tea review: gingerbread

Welcome to the first tea review of 2026!

Tea Month 2026: Tea 1

Tea Review
Name: Gingerbread
Brand: Teeccino
Type: herbal
Tea bag

Notes:
This was a gift. (Thank you, Okapi!) I'm also pretty sure it was also my first roasted herbal tea. I was definitely excited for this one. The first thing that hit me was how amazing it smelled. The taste was a little weaker than I was expecting, but it was quite good. It is definitely a dessert tea, like it begs you to drink it with a little sweet nibble on the side. I had been sort of waiting to drink it until my mother made her gingerbread (think the cake, not cookies), but that was not meant to be. It would definitely pair nicely with something chocolate.

Rate
Appearance: 9
Aroma: 10
Flavor: 8

Overall Rating: 4 stars

tea review: black tea

Tea Month 2026: Tea 2

Tea Review
Name: Black Tea
Brand: Kroger
Type: black
Tea bag

Notes:
This is your most basic, no frills black tea. I don't have anything negative to say about it. It's a little weaker than some black teas. It smells good. Pleasant to have in the morning when it takes all of your brain function to put the water on to boil. It's also good for making sun tea.

Rate
Appearance: 8
Aroma: 8
Flavor: 7

Overall Rating: 3 stars

tea review: mint medley

Tea Month 2026: Tea 3

Tea Review
Name: Mint Medley
Brand: Bigelow
Type: herbal
Tea bag

Notes:
Yes, it's another mint medley. And I did triple check that I haven't reviewed this one before. I had this one at a library event. It made for a nice afternoon pick-me-up. It's an interesting mix in that it's not just peppermint and spearmint, it also has rose hips, lemon peel, and hibiscus in it.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 8
Flavor: 7

Overall Rating: 3 stars

tea review: anela

Tea Month 2026: Tea 4

Tea Review
Name: Anela Hawaiian Flavored
Brand: Lupicia
Type: unknown blend
Tea bag

Notes:
This tea and I went on a journey. To start with, I have no idea where I got this tea originally. It was in my jar of random packaged bags of tea. The packaging just has the brand name and "ANELA Hawaiian Flavored" on the front and the back just has brewing instructions in Japanese & English. I tried googling it. I found out anela means angel, maybe, and I found the USA version of the Lupicia website. The tea is not listed anywhere, even when I tried to search their catalog of over 400 teas, which includes the discontinued ones. It just kept saying it doesn't exist. Also, they seem to exclusively sell loose tea in tins and this is a bag in a packet. It does look like something you might get at a hotel, so maybe it wasn't a regular retail product.

Anyway, I finally found mention of the flavor in two places; a blog post and a reddit comment. In a blog post from 2018, someone had bought the Lupicia Hawaiian tea sampler, which included the Anela tea. At that time, it was described as "a sweet aromatic strawberry lychee black tea." The reddit comment was complaining that their favorite Lupicia tea used to be Anela, which used to be a jasmine lychee green tea, but it had changed to a strawberry lychee black tea.

Neither of these descriptions fit what I drank.

I did enjoy it. It was fun to drink. I couldn't pick out any particular flavors, but it hit my taste buds as "tropical flavor" without any notes of coconut or pineapple. Honestly the first thing I pictured in my head was the tropical trail mix they used to have in the bulk bins at the grocery store. Though it didn't taste like that either. It was dark enough, it was most likely a black tea blend, so probably the strawberry lychee.

I'd drink it again, if I had more. I don't see that happening.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 9
Flavor: 8

Overall Rating: 3.5 stars