Celestial Seasonings

My husband prefers caffeine free, fruity teas so he picked this out at the store tonight. I decided to have a cup because it is a bit late and it probably wouldn’t be a good time for caffeine right now. Okay, I have high hopes for this because I’ve never had a tea from Celestial Seasonings that I didn’t like.The smell from the bag is extremely strong, you could smell it through the box from the time I took off the plastic wrapping. Wow, it smells just like you would expect from the name.

This tea brews up bright pink…hmmm..oh okay, it has hibiscus. I could go either way with that particular ingredient. Luckily, it tastes like a tangerine. It is actually pretty nice for an herbal. Very smooth and tasty, I would love to try this iced.

When you’re lazy and cranky, bagged tea is an excellent choice. And this one isn’t too bad. I picked up a Celestial Seasonings herbal tea sampler at the grocery (good default bagged tea company) and I went with this one rather than their normal chamomile.

The bag (leaves, I guess?) smell sweet itself, almost like candy. It’s fun. I can sense it a little in the tea itself, and I do taste a hint of honey. Apparently there’s vanilla in there, too? Sure, I’ll take it. Hey, it’s soothing and goes down easy. I have no complaints.

Strong vanilla flavor, but not overpowering. Great nighttime tea.

Risengrød!
That’s what it reminds me of! Risengrød is something you get at christmas. Uhm, don’t know the english word for it, but it’s rice boiled in milk (?) covered by a layer of a blend of cinnamon and sugar. And a spoonfull of butter in the middel.

This smells exactly of risengrød – The cinnamon/sugar/butter combo.

The liquid is dark orange with a lot of dust in it. Fist sip taste exactly as expected, like risengrød without the rice. But this combo is very spicey!

Hmm.. 7 stars out of 10. But I rather drink it next winter.

It has a very, very strong aroma and flavor. However, a small bit of milk in the cup makes it taste close to cherry ice cream. The strength may take some getting used to, but it’s not bad.

I’m always passing this one up for various loose leaf teas, but this tea really has great flavor when steeped strong with soymilk and sugar added.

I was hoping to pick up something new at the grocery store, but nothing was inspiring me. Well, the things that looked good seemed overpriced. So, I went back to an old friend, and I’m glad I did! I used 2 bags in about 8 oz of water, a small spoonful of sugar and a splash of milk. Delicious! I would love to replicate this from scratch with decaf black tea, rooibos, and spices. I just need to get my hands on some chicory..

This is one of my favorites, right up there with Chocolate Caramel Enchantment chai. The coconut flavor was great, and the spices are just right. I brew this a little stronger than usual – 2 bags in about 10 oz of water, then add a bit of milk and sugar. I wish I could find it in a caffeinated version to drink in the morning. I’m thinking this would make a great iced tea too, but I haven’t tried it yet.

Not that it affects the taste, but I really like the reddish/orangy color it has when milk is added.

I really like this tea, especially in the fall/winter. The chocolate, caramel, and spice flavors come out nicely with a bit of milk and sugar or honey. I brew this with 2 bags in a large mug, leaving room for a bit of milk (probably 10 oz water), and maybe brew a little longer than 5 minutes. I haven’t ever noticed it to get bitter.

I prefer this to Celestial Seasonings’ regular chai – this one just has more flavor, and the spices seem to come through better. The black tea flavor probably does get lost, but I don’t care because the end result is delicious. :)

I think I had this a while ago (last year sometime), but I do remember liking it and thinking it was a good tea if you want something around Christmastime that is cheap.

This is a good tea (I like licorice), and I remember drinking it a lot growing up, especially when I was sick.

By the way, you want to find out something interesting, look at my last note on “Ashikubo Sencha” by ATR. ;-)

I bought some Adagio’s Berry Blast for a large tea party this past weekend. Although I liked the flavor, I was afraid that others would find it too tart. I decided to blend it with Celestial Seasoning’s True Blue Berry & Tazo’s Wild Sweet Orange to soften the blow! It turned out so amazing! But I also love this tea all by itself, it’s my favorite right-off-the-grocery-store-shelf- fruit tea! M-m-m-m, Blueberry.

This is my current fave at work. I love the aftertaste!

Pretty good. I would steep it a little more concentrated than usual, and not for too long – it seems to get a little weird with oversteeping. The tangerine flavor is nice, but I think I’m a little tired of the “zinger” flavor, whatever it is, because I’m kind of dragging to get to the end of the box.

