Tazo

I bought some bottles of Tazo Giant Peach at one of the local grocery stores because it was on sale for 25 cents. Otherwise, I would have passed, because I nearly always eschew sweetened iced tea. This is a good example of why.

The bottle packs nearly 200 calories, and it tastes much more like peach juice than like tea. It’s actually more like a peach solution. Think Vitamin Water with significantly more cane sugar and flavor.

Iced tea for me is all about quenching thirst. This juice tastes pretty good, but it is a juice solution (more cane sugar than fruit) not tea, and I opt for it only in circumstances when I am both thirsty and suffering from extremely low blood sugar and need some liquid calories ASAP, as in: before I expire.

So, not really a tea. Okay as a super-sweetened peach-flavored juice. I won’t buy it again—unless they sell it for 25 cents a bottle, and then I’ll just have more on hand for low blood sugar situations such as today, when I walked all over town without having eaten anything. By the time I got home I did not have enough energy left even to lift a fork, much less prepare any food, so I chugged this and then was sufficiently recuperated to be able to come up with a meal.

Honeybush is one of those strange non-tea teas about which I’m somewhat ambivalent (along with rooibos). This blend, Tazo Flowering Honeybush, jazzes the honeybush up with chunks of dried fruit: apple, papaya, and peach, plus blackberry leaves and some flavoring. The overall effect is, predictably, a somewhat fruity honeybush.

I have a feeling that this might be very good with sugar, which could augment and enhance the fruitiness. However, that’s a line which I prefer not to cross, since I prefer to drink my tisanes unsweetened. I also hate artificial sweeteners. Instead, I’ll just drink the rest of this packet au naturel and probably not purchase it again.

Honeybush blends often seem pretty interchangeable to me, so I’d rather try some others than stick with this one. It’s perfectly fine, but not very exciting or memorable—not something I positively look forward to drinking. I acquired 4 ounces of this loose-leaf herbal blend during the November half-price sale at Starbucks. It was a good opportunity to test out a bunch of their more obscure loose leaf offerings. All are from Tazo, but not readily available anywhere else, as far as I can tell.

The burnt-orange color of this brewed infusion is beautiful!

Tony bought some of this awhile back, thinking I would like it.
I sometimes carry a few bags when we go to breakfast, in part so that I do have something to drink if needed, & also just to use it up so that I can get it out of his cupboard.

My 3rd favorite tea :)

Tyler
http://onelittleblackdress.com

Ah, another chapter in my slow and painful journey to sugar-free tea. 1 spoon of sugar instead of two tonight. This will take some getting used to :)

Ahhh. This tea hits the spot every time :)

I’ve been sipping on a cold brew of this without sugar for the past couple of days. I’m trying to stop adding sugar to my tea, and I’ve found that its not that hard to do without it in iced tea, but in hot tea its unbearable. Hmmm, wonder why.

Also, I’m not sure if the predominate flavor in this is rose, or one of the essential oils (geranium, etc), but whatever it is, its very yummy :)

Very yummy, and the first floral tea that I’ve actually liked. Man, is that a strong scent of rose!!

Does anyone know if this is safe to drink throughout the day for relaxation, or will it make you drowsy?

I brewed up a cup of this Tazo Wild Sweet Orange tonight and attempted yet again to understand why it gets no love—and indeed a lot of hate!

Okay, so it’s not orange juice, and it’s not tea. Okay, so it’s a tart hot liquid perhaps comparable in some ways to Theraflu—except that it is orange, not lemon or cherry.

Truth be told: I actually like Theraflu!

I am rather surprised by all of the hatred for Tazo Wild Sweet Orange. I had consumed a couple of boxes of the filter bags a couple of years back and was expecting the new formulation (in the whitish envelopes and box) to be bad since I am not happy with the new formulation of filter bag Calm.

Instead, I find that Wild Sweet Orange is the same as it ever was: a tart and tangy orange infusion in the style of the Celestial Seasonings Zinger series. Is there an Orange Zinger? Hmmm… not sure. If so, I’ve never had it. Tazo Wild Sweet Orange appears to have been modeled after Lemon Zinger only with orange replacing the lemon. There’s a lot of lemongrass, rosehips, and hibiscus, too.

I do not find that this tastes or smells like cleaning fluid—as others have reported. The orange facet is more like orange juice without the natural sugar. It does not smell exactly like orange oil—it’s more tart than bitter, and there is no overwhelming orange peel scent either because of the other ingredients. I definitely do not find that Wild Sweet Orange smacks of Tang (thankfully). It’s true that citric acid is the third ingredient, which is bound to be a turn-off, but I find it nonetheless drinkable.

No, it’s not my favorite herbal infusion by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s okay now and then as an Orange Zinger-style beverage. It might be better cold, but I’ve never tried it that way. I do prefer Passion cold, and find it very tasty iced in summertime. This bright orange tea probably just has too many overlaps with mundane orange stuff in people’s experience to be taken very seriously as a beverage.