Grumpy Beastie's Other Lair

Tea Month 2025: Tea 6
(And the last one for today)

Tea Review
Name: Peppermint
Brand: Celestial Seasonings
Type: herbal
Tea bag

Notes:
Another tea from the herbal tea sampler. I almost didn't review this one because it's a tea staple in our house, but I also hadn't reviewed it before. So, here we are. As you may have gathered from other posts, I kind of live off peppermint tea from time to time. Celestial Seasonings' peppermint tea is one of the few that it's sole ingredient is peppermint instead of a blend, which is nice. The flavor is a bit sharper than other brands, which is neither good not bad. It does mean that if you accidentally severely over brew it, it's, um, just trust me, don't. That being said, it's a good tea, a solid tea, a tea that will be there for you when others have betrayed you with weird blends when all you want is something comforting. It is in my top 3 of peppermint teas and is always in my tea stash.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 8
Flavor: 8 1/2

Overall Rating: 4 stars

Tea Month 2025: Tea 4

Tea Review
Name: Lemon Zinger
Brand: Celestial Seasonings
Type: herbal
Tea bag

Notes:
Also from the herbal tea sampler. I have had lemon zinger before, but it's been probably about 20ish years. My mother used to make sun tea with it and raspberry zinger (raspberry lemon zinger?) regularly in the summer, but I can't remember her having it in the house since before I went to college.

We know I love a lemon tea. This one is very lemony with a little bite. It's a good tea. Would recommend unless you are avoiding hibiscus or rosehips.

Rate
Appearance: 8
Aroma: 8
Flavor: 8 1/2

Overall Rating: 4 stars

Tea Month 2025: Tea 2

Tea Review
Name: HT: Unique & Uncommon Tea Blends: Black Cask Bourbon (Smoky Black Tea with Vanilla and Caramel)
Brand: Harney & Sons Fine Teas
Type: black tea blend
Tea bag

Notes:
This tea was gifted to me by a generous person via Holiday Wishes. It is absolutely delicious and I love it. The smokey scent and flavor bring me back to the happy nostalgia bits of childhood, bringing to mind wood stoves, campfires, and pipe tobacco. It is a little intense for everyday drinking, but it's so good.

I also have to give a shout-out to the gorgeous tin the tea came in, which I will definitely be keeping after the tea is gone. It mostly black with copper colored metallic accents and small blue filigree designs. It also includes a lot of tea information including character description of the tea (prominent notes of vanilla, caramel atop a base of smoky black tea. Perfect for sipping slow and steady, as a bourbon should be.), ingredients, brewing instructions, storage guidelines, caffeine content, and the "Mike Harvey's Tea Rating." It rates the tea on briskness - does your mouth pucker?, body - does the tea fill your mouth?, and aroma - does the tea have a robust scent?. This tea got 2/5 in briskness, 2/5 in body, and 4/5 in aroma.

Rate
Appearance: 9
Aroma: 10
Flavor: 9 1/2

Overall Rating: 4 1/2 stars

Tea Review
Name: Peach Honey Chamomile Tea
Brand: Sun Orchard (?)
Type: herbal tea/juice blend
Premade in a jug

Notes:
When I bought this, I hadn't planned on doing a review on it. It was seriously priced to move in the refrigerator section at the discount grocery and it looked like a half gallon jug of sweet tea, which is a rarity here. Then I drank it. It was an odd experience. Cold chamomile tea is odd to start with, but it was also thick, close to syrup. This prompted me to read the ingredients: brewed herbal tea (water, chamomile flowers), sugar, peach puree, lemon juice, honey, natural flavors.

After I got over the initial surprise, it was actually quite good. It's not really sweet. You can clearly taste the chamomile and the honey. The peach is more of a hint of something. It was better mixed with lemonade flavored sparkling water.

The other weird thing was there was no obvious brand. The from label was just a picture of a peach with "Peach Honey Chamomile Tea" written across it. The back label was just the ingredients list with tiny type below that was the address from Sun Orchard LLC. Not even nutrition facts.

Rate
Appearance: 8
Aroma: 7
Flavor: 7

Overall Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

Tea Review
Name: Lipton Detox Dandelion, Nettle, Grapefruit Herbal Supplement with Green Tea
Brand: Lipton, part of their Well-being by Lipton line
Type: herbal/green tea blend
Tea bag

Notes:
This one actually surprised me. It was a very mild tea with a citrus aftertaste. This is another one from the assortment of tea from my sister. The overall score is going to be low though because of the packaging - I couldn't find a complete ingredients list- and the tea bag was a plastic net.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 7
Flavor: 7

Overall Rating: 2 stars

Tea Review
Name: Organic Ginger with Chamomile
Brand: Traditional Medicinals
Type: herbal/medicinal
Tea bag

Notes:
This was an okay tea, not a great tea. It's part of the haul I got from my sister. Most of them are medicinal. It was mellower than any Yogi brand tea and did well as something soothing and hot to go with my breakfast, but it shared a very similar distinctly medicinal taste that got stronger as I drank it, that Yogi brand teas have. I would guess it's something in the "proprietary blend," as the only other things in the ingredients list are ginger and chamomile. It also at no point tasted like ginger or chamomile.

