Thursday Teas: Celestial Seasonings Iced Tea Variety Pack K-Cups

Against my better judgment, I agreed to my son's request to try this variety pack of iced teas.  Fruit flavored teas on the lower end use a lot of chemicals... in fact, I've heard someone with a chemistry degree say, "A good chemist can make a poop sandwich taste like a prime roast so don't think something's good for you just because it tastes good."  So anyway, I know those soft drink teas are totally fake, but I love them anyway.  Plus this is  a "brew over ice" type deal, which piqued my curiosity.

Anyway, here are the flavors you get in this box, along with the description:

Sweet Lemon - the perfect balance of fresh squeezed lemon, fresh brewed black tea and all natural sugars

Sweet Raspberry - tart and tangy raspberries combine with black tea for a truly refreshing glass of iced tea

Sweet Peach - a taste of summer - delightful and sweet without being too sugary or cloying

Unsweetened Black - refreshing, zero calories, traditional black iced tea

First of all, the tea coming out of the Keurig is so hot it melts the handful of ice in the cup pretty quickly. If you add ice to the remainder, then the top is cool but the bottom is warm, so if you want to drink immediately then you need to brew over ice and pour over more ice.  This is more of an inconvenience than anything, as even the "sweet" flavors are not terribly sweet.  If you like a Southern sweet tea, then you'll want to add a tablespoon of sugar to the hot mix and then pour it over ice.  

On the plus side, the teas have a very strong tea flavor, which I like.  

The black tea is just as advertised... a straight up black tea with no sweetening.  It's good if you like black tea (which I do).

The sweet peach is very chemical-ly tasting.  I'm not sure it even smells like peach.  No amounts of sugar can save this one.

The sweet raspberry isn't abominable, but also has a chemical aftertaste.  I can drink this one with a teaspoon of sugar.  Eh.  Not bad.

The sweet lemon is my favorite out of this box.  Tastes just like black tea with sugar and lemon.  

So there you have it.   4 tea reviews for the price of one!

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Thursday Teas: Bigelow Organic Green Tea K-Cups

Well, I thought I'd try something a little different this week.

I love my Keurig but couldn't figure out how you would get a good tea out of a K-cup when most teas need to steep for 2-3 minutes and the Keurig more or less runs hot water in and out of the cup in less than 1 minute.

Um, yeah.  Disgusting.  I don't know what I was thinking.  The Asian style greens are much more to my liking.  This barely even SMELLS like a green tea.  I have had at least 3 dozen types of green tea ranging from super sweet to ceremonial and this is by far the worst I have ever tried.  Ever tried steaming grass?  I haven't, but if I did, I imagine it would have a very similar taste.  Yuck.

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Thursday Teas: Lupicia Sakurambo Vert (Iced)

This is Lupicia's Flavor of the Month for July, so I got a free tea bag in the mail with their newsletter.  The reviews on Steepster were pretty mediocre, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect other than cherry and green tea in unknown proportion.  Green teas can be very bitter.  Cherry flavoring can be very chemically.  The previous Lupicia teas I tried were mostly subtle and smooth, though.

Since it's the middle of summer, I decided to make some iced tea.  When you open the bag, there is a delicious cherry smell.  I steeped the bag for 2 minutes in 8 oz of hot water, according to the directions.  Although I also like stronger teas, I didn't over-steep this one.  Like I said, green tea can get very bitter and I wanted to avoid the bitterness since I planned to drink this one iced. 

It was a very light green color.  Since I prefer sweet iced tea, I added a tablespoon of sugar, dissolved, then poured the whole thing into another glass over ice to chill.  The ice melted pretty quickly so I had to add more.  All in all, I think I ended up with maybe 10 oz of water if you include the melted ice.  The resulting glass of tea was very light and crisp, with a distinct cherry flavor, and a little on the sweet side but not Southern sweet tea sweet, if that makes any sense.

Definitely a winner for a hot summer day.

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Thursday Teas: Anela by Lupicia

Lupicia describes this tea as a "Lychee flavored jasmine tea with pink argents that look like flying angels." I am really not so big on jasmine tea, but it smelled so gooooooood... like lychee, which reminds me of all those summers of gorging myself on sweet, juicy, tree ripened lychee. So I had to try this one out.

