Tazo

I drank some more Tazo Rest tonight. I think that it is one of the better tasting “functional” teas around. All of the ingredients meld together seamlessly, and it smells and tastes more pleasing than other herbal infusions of this type. In fact, I like it more than either rooibos or honey bush-based nonfunctional blends.

Valerian appears to be the stinkiest herb in existence. My sister finds it so unpleasant that the process of preparing a cup of valerian tea doubles her anxiety level, thereby undermining the purpose of imbibing the stuff. She cannot get past the “dirty underwear” scent of the valerian in any valerian-based blend.

I’m going to have to tell her about Tazo Rest, because this valerian blend does not scream out “dirty underwear” at all. Probably because valerian is pretty far down the ingredients list, and there are many strong competing flavors, including not only citrus oils, ginger, and licorice root, but even geranium oil and rose petals!

Rest is a nice herbal blend. Tonight I’ll be testing its true efficacy, as I was unable to sleep last night until 4:30 am as a result of the bomb dropped on me by my landlord (that I must vacate my apartment by February 28, 2014, after having lived here for ten years!). I got only four hours of sleep and I continue to suffer from an awful tension headache.

I’m counting on Rest to offer some much needed reprieve (rest!) and to usher in, if not sweet dreams, at least dreamless sleep. The last thing I need are nightmares, which are a possibility when I consume so many wild and crazy essences right before bed. We shall see.

The flavor is complex and very well blended and smooth. I taste smatterings of citrus and ginger and licorice and honeybush, but nothing stands out as dominant. Do I taste the geranium and rose? Not sure…

Another back log from yesterday, this one also wasn’t bad. Really tart from the hibiscus, I’m assuming. I added some sugar and it tasted like candy. Also, I think I let it steep too long because it was totally purple. That didn’t bother me, and in fact, it enhanced how I felt about it. Really, the purple played up to the candy vibe I was getting.

Ordered this at Starbucks this morning to have something warm to hold onto and sip on while walking around outside doing touristy things. I didn’t realize when ordering “green tea” that this had such a prominent lemongrass flavor. I don’t really like lemons or lemongrass in general, so I will not be reordering this again, but it was a nice hand warmer at the very least!

Every time I have a cup of this tea, I am pleasantly surprised, and it happened again today. Something about the blend is very appealing, despite my anti-rooibos prejudice. This must be the rooibos for non-rooibos drinkers!

I decided to take a break from my habit of walking home from Starbucks with a cup of Refresh in tow. I really enjoyed this herbal blend instead. I’ll definitely be drinking it again in the future. The flavor is completely different from any other herbal blend I’ve tried. Despite the vanilla and the large number of chamomile buds in evidence in the spent sachet, this blend does not taste at all like Sleepytime Vanilla (which I imbibed last night).

It tastes rather sweet and most of all like … Vanilla Rooibos Parfait: one of a kind!

So my friend was late, presenting me with the opportunity for a second refill at Starbucks this afternoon. I decided to venture out of my Refresh comfort zone and try Vanilla Rooibos Parfait once again.

The last time I tried this tea, I had very low expectations—as in: fully prepared to toss the contents of my cup. Honestly, the name just sounded repulsive to me. Would it be some horrible foodish atrocity? No, it was not. Far from it, in fact.

I would love to know how many tries it took the folks at Tazo to come up with this blend. The various components harmonize well together and definitely were not thrown together hastily.

Today, too, I was happy with the brew, even though my evaluation no longer was skewed by my negative expectations. I remembered that I had really enjoyed the cup last time (also while in a Starbucks), and so I was expecting to once again, and I did.

This might even be my favorite rooibos tea. Of course, it’s important to bear in mind that I’m not the biggest fan of rooibos infusions, being one of those who prefers blends in which the taste of rooibos is camouflaged by something more appealing. In Vanilla Rooibos Parfait, it’s partly the vanilla, but the brew is also sweet because of licorice root and dried fruits, and spicy because of cinnamon. Chamomile also adds some extra interest. Again, I realize that it sounds like a mess, but somehow it works!

I add no adulterants to this infusion, and it tastes sweet and creamy anyway!

This is my second office teabag tea of the day. I let the water cool for about 5 minutes before putting the tea bag in to avoid bitterness from scalded tea. It worked for the most part. The tea was a little bitter, but it mostly came out as the tea was cooling and was barely noticeable while the tea was still hot. I don’t really drink many Chinese green teas anymore because I prefer Japanese greens in general. However, this tea surprsingly reminded me of sencha more than it did of other Chinese green teas. It’s puzzling because the name of the tea acutally has “China” in it… It was less sharp and grassy than a lot of other Chinese greens I’ve had. It was more of a grassy/vegetal mix with perhaps even a bit of umami in there as well.

Maybe I’m not the best at explaining it eloquently, but as a mostly Japanese green, loose leaf tea drinker, I found this to be actually not too bad.

