Tazo

Saw this one at Target well on the website and it sounded good based on the ingredients I decided it was worth the risk. Worst case scenario it turns out to be a licorice root bomb. Best case scenario it ends up being a favorite like say Tazo’s Lemon Loaf or Butterscotch Blondie Tea.
Verdict: I need to play with this one some more but this cup was, unfortunately, a licorice root bomb. I added up having to add some oat milk to it.

Single bag from a tea box. This is a lot more floral than I would have guessed. Not that much mint. Really, it was just sort of floral and maybe a bit of honey. Wouldn’t need to try it again.

Grabbed a bag from a tea box. This one smells great but isn’t as flavorful as I had hoped. Maybe I should have put it in a tinier mug. It ends up quite floral. I like chamomile, but this chamomile is a little soapy. There’s hibiscus, which adds a little tartness. I wish I had a second bag so I could try a more concentrated version.

Day 18 of Sara’s Old Tea! Part 3 of 6

Swimming teabag in boiling water.

Oh man, this one smells amazing. I can smell lemon icing on some kind of spice cake.

Tastes like a delicious lemon cake! It’s really good. I may have to stock some of this in my cupboard. Thanks. :)

update 5/2: found a small stash and drank through them and now i can say I find this revolting. Not sure what flipped the switch, but I don’t want this stuff ever again.

my school stopped stocking this but I used to like to brew this for the color alone. It’s a very pretty dark wine-like color. Smells okay. Taste-wise, all I can pick out is that it’s just sour and sometimes I’d be in the mood for it. But previously for a free school provided tea, whatever. Would I purchase it on my own though? probably not.

3.25/5

side note: For these teas, I’m not sure why they always say boiling water and 5 min steep because taste/appearance-wise to me, there was never difference whether I used 180F or 210F water, or whether I steeped for 5 min. or 2 min. Because the particles are so small, it steeps almost immediately anyway, which is pretty obvious as soon as you pour the water on top.

2020 Advent Swap – Day 18

One of my all time hard to find favorites for any time of day. Don’t steep it too weak. Great w/ a little sugar.

I saved this one for later in the night since it’s a rooibos. It has that nutty rooibos flavor, and it smells very sweet and festive. For those who have Cracker Barrel restaurants, imagine walking into the front lobby. It smells just like that. Sweet cinnamon rooibos. This was a nice, nighttime treat. James especially enjoyed it. Devon Bartholomew – if you have a Whole Foods nearby, I checked and ours has this one available!

2020 Advent Swap – Day 16

One I’m sure you’ve tried before – I don’t drink many green teas but I love this one! Delightful taste!

I think you’re right, Devon Bartholomew – I’m almost positive I’ve have had this one before, but it’s been a really long time ago! I’m pretty sure Zen and Passion were the only Tazo teas my grocery store carried at first. For some reason, I remember them being everywhere. I don’t drink many green teas either, but there are a few that I do like. With this one having mint, it sounds promising. I can’t say I remember whether I liked it before or not.

I do taste the mint and, thankfully, not the lemongrass. I don’t mind lemongrass sometimes, but other times it tastes too much like artificial lemon flavor to me. Like lemon-lite. Flat lemonade, something like that. I don’t taste it much here. The mint dominates for me. My husband loved this one and requested that it go straight on the wishlist, so I’ll definitely be trying it again in the future.

2020 Advent Swap – Day 12

One of my all time really hard to find favorites!

My husband and I both like this one! I was a little worried at first about the licorice root, but I can’t even taste it. Right out of the bag, it smells like a fresh-baked cinnamon roll (which, coincidentally, is what I had for breakfast this morning). After steeping, I smell vanilla frosting. I’ve had vanilla bean macarons before, and even though that wasn’t my first thought when drinking this, I think Tazo nailed that vanilla flavor. It’s missing maybe some almond and some inherent sweetness (guessing that’s where the licorice root came in), but overall I think that this is a great tea that does well at achieving its intended flavors. Thanks for sharing one of your favorites, Devon Bartholomew!

2020 Advent Swap – Day 10

I liked the description of this but don’t care for it. If you like it, you’re welcome to the rest of the box!

