before they gave it to me, because I took the bag out after the same amount of time I always do), and it just didn’t hit the spot, so to speak.

I get this without the syrup, and I like it well enough. I agree that Tazo’s Earl Grey isn’t anything special, and it easily becomes bitter if you let it steep too long (maybe 4 min. is the maximum in my experience). I get this when I don’t feel like chai… sometimes I just want tea with a little something extra. It’s good enough for what it is!

Used up the last of the bags in the home stash this morning, though I still have about half a box at work. Of all the bags I’ve been experimenting with, this is one of the ones I will remember most fondly. Miss is probably too strong a word, though. I’m grateful to this tea for making me curious enough about darjeeling to go on to broaden my experiments into loose leaf and undoubtedly better things ahead.

Still liking this one generally as far as bagged teas go — I won’t repeat myself as to why as it’s in a previous note. Just wanted to add, though, that I’ve noticed that it has a fair amount of astringency. I take it from what I’ve read that astringency is a desireable quality in darjeelings, though I’m not expert enough to know how much is desireable and whether the amount present here is too much.

I was surprised — this one actually made me smile. It’s the first darjeeling I’ve tasted since I started my tea adventure and I suspect there is much better to be had, but it’s enough to make me really look forward to venturing further into finer darjeeling offerings. The liquor is not light as darjeeling’s is usually described; but it’s pretty, a medium to dark brownish-red. It smells woody, almost coffee-like, with a hint of mossy greenness. Foresty. There’s a richness and complexity to the taste that I wasn’t expecting, especially in the finish where I taste butter, sweet cream, nuts (almonds, I think, maybe a little hazelnut?). I tried it at the recommended 5 minutes steep time, but found it a tad bitter. Much better at 3 minutes.

Hallelujah! I’m at the end of my bags of this! It wasn’t awful and at times was actually pretty enjoyable, but the bergamot was, in general, too heavy and perfumy for me. For a month I’ve been looking forward to better Earl Grey without the guilt of having unused bags lying around, and now I can sally forth guilt free. Hmmm. What should I start with? A&D? The Upton sampler? Samples from American Tea Room or Harney & Sons? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: so many teas, so little time!

After drinking the full leaf version back to back with the non-full leaf version, I can say there is a significant difference in the balance between the tea/bergamot flavors. The full leaf version has much more black tea flavor, similar to the flavor of Awake, and the bergamot isn’t center stage. It’s better as a tea, but I’m not sure it’s better as an Earl Grey.

The perfumey note of the aroma hit me immediately, so much so that I was tempted to dab a bit on my wrists. :-) After a minute or two it settled down to a gentler citrus. Initially, I steeped for 5 minutes but the second time around after reading the comments here I limited it to 3. Three is definitely better, and I’m wondering if I should take it down from there a bit.

My experience with Earl Grey in the past has been limited to Twinings and Bigelow, and this one doesn’t seem significantly better than I remember those being. I’m detecting a twinge of the bitterness others have mentioned in the drinking, but for me it is mellowing to a pleasant, lingering citrusy finish where the underlying tea taste predominates. There’s even a bit of sweetness, right at the tip of my tongue. I’m looking forward to comparing it to other Earl Greys.

Finished the tin of full leaf “sachets” of this today and it wasn’t harsh at all. Go figure. Bumping it back up a few notches on the theory that my experience last time was an aberration. Reserving judgment on chai as a genre for now as I’m such a novice. I’m sure I’ll try a number of other kinds before I circle back to this one, if I ever do. I’d like to try some traditional chai to have something to compare against.

Made some of this to caffeinate myself because I have work to do tonight. Either it’s different this time or I was generous last time — it’s coming across as pretty harsh. Maybe it’s because I don’t put milk or anything else for that matter in my tea. Maybe I should change that. Bumping it down a few notches in the rating for being uneven.

I am far from a chai expert, but this seems to have a well-blended flavor if you’re in the mood for something spicy. I can smell the ginger, cinnamon and cloves primarily, but none of these predominates in the taste. There’s a peppery afterburn, but the pepper flavor in this whole leaf bag version isn’t as strong as that in the decaf bagged version I tried (not whole leaf), which borders on harsh. I started my morning with this one today, and I’m moved to try another cup and see what else I can get out of this one on a second tasting.

And here’s an update after the second tasting (different bags, not a resteep)… with the after effect of the original cup still on my tongue, the new cup is very different. Even more balanced, and I can taste the mildness of the tea. The spices are more around the edges this time. Very interesting contrast to the first spicy attack and worth an additional couple of rating points.

this is the first cup of tazo anything that I’m really enjoying.
I actually wanted to try this before I picked up the pack of tea from the asian market that has a lotus on the box that all of the people who don’t really speak English are giving me the thumbs up sign for.
At least now I have some kind of an idea what I’m in for.
The florality of this tea is nice, but what I’m finding surprising are the buttery notes. So when I try the real lotus tea I’m gonna be looking to see if that is something tazo put in or if it is an actual quality of the lotus in the tea.

Jillian Lena sent me this tea.

Here is my review.

http://bit.ly/dlgPeE

Seriously. Look at the picture.

ETA: If you want an actual review, please read the plethora of other reviews on this tea. They paint its portrait quite nicely.

This is very good! Its melange of sweet and spicy flavors is perfectly accentuated with a splash of milk. It’s not too sweet, but it’s not dull, either. No one flavor is overpowering. If I ordered this tea in an Indian restaurant, I would be more than satisfied!

By the way—is this the same/a newer version of Tazo’s “Organic Chai”? Does anyone know?