Another tea from my hotel’s 24 hour coffee and tea station. This tea was actually quite nice and soothing. It was vegetal but not grassy or bitter. A good choice for the afternoon, though I wouldn’t buy a box to enjoy at home.

I’m on vacation in New York, hooray! Anyway, this was one of the teas offered at my hotel, so I grabbed it with breakfast. Maybe it was because it was in a paper cup, but it tasted really cardboard-y today. Ah well, I will take my caffeine where I can get it!

Mostly tasted like a black tea to me, with hints of floral and green tea notes. It was very pleasant and smelled nice. 6.5/10

Sipdown!! (199)

My friend who gave me the rooibos chai I had last night also gave me this tea. She told me it is her all-time favourite chai and was just so excited to finally be giving me tea that once again I couldn’t say no.

However, this cup is a whole lot of NO! It is licorice through and through and I am not a licorice fan. I won’t even waste putting milk in this to see if that helps. This is getting dumped and hopefully my friend doesn’t ask what I thought about it :S

So I’m not going crazy! I brought the empty (!) tin home with me today.

“A jubilant blend of black tea, oolong, jasmine, green tea and hints of peach”

Well that totally explains the hints of peach.

I enjoyed this, but I wish they would have removed the black tea all together because whatever they used in this wasn’t my favorite. I wouldn’t repurchase but it was nice to have convenient sachets when I was extra lazy at work and it was a gift so I really can’t complain. Also (keep in mind I like black teas weak), I managed to get 3 steepings out of these suckers! That’s not too shabby.

Sipdown!

My boss bought me a tin of this for the holidays, which was very sweet of her. I tried a bag today at work. The ingredients looked interesting but nothing really holiday-ish about them. Maybe I’m imagining things, but I swear this tasted slightly peachy but the description on here doesn’t mention it and the tin is at work. It’s nice, but not especially interesting or season appropriate. Still, a nice gesture certainly.

I love the chocolate/orange flavors in this one.

This tea would be perfect if I was a huge fan of Hibiscus. I have had this tea both iced and hot, and the Hibiscus is equally noticeable (and too prominent, in my opinion) in both. I did however enjoy the fruitiness of this tea, and perhaps I’d give it another try (steeping it about a minute less). Overall I was not impressed with this cup as it was my first experience with an herbal tea… maybe someday I will learn to enjoy it as much as I enjoy green & black teas!

I don’t know how else to describe this tea other than EXHILARATING. I allow the tea leaves to steep for quite a long time (about 5-7 minutes) because I love the strength of it. The aroma of the brew is chiefly composed of spearmint, and to me it is relaxing. I love to breathe in the vapors of my tea while it is yet too hot to drink. The first sip is a harmonious blend of spearmint and a slight note of lemongrass. As the tea gradually cools down to optimal drinking temperature, the lemongrass is more noticeable. The green tea flavors are strong throughout. Overall this is a very stimulating tea… it is mentally energizing and physically relaxing at the same time. I enjoy my Zen tea with a slight drizzle of honey.

This tea is very delightful – it has a full green taste to it without too much smokiness. The ‘smoky’ part is more of a subtle aftertaste; it is not very noticeable in the brew itself. The color of the tea is a very nice green, and it tastes equally as well (if not better) with a slice of lemon placed in the cup to steep with the bag. This tea is a great pleasure to drink, and I am especially fond of the fact that it is organic. I will definitely be buying this again.

It’s official: Tazo is being well and truly expunged from all of the Starbucks stores. I learned this today when I requested a refill of Refresh after my monstrous reward drink of a venti Caramel Brulé soymilk frappuccino with three extra shots, light ice, and whipped cream on top. What can I say? It was a day full of bureaucracy, as I pulled everything together for my visa application so that I can stay in New Zealand for most of 2015. It took me the whole day because of various and sundry retarded obstacles, such as the virtually unstaffed and totally not user-friendly Fedex office location where I went… So anyway no food all day and it was 4pm, and I had also missed my midday caffeine infusion, so I went for the most monstrous of all possible reward drinks… It was way too sweet because I forgot to say half the syrup, so I drank some of it down and then poured in some nonfat milk to make it potable. By the end, I was not hungry any longer, but I was pining for a post-meal mint tea.

Alas, there is no more Refresh. Whatever was in the stores is not being replenished. This store had only Zen and Green Tips, my old and dear friend. Fortunately I bought some of the tins as they were heading out the door, but I was told at the time that Tazo sachets would still be available at the stores for hot drinks. Not so, it has now emerged. They must have been trying to humor me and the few other Tazo fans out there. When I mentioned that Teavana uses artificial flavorings in all of their blends, and Tazo uses none, the barista shrugged her shoulders and seemed unconcerned. Probably because all of the Starbucks syrups also contain artificial flavorings.

Today’s Green Tips, albeit not precisely what I was after, was very good. I remembered to ask that a few ice cubes be dropped in the cup to prevent overheating, and I removed the bags after only a couple of minutes. A quite decent Mao Feng. How Teavana won the battle of Teavana vs. Tazo is beyond me…