Tazo

I needed a refreshing tea today. This one fits the bill! Slightly minty and a hint of lemongrass. Soo good.

First off, I’m a huge fan of cucumber water. So, when I saw this at the store, I had to try it. I’m not a huge white tea drinker, but this is super tasty. It’s light, and definitely doesn’t need any sweetener added. It also seems like it would be great iced, which I plan to try in the summertime!

This is not my style, but I didn’t throw it out.
For me, the cocoa is too understated and the mint too overbearing.
I am not sure mint and cocoa are for me.
I love the peppermint patty, but I hate those chocolate mints they give away
at some restaurants and this is more along those lines.
Not my style, but I am glad to have tried it…not terrible…just not my style.

This tea is amazing. I add a dash of liquid sweet cream (from the cold liquid coffee creamer section) and it makes the flavor POP. I’m down to my last tea bag, and I’m scrambling to find more.

This is the second Tazo tea I picked up. It was actually the smell of this that made me look more closely at the box… because it smelled so strongly of artificial orange candy that I suspected for a moment I’d misread completely.

Who writes this copy.

Who are you people.

This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read. It’s so over-the-top pretentious it’s offensive. Also sucky, sucky prose; please enjoy this gem: “Explore lemongrass lawns, carpets of chamomile and the living history of your ancestors.” I guess someone graduated from Alliteration U summa cum laude. And whose ancestors would that be? Are they somehow connected to the great tradition of child slave labour on tea plantations? So lofty! So spiritual! Let’s all pose in First Nations headdresses and bindis together!

The tea is… not quite as bad as its product copy. The vile orange is mostly gone in the cup, but Tazo’s apricot flavouring leaves a lot to be desired. The promised vanilla is nowhere to be found and there is a weird, filmy aftertaste that makes me think of Tang powder.

No.

Tazo, I think I have some random tea bags I’ve picked up here and there, but when I’m done with those, I’m done with you.

[Picked up at Whole Foods in NOLA, March 2014.]

I did score some tea when I was in NOLA. Two kinds of Tazo from Whole Foods, three loose leafs from a local tea shop, and one bag of Intelligentsia’s jasmine (at O’Hare, but it counts). This is the first Tazo – I figured it would be nice to have some easily drunk bagged greens for travel, so this was an experiment.

These are not so ideal for travel, though – the little envelopes are paper, which always irks me. Paper is fine as long as there’s also an outer layer of plastic – however pointless and wasteful – but I do prefer just plastic. (Kusmi have it down for sure; great, pretty plastic envelopes, and really lovely tea bags inside.) In addition, with a recommended steeping temperature of 80 degrees C, this is a little too finicky for travel water.

In the bag, this smells of nothing. Steeped, this also smells of nothing. Possibly a slight whiff of cucumber, but it’s more reminiscent of zucchini, seeing as I so rarely come across warm cucumber. Flavour wise, I don’t get any peach whatsoever, only a somewhat fishy vegetal flavour presence that doesn’t really linger. I assumed this would be a plain green (you know, with a name like ‘Peachy Green’, but clearly I’m just not paranoid enough) but it is, in fact a green-black blend. This would explain the slight fishiness, if nothing else.

This isn’t unpalatable, but mostly because it just doesn’t have enough flavour to have personality. It’s fairly unoffensive and definitely something I will try to cold steep, or drink with food. However, it’s quite far from the perfect, peachy green travel tea I was looking for.

ETA: When it cools, it acquires a round sweetness that is quite pleasing and does carry some small peachy note. +5

[Picked up at Whole Foods in NOLA, March 2014.]

I wanted something bland this morning to hopefully calm my stomach. I don’t remember the last time I had this tea. Not a huge fan. It’s a bit too grassy/vegetal for me. I need to try more unflavored green teas.

I received a few bags of this as part of a holiday gift at work. While I haven’t always been impressed by Tazo’s filter bags in the past, today this brewed up to a light, smooth green tea that was fairly enjoyable. The light notes of lemongrass and mint are also quite nice. I think with increased experience in trying many different kinds of tea over the last year, I’ve come to be more careful in brewing bagged tea as well, so that the end result can be better than the “bad grocery store tea” reputation that sometimes precedes them.

I love this bottled tea. If I’m in a place that has it, there’s no other drink I will grab before this. Second runner up to this is MAYBE one of the less sweetened Honest Teas. But this is definitely king.

It is fairly sweetened, though. Not as tooth-curling as some of the Snapples, but not as mild as the Honest Teas.

I feel a bit fluish today (or maybe it was the food/wine yesterday). All that sounded good was this minty green tea. It helped a little. I foresee drinking a lot of tea today.

This is one of my favorite non-loose leaf green teas. It has the perfect refreshing hint of mint and the lemongrass is very subtle. It’s great iced (it’s the iced green tea at starbucks) and even good hot.

Does anyone else think this tea tastes like chicken broth? Anyone? Just me? Not that that’s a bad thing… it’s kind of rich. And I feel sick pretty consistently these days, so it’s kind of nice. I just don’t know.

Can I read this fic outside instead of being here? Y/N? http://archiveofourown.org/works/828998/chapters/1575445

I received a generous sample of the loose leaf version from Zwi. Thanks! I have had many chais (as is true for most of us) and that’s what this is. I like it but don’t love it. A few years ago, I was totally addicted to the tazo concentrate with vanilla soy milk. (Bad girl… way too fattening) I’ve tried a bunch and I only like a few. This is not one of them, for me. Maybe I under-leafed. I wouldn’t buy this particular tea but it certainly would appeal to many people. I guess I was looking for a little more WOW.

This is surprisingly good. Considering how red it brewed up I was worried but it’s actually pretty sweet. The fruit flavors taste exactly how they’re supposed to, and some of the licorice and other flavors come through in the end of the sip. Much better than I expected.

I chose this one this morning because I’m traveling and it’s really the only breakfast tea I brought with me. Don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow morning, since I only brought one bag of this.

I prefer chais without anise, but this one is actually subtle enough about it that I don’t mind. :) It’s a decent cupp. Nothing to write home about, but I appreciate that it’s organic.

Got a cup to fuel both the work at the job and the writing of the novel on break today. Not the really good tea place, the “pick a bagged tea out of a bucket and dump hot water on it” kind of place. Horrors. I remember when that would have been satisfactory, though. What a difference a year makes!
Well, this is not quite as spicy as I expected it to be, which is a bit of a letdown. Still, the ginger is the first flavor, so thats a good thing. Worth trying, anyway, even if I wont bring it home to stay.