Yesterday, after the Harney & Sons’ Peaches & Ginger black tea, I knew exactly which tea I wanted next (Numi’s Chocolate Puerh) but it was also time to cook dinner. Since I wanted to enjoy that cup and not mindlessly drink through it while cooking, I looked for something quick and easy to drink instead. I chose this one because none of my other bagged black teas were calling to me and I need to use it up. Plus I thought it sounded just fine with a touch of milk and honey.

So this tea, I’ve had an odd time with. At first, it was way way too strong. Then tastelessly weak. So I switched to two bags in a larger mug. Which was fine the first time or two. Then too strong that way. I can only assume it’s been me doing different steep times/water temperatures and not keeping track as well as I usually do of what worked. But I don’t know. I kind of think the tea is changing on me.

This time, I went one bag, standard size mug. I steeped it longer, knowing I was going to be adding milk to it and wanting it to come out on the stronger side. But after adding the honey, I sipped it and realized the milk would weaken it too much for my tastes so did not add it.

The cup was fine. Spiced with honey. But not all that enjoyable. Just something warm to sip on while I cooked. I’ll be glad once the box is done.

I’m actually bumping my rating down on this one to a 46 (drinkable range 40-50) because of the irregularity between mugs and because, while I don’t dislike it, it doesn’t really do much for me.

Backlogging. 4 days ago. Monday night.

I remember this tea being so weak no matter how I steeped it that I ended up having to use two bags to get a decent flavor. However, I used a small mug this time so I decided to steep just one bag the maximum recommended time. It came out sickeningly strongly spiced with no tea taste at all. I could only drink half the cup. I think I have about 6 bags left and I think it’ll be awhile before I have this one again.

Backlogging.

I had remembered this not being strong enough so I thought I steeped it longer this time. I added only a tiny bit of milk. This tea still tastes like just spicy and not tea and not a very strong or chai-like spicy at that. It just need more.

This is the second time I’ve made this tea, and I thought I had tealogged the first. Briefly, I steeped it on the lower end of the recommended steep time range at an unremembered temperature and added milk. It came out weak.

This time I steeped it at the upper end of the recommended steep time range, using 3/4 water and 1/4 heated milk as also recommended. I steeped at a lower temperature because of the white tea, which I don’t really know the correct temperature range for but am guessing 170-185° F maybe. There is also black tea in the ingredient list so maybe I need to treat it like a black tea and steep at 205° F.

The chai did come out better this time. The water to milk ratio is good and creamy but does not overpower the spices. The chai could have still be stronger and I’d have liked it. I couldn’t take the tea specifically, black tea or white tea, but it did have a tea taste rather than just steeped spices. The spices were a general chai spice taste with none being prominent. Overall, quick, decent, easy, comforting chai.

Enjoyable, spearmint very strong. Not best chamomile flavor. Cap it and let it steep a long time! some essential oils esscape if left open. no string is wierd and it kinda floats which u cant do anything about since theres no string.

worth adding to a night time tea collection

The Barb & Bob [my parents] Backlog for this week.

(I stay at their house a few nights a week most weeks. They live about 20 minutes away from me. They mostly have bagged teas.)

This one was Monday night’s tea during my late night online, gaming, and chatting time. I wish I could like it more, but it’s always got that note of sourness, no matter what temperature it’s at. I even tried brewing it for 30 seconds less than the recommending minimum time. But no luck. Thankfully, this is the last bag they had of it.

The fourth and last bagged tea of the day yesterday. I pretty much always take a cup of tea upstairs with me when I’m staying at my parents and they go up to bed way earlier than I would go to bed and I take a laptop upstairs and game/chat online in bed. This was the only non-caffeinated kind of tea they had open so this is what I went with. I figured I’d had enough black tea for the day.

Overtime, I’ve found that I need to steep these Celestial Seasonings zinger-style teas at the lower end of the recommended steeping time. I don’t hate hibiscus because I like tart things. But I like to make it on the least tart side. So I’m upping my rating 5 points (decent bagged tea range is 40-50) on this one because it’s a lot better than before I figured that out. But this one still remains one of my least favorite zinger-style herbals because it has a bitter bite/sour bite/sharpness to it that I don’t get with the others. Which sucks because I like the peachiness and tartness of it just fine for a warm mug to idly sip at.

Backlogging. Three nights ago. The same day as the previous tealog.

One of the last few bags in a Celestial Seasonings herbal sample. I was feeling peach rooibos that night but misremember getting two steeps out of it and knew I wasn’t going to be drinking a second cup of tea that night. So I chose this because it was also peach. I remember it being one of my least favorites from the box but I need to finish the box and I had a few bags of this left. The rest of the box has been fruity and decent. But this peach is definitely my least liked in the box. The peach part of it is fine. But there is this sour yucky flavor. Maybe it is the passion. I don’t like it much.