Grumpy Beastie's Other Lair

Tea Month 2026: Tea 10

Tea Review
Name: Sweet Dreams
Brand: Bigelow
Type: herbal
Tea bag

Notes:
This tea tastes good, but it's a confusing blend and I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a sleepy time tea. It's a blend of chamomile, hibiscus, peppermint, rose blossoms, spearmint, spice, & orange blossoms. While chamomile is restful, peppermint and spearmint are for waking you up. And there was also this weird disconnect of it smelled like a lovely, cinnamon forward, warm spiced tea, but then tasted like a mint blend with no hint of spice at all. Which it tasted good, it was just odd.

Rate
Appearance: 8
Aroma: 8
Flavor: 8

Overall Rating: 3.5 stars

Tea Month 2026: Tea 8

Tea Review
Name: Nighty Night Extra
Brand: Traditional Medicinals
Type: herbal
Tea bag

Notes:
This one surprised me in a good way. One, it actually tasted good. This brand and Yogi both have vague proprietary blends listed in the ingredients of all their medicinal teas and I obviously don't know what is in either of those blends, but they tend to add a flavor that I find very off-putting that is similar between the two brands. It was not noticeable in this one. Two, I was not expecting it to help. It's primary ingredient is valerian root, which typically doesn't do anything for me. I don't know if it was this particular blend of things or if I was actually tired enough that any warm cup of tea while reading before bed might have put me out, but it was the most restful night of sleep I've had in over two years.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 7
Flavor: 7

Overall Rating: 4 stars (bonus star for sleep)

Tea Month 2026: Tea 6

Tea Review
Name: Cozy Chamomile
Brand: Bigelow
Type: herbal
Tea bag

Notes:
My review for this might be a little unfair as it came from the jar of random tea and by the art on the packaging, it might have been a little past it's prime. That being said, it was okay. I thought it might be a blend, given it's nearly non-existent chamomile flavor, but it's not. That could be it's age. My bar for chamomile is low and this particular bag of tea limboed under it.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 3
Flavor: 1

Overall Rating: 2 stars

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

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 Month 2025: Tea 17

Tea Review
Name: Sleep Chamomile & Lavender Herbal Tea (Bigelow Benefits line)
Brand: Bigelow
Type: herbal
Tea bag

Notes:
My mother got this for me after the nighttime supplement I've been taking for 3 months clearly just wasn't working. It's a nice tea. (I've only had it once, so I don't know if it actually helps. ) The flavors meld well together and you get just a hint of the orange leaves. Just don't open the package directly under your nose, the lavender is extremely strong when you first open it. I believe the exact words I used when I opened it were, "my nose has been assaulted." I also had to pause for a few moments to see if the tingling was going to subside before I continued with the tea making process.

Rate
Appearance: 8
Aroma: 7
Flavor: 8

Overall Rating: 3.5 stars

Tea Month 2025: Tea 15

Tea Review
Name: unknown
Brand: unknown
Type: herbal
Loose tea

Notes:
I debated reviewing this one because I don't know it's details, but I drank it and I haven't reviewed it. So apparently my eldest sister buys dried chamomile flowers in giant bulk bags and after hearing from our mother that I'm not sleeping, she brought me a bulging sandwich bag of it for me to make tea with. It's made some of the better chamomile teas I've had. It smells amazing and tastes good. My tea has been a little weak, but I think that just because my water to flowers ratio has been off.

Rate
Appearance: 9
Aroma: 10
Flavor: 8

Overall Rating: 4 stars

Tea Month 2025: Tea 13

Tea Review
Name: English Tradition Black Tea
Brand: Farmer Brothers
Type: black tea
Tea bag

Notes:
This might be an unfairly positive review because of context. I had this at a diner during a recent road trip. The day before had a long travel day, a late night show, and no one was able to sleep. We were up earlier than we had wanted to be or planned and just drove until we found some place open for breakfast. It didn't look like the kind of place that would have hot tea, but I asked anyway. Not only did they have hot tea, I was bombarded with a list of the available options. My not fully awake zombie brain said, "black tea," and was told yet another list of options. This is what I apparently chose, because next thing I knew, I was presented with a mug, a lidded beaker thing of boiling water, and packaged tea bag. It was good. The flavor wasn't too strong. It was just black tea. It soothed my frazzled soul. (The eggs and hash browns were perfect, too.)

Rate
Appearance: 8
Aroma: 8
Flavor: 8

Overall Rating: 4 stars

Tea Month 2025: Tea 11

Tea Review
Name: Yerba Mate Grapefruit Guava
Brand: Mateína
Type: yerba mate with less than 1% juice blend
Canned

Notes:
I had planned on not including any pre-made teas this year, but there are two I really want to talk about and this is one of them. This tea was awful. I normally really like yerba mate, even premade in a can and I picked this one up out of curiosity because of the "grapefruit guava" flavor. It just tastes like someone dumped a bunch of citric acid packets in a glass of water and stirred it up. Yes, I remembered to shake it well. I used to drink citric acid mixed in water, but this is super intense. I checked the ingredients. Yerba Mate is first and yerba mate flavor is third. Not a trace of it in the flavor. Lemon juice concentrate, citric acid, and grapefruit juice concentrate are the last three ingredients. Knowing that it was supposed to be grapefruit guava flavored, I could almost get there, but in a blind taste it just was citric acid. The one plus was one of the "shake well" logos was cute.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 3
Flavor: 1

Overall Rating: 1 star

Tea Month 2025: Tea 9

Tea Review
Name: Moroccan Mint
Brand: STASH
Type: green & herbal blend
Tea bag

Notes:
A mint tea I enjoyed, no one is shocked. I had this one during Art Walk and I don't have a lot to say about it. It was very refreshing and perfect for late afternoon. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Rate
Appearance: 9
Aroma: 9
Flavor: 9

Overall Rating: 5 stars