Higgins & Burke

Refreshing and pleasant if not steeped for too long. I’ve tried various times, but about a minute for steeping is optimal for me. It remains light, bringing out the lemongrass. Nicely paired with biscuits or cookies, cancelling out overly sweet flavours.

#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #125 overall / Tea #41 for March

Tuesday 3/30/21 — Higgins & Burke Naturals Green Tea 1 teabag Sometimes you need something basic, just drank this with 10 oz hot & plain before bed (or maybe with dinner?).

#tiffanydrinkstea #tiffanys2021 #tiffanysfaves #tiffanyinthe614 #tiffanysteasipdown #sipdownchallenge

See, this is why I prefer jasmine green tea to the regular stuff. Or maybe it’s just because there’s lemongrass in this tea that I wasn’t aware of until I logged on to review it.

Firstly, green tea in a bag just isn’t very good. Second, it tastes too much like dirt and leaves a residue at the water level in the cup.

Went out for supper last night, and I forgot to bring a teabag of my own tea with me so I was forced into drinking something that the restaurant served. Peppermint always feels like the safest option in terms of restaurant quality bagged teas, so that’s what I went with. It was fine – I don’t often drink straight peppermint anymore so it can be nice to revisit it. Plus, it’s a better option for me that getting a soda/coffee to drink.

So, I had one of the most horrifying experiences of my life about a week ago.

I sleep in a basement, and it was quite hot on this particular evening – like the hottest night of the year that we’d had thus far. So, I had opened up my window and gone to lseep with the window cracked open to cool off while I slept. Of course, the window is level with the ground outside.

I fell asleep, and woke up to a slight ‘tickle’ by my left ear. As I sort of came to and adjusted to what was happening I realized very quickly that something was crawling around inside my ear. I went into panic mode. Shaking my head violently, and then running to the bathroom to grab a q-tip – at which point I sort of started stabbing inside my ear to kill whatever was crawling around. I know, I know – not smart. But I was freaking out, and not being logic. In all the commotion, I woke up my mother who came into the bathroom only to see me freaking out, and my ear bleeding.

She talked me down enough to explain what was happening, and we called 811 (the non emergency medical number) to see what we should do. They recommended going to the ER, so we did. At this point I could still feel the thing crawling around. It was the scariest and most violating feeling ever. We got to the ER at around one in the morning, and waited for about four hours to see someone. During that waiting point the thing in my ear stopped moving around, and that was both a huge relief and also equally horrifying in its own right.

I had a couple cups of tea from the hospital ‘food court’ type place, but I couldn’t tell you ANYTHING about what they were like – my mind was elsewhere. I know I drank two different things, but this is the only one I remember by name. They were both caffeine free because I was holding out hope that we’d leave in time for me to actually get some semblance of sleep – not only did I open the store the next day, but I also was training my new manager for her very first shift.

When we finally got in everything went by quite quickly. Someone took a look in my ear, and then they flushed everything out with a giant syringe of water. It took doing it like six times for the thing to finally flush out, but when I did I was presented with the largest cement bug that I’ve ever seen. It was dead – likely suffocated in my ear. I threw up on the floor. The apologized many times for throwing up on the floor. The nurse was pretty cool about it all; kept telling me that if that had come out of her ear she’d have probably done the same thing…

It was enough nightmare fuel to last me years though – and I definitely didn’t get any sleep that night, and none the night after either. I just kept flashing back to that horrifying feeling. So, suffice to say, no more sleeping with my window open…

I am SO excited to have reached the 500 different teas reviewed mark! I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to have reached this number within 5 years. I wanted to make sure it was a special tea to associate with, so I chose a Peppermint tea (my favorite tea EVER!) and this brand does not disappoint. It was also fitting that I found a “Keep calm and drink tea” hanging decorative board today at Value Village. It is proudly hanging up in my kitchen.

Tried this as a latte with agave as a sweetener and it has a nice chocolate banana flavor to it. It is a bit bitter though, but that is possibly my fault as I steeped it longer than intended.

who gave me this sample? when did i drink this sample?
did it arrive through the mail? or did i get it from a fancon? or did i nab it from a restaurant? i don’t remember…
but now, i have a tasting note to edit, a spot saved, for when i do recall the facts.

i’m cleaning my kitchen, and listening to All The Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister.

Went out for supper with my brother a few nights ago.

Against my better judgement I decided to grab a pot of tea; turns out this was literally the only kind of tea that they carried. So I mean, we were already off to a bad start in that regard. I was trying not to be a snob and be open minded though – just ‘cause a tea is bagged doesn’t mean it’s bad! But, well…

Yeah; even after adding an incredibly large amount of honey this was still horrifically bitter tasting and so unpleasant. Just so much nope in one cup. Blah.