Rate
Appearance: 5
Aroma: 3
Flavor: 3.5

Overall Rating: 3 stars

Tea Review
Name: Peach Oolong Tea with Aloe Vera & Jelly Popping Boba
Brand: O's Bubble
Type: prepared oolong tea with sugar, peach juice, aloe vera jelly, and popping boba
Canned

Notes:
Between this can and the one I had already reviewed, I had assumed I would prefer this one better because of the peach oolong flavor, but I was wrong. The flavor was just boring and not quite right. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't great. I did immediately put it in a glass this time to get it mixed right away. The aloe jelly was more broken up, which made it feel pulpy. The popping boba was also different. I do not know if this was just luck of the draw or because this one was in the fridge longer, but the boba had a hard time popping and the boba didn't just kind of immediately dissolve like the last one. Before the popping boba was a fun, novel sensation. This time it took effort and felt like I had peeled pieces of skin in my mouth, a much less pleasant experience.

Rate
Appearance: 4/10
Aroma: 6/10
Flavor: 3/10

Overall Rating: 1 1/2 stars

Tea Review
Name: Sweet & Spicy Good Night Tea
Brand: Good Earth Tea Co.
Type: flavored herbal tea
Tea bag

Notes:
This tea is from when I was staying at my sister's. There will be a few of those. This one in particular was very disappointing. It's supposed to be chamomile blended with cinnamon and "notes of dragon fruit" and it smells amazing, like rooibos tea. It tastes like dirt, spicy dirt. While trying to Google it to see what exactly was in the tea (I only have individual bags), it seems to be both discontinued and wiped off the internet, but was part of a larger "sweet & spicy" tea line.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 8
Flavor: 2

Overall Rating: 2 stars

I'm still doing tea reviews. Unfortunately, I lost a bunch of them I did while I was staying at my sister's house, but I have others, including a few canned boba teas.


Tea Review
Name: Lychee Oolong Tea with Aloe Vera & Jelly Popping Boba
Brand: O's Bubble
Type: Canned, boba

Notes:
So many red flags with this, but I was feeling adventurous at the discount grocery that day and bought two flavors of this. (Other review coming.) First red flag for me was the lychee flavor. I keep trying it, but it always tastes soapy to me, like how perfumed floral decorative soap you find at Grandma's house that you are not supposed to use, smells. Second red flag was the aloe vera. I have rarely like aloe vera drinks and I was unsure what form it would come in this. Third red flag was the popping boba. I do love boba, but I had only had the classic and jelly kind prior to this.

On top of all that, as much as I love boba tea, I am highly suspicious of canned boba as a concept.

I did chill this before I tried it. My first mistake was drinking it directly from the can. You aren't supposed to shake it because it will bust the boba, but the flavor had separated and was just obnoxiously sweet, but not horrible. Once I found a glass big enough (it's a 16.2 oz can) and my boba sized straw, I poured it into a glass and just doing that mixed it up enough that the flavor became more balanced. I could still taste the lychee & the aloe, but the oolong tea made it all work. Also with the straw, I could experience the drink, boba, and aloe jellys all together, which was fun. The boba was very thin and popped the second it hit my mouth, which was also fun.

Once it was in the glass though, the floating bits of aloe jelly in the clearish liquid and the pile of boba (which looked way too much like frog eggs) was all a little off-putting.

Rate
Appearance: 2
Aroma: 3
Flavor: 3

Overall Rating: 3 stars

Name: Prince of Peace Instant Thai Tea
Brand: Prince of Peace
Type: sugar/non-dairy creamer/skimmed milk powder/tea blend
Powder

Notes:
This was a find at the discount grocery store that wasn't exactly what I thought it was when I bought it. I've had good luck with the brand in the past and I like Thai tea, so I thought I would give it a chance. It comes in a very large bag filled with individual sachets. They are individual sized, not large batch sized like I thought they would be. I somehow missed the word "instant" that is all over the package and the giant thing of instructions on the back, so it being power surprised me. I also thought the big bag would be resealable, it is not. These are all things that are strictly an "I was not paying enough attention" issue. The tea tastes nice and the giant instructions cartoon on the back of the big bag is adorable. I'm kind of mad I ripped it. Instructions 1 & 2 are for making the tea, 3-8 are about sharing with your friends. I may still salvage it for collage purposes. The tea itself, if I were to compare it to Thai tea in a restaurant, tastes like if you had gotten a Thai tea flavored candy. It's a little sweeter than I would like, but it hasn't stopped me from drinking it.

An aside: Prince of Peace does include Bible verses in the tiniest of fonts on the packaging of all of their products. I know that can upset people, if caught unawares, so I thought I would mention it. On this bag, it was on the big bag only and down with the copyright information at the very bottom of the bag on the back and blended right in.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 7
Flavor: 7

Overall Rating: 3 1/2 stars