To be honest, I am not a huge fan of this tea.  It is probably because I don't like jasmine tea to begin with.  One thing I've noticed is that although Lupicia teas have very exotic, non-tea smells, they do generally taste very much like the actual tea.  I probably should've realized that this wouldn't be one of my favorites... but it was pink and sparkly and smelled of lychee with beautiful dried jasmine buds.

It's not bad enough that I'd throw the rest out, but I doubt I'll be buying more of this one on my next trip to the store.
 
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Thursday Teas: Lanikai by Lupicia

This week's selection is Lanikai, an exclusive blend for Lupicia in Hawaii. 

Lanikai is the name of a beach over on the Windward side where all the "high end" beachfront homes are.  (Let's just say that if I had $5 million dollars to spend on a house, I might have one of the smaller homes on Lanikai Beach.)  The literal translation is "heavenly sea."  Anyway, Lupicia describes this tea as a "blend of pineapple and scents of coconut and sweet vanilla, takes you to the beach in Hawaii."

When you open this one up, it has a very delicious vanilla scent.  It does have light pineapple and coconut notes that come from dried pineapple chunks and coconut shavings, and some pretty blue flowers that look about the same color as the water at the beach in Lanikai.  I could drink this tea ALL DAY.  This is my new favorite, that's fo' shizzle!  And it goes very nicely with the lovely handmade truffles my hubby bought for me at the Sweet Stop, but I'll review those separately.  :)

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Thursday Teas: Anuenue by Lupicia

This week's selection is Anuenue, another exclusive blend for Lupicia in Hawaii.  (In case you haven't guessed yet, I bought a gift sampler on my last trip to Lupicia.)

"Anuenue" means rainbow, thus the brightly colored label.  (Doesn't Lupicia have the prettiest tins?)  Anyway, this one is a Japanese green tea with seven different colored leaves and petals.  The flavor is very subtle.  It's delicious but mellower than the previous Lupicia teas that I tried.   It is really pretty to look at- my son commented that he felt a little odd in the store, opening tins to smell and look at the teas, but they are all so different that he couldn't help himself!

Anyway, this one is very pretty and colorful even after brewing.  Just like a rainbow!  It would make a great choice for a tea exchange as a "Hawaiian" tea.
 
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Thursday Teas: Lokelani by Lupicia

This week's selection is Lokelani, an exclusive blend for Lupicia in Hawaii. 

This is was my favorite of all the teas I originally sampled from Lupicia and the reason I went out of my way to visit Lupicia in the first place.  Lokelani is a small pink rose which is the official flower for the island of Maui.  This tea has dried mini rose buds in it and a very strong rose scent and a light fruit and spice scent.  (The company insert says it is flavored with bergamot oil and passion fruit.)

I am normally not a fan of flowery teas.  I especially dislike jasmine teas, but this tea tastes like tea and smells like a rose.  It's really pretty.  The instructions said to steep for 3-5 minutes but I like a stronger tea and leave it in an extra minute.  Yummy yummy yummy!!! 


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Thursday Teas: Hoku by Lupicia

A friend got me on a tea kick, and so I figured why not review some of the teas I've been trying?  I know summer is kind of an odd time to start drinking teas, but when you work in an air conditioned office with a boss who cranks the thermostat down to 58 degrees, it's not so much of a stretch.  Not to mention, afternoon tea is a great excuse to take a break and lower the stress levels with my office mates.  Anyway, our inaugural selection is Hoku, an exclusive blend for Lupicia in Hawaii.

Hoku means star in Hawaiian.  This tea smells absolutely heavenly.  It's on the fruity side, which I normally would think is odd based on previous experiences with lower quality teas, but I could smell this one all day.  This is basically an oolong tea with pineapple and guava flavors.  When you look at it, there are flower petals, sugar crystals, dried pineapples and silver balls which I'm guessing are supposed to be the stars.  I had to google tea reviews to figure out there are also pink peppercorns in there.  BUT this tea is really great.  I don't know how to explain it other than a light oolong with fruity aroma.  No crazy chemicals or artificial flavoring, just a really nice blend of fruit and oolong that can also be cold brewed.

I really like this tea a lot!  I think it's my new favorite!

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