This is your standard peppermint.It was pretty good, but there is nothing much more to say on standard peppermint.

These bags are at our office…so of course i’m drinking it at home? haha. I wanted to try it out so see if they were worth my time for those days when i don’t bring ENOUGH. this one isn’t bad… there isn’t enough cardamom for me…and there’s a bit too much cinnamon and clove for it to be a chai that i can really get get behind. however for a bagged tea, it’s not bad.

I mean, not a whole lot to say about this one. It’s peppermint. Just peppermint. Not good, not bad – but something to tide you over between the next cup of something better. At this point I don’t even know how to rate mint teas anymore; there usually isn’t a noticeable difference between loose or bagged mint teas in my opinion and I think you really have to fuck up a peppermint tea for it to not be drinkable…

Took my mom out for supper the other night because I could afford to, and I don’t often have the money to do spontaneous nice things like that…

Normally I don’t mess around with crappy bagged restaurant tea; it’s generally not worth it and I can get straight up water or something alcoholic instead. I really just wanted some tea though, so I grabbed a cup of peppermint. As far as bagged teas go, peppermint is usually pretty hard to fuck up and quality tends to be relatively universal. And this was pretty well just standard peppermint. Cooling, a little sweet. Very refreshing. Not bad, not just by bagged tea standards but just in general.

Worth grabbing, just to get my tea fix.

So this isn’t actually part of my stash. This is a free tea bag that I grabbed after an event ended at work. They let us get our hands on the extra fruit, tea, and stuff so that clean up is a bit easier. The dry leaf smelled like berry medicine (currants cause this usually for me), the smell while steeping would be about the same. The tea is raspberryish in colour. For the taste this isn’t bad. Not something I would pick up myself but okay for a cup of tea at a restaurant. Raspberry comes through a bit stronger than the currant. I also taste a bit of lemongrass kick at the end but in a pleasant lemon way. I bet this would taste nice cold.

Side Note: This wasn’t on Steepster so I acutally got to add a tea!

Maybe I was insane, going out after 10 o’clock just to get a flavour of tea that wasn’t in my cupboard. Earl Grey it was. I have always had a love hate relationship with this tea. When it’s badly mixed in a cheap tea, or adding milk to it, which seems like someone answering the question: “Do you want milk or lemon?” with BOTH!

Actually, I don’t use milk at all in tea, anymore. Perhaps Earl Grey was invented for people who don’t. The oil itself comes from the Bergamot Orange. Who knows, maybe a Brit was offered Uzu in Asia, only to return home and find none. Tea with toast and marmelade is a classic too.

I’m doing shots of this tea. The first two were not that good. It does take a little time for black tea to get ready. I can see now how bergamot might have been used to immitate better tea. It must add a bit of sourness to the taste as well (think lemon). Living in a Coca-Cola society, we should know this flavour? I’m sure that anyone dealing with bad tea everyday might look for something to make it taste better.

By the fourth steep the tea base is almost gone, still some bergamot, though. At package opening, you could smell the flavour. Now it’s tongue smackingly good.

Lovely made into a London Fog. Smooth and tasty!

This was a perfect blend of black tea and lemon flavor.

This tea I would describe as “meh”. Make sure not to over-steep or it becomes bitter. To enhance the taste, add honey or even extra lemon juice. This would not be my first choice for lemon flavoured tea but it may help if you have a sore throat/stuffy nose.

The ingredients don’t go together that well. It doesn’t taste objectionable but it doesn’t really taste good either.

Unfortunately there are no raspberries or black currant in this Raspberry Black Currant tea. Maybe the natural flavor is supposed to taste like raspberry and black currant but I am having trouble tasting it.

Actually I kind of like Rosehip & Hibiscus tea (which are the first two ingredients in this tea) but the other ingredients don’t go that well together.

At least it is a beautiful ruby red color. It makes me happy just looking at it.

This tea was so much better than what I was expecting. I admit that based on their green tea, I wasn’t expecting a lot from their peppermint tea. Higgins & Burke Green Tea isn’t my favourite and is nothing special but their peppermint tea surprised and impressed me. It has a very natural, strong peppermint flavour and I found it very refreshing. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

I was excited to try this tea because I thought Honey and Lemon Tea would taste great. However, I found it a letdown… I had trouble tasting the honey flavor and in general the combination of flavors didn’t go together that well. I did finish the cup of tea but I didn’t enjoy it very much.