I have to say, this has to be the most authentic apricot flavoring I’ve experienced. Now, I’m not sure how many teas I’ve had that included apricot, maybe none, but the aroma here is undeniably that of dried apricots. This is, I’m sure of it, the only apricot tea I’ve had where apricot is meant to be the star flavor. If I have had it before, it would have been mixed in with other stone fruits and likely lost behind the peach or cherry flavors. So this was a happy surprise. It also smells quite sweet and, bummer, like a bar of soap. Not hand soap or dish soap – specifically a bar of unscented Dove soap. Interesting. Thankfully, no soap in the taste. It’s back to the apricot again. For a white tea, it has a fair amount of flavor, but it’s still not enough for me. Not a bad cup for the morning, but it’s not something I would buy for myself. I hope you can find someone else who will enjoy it, Devon Bartholomew!

2020 Advent Swap – Day 6

My roommate brought this home for me. It’s an in your face tart tea. It reminds me more of a black tea, kind of misleading on the label.

I saw “tart” and immediately knew my husband would love this one, so I split the cup with him. I, on the other hand, am not a huge fan of hot hibiscus so I poured my share into a mason jar and put it in the fridge for later. Looking at it now through a clear jar, it’s not as dark red as I expected from the hibiscus. It’s more of a coral color, very pretty. I’m having it chilled with breakfast – tacos! – so it’s very cooling next to the salsa. The flavor is light – I can taste the hibiscus and that familiar gradual build of the licorice root at the end of the sip. It’s not too overwhelming, thankfully. This doesn’t come across to me as a green tea, more like an herbal, but I also don’t drink a lot of green teas so that could be due to my unfamiliarity. It’s refreshing due to the light flavor, but not something I would likely reach for myself. I’m glad to have tried something new though – thanks, Devon Bartholomew!

I received my Christmas advent calendar early this year – I must admit, I peeked for the first day a few days after I got it trying to figure out if it was a tea bag or loose leaf tea that I was feeling, but I did wait until December first to drink it! :) I found this tea on vacation awhile ago, and enjoyed it, but hadn’t been able to find it again, so this was a nice thing to open! It’s like a vanilla lemon cake – a sweet lemon, not a sour one. I love Tazo teas!

I love this tea. I love the tartness and strong orange flavors. A wonderful staple in my pantry every winter.

I picked up this tea in a tin of 15 sachets last night at target. I was hoping to find a jasmine green tea of some sort, but they didn’t have any and this was only $3! It says it’s a mix of black tea, oolong, and green with peach. I definitely smell “peach flavor”, and taste a very generic, mildly bitter/astringent black tea. It’s not bad – would probably be a lot better with milk/sugar/etc. I could see the peachiness growing on me, but for now, I’ll give this one a 40/100. Not mad about it for $3 and a reusable tin.

I like this for an evening sip. The chamomile is blended with enough other flavors to make it delicious and complicated.

Mild cinnamon flavor but apple very hard to notice

I love the bold, sour, fruity notes after a long steep. Can drink anytime, morning, noon and night.

Bleggggggg. Someone kindly gifted this to me, but it’s awful. Couldn’t get past one sip.

When my family moved into a new house when I was 12, there was a weird boiled water faucet that the previous owners of the house had installed. This tea tastes exactly like that weird boiled water tasted.

Oops. Forgot I still had some of these bags. I sampled a box last year while trying to find a replacement for Celestial Seasonings Sweet Apple Chamomile. This wasn’t it, but it’s still a pleasant evening tea if you want a change from minty herbal things. My earlier pronouncements likened it to caramel apples; I think I’m sticking with that.

Found the “zone.” Add milk. Caramel apples in your cup.

(Will I ever learn? How many times have I grabbed a tea box without checking the ingredients because the name intrigued me?) When I finally read the fine print and noticed licorice, I almost immediately regretted picking this up. Same when I sniffed the dry bag

However, (don’t you just love good howevers?) it works in this blend! The apple flavor is crisp and strong and balances out the licorice stickiness. I had to really think about it to find any real sarsaparilla…but if you want yourself a good cup of caramel apple tea, you’ve got it here. Go figure.

Planning to try the next cup with milk in hopes of replicating Wrapples. (Remember, I am ancient … they were thin round sheets of caramel you plopped over an apple and stuck in the oven for just a bit. I ate the sheets straight from the package and drove my mom crazy.)

Wish Tazo hadn’t led me on with that “touch of pear” nonsense in the description. Trader Joe’s had an AMAZING bagged tea that was white ginger pear and I’ve been searching for a replacement since they discontinued it. This is not that. It honestly tastes more like a straight-up ginger tea; I’m not really getting much of the green tea base and I definitely don’t taste any kind of pear flavor here. Disappointing.

This tea smells exactly right and tastes very pleasant. It is not sweet, but it does leave the aftertaste of pound cake.