My first introduction to this tea was the Passion Tea Lemonade that Starbucks used to serve in the days prior to the company acquiring Teavana. I remember the drink being just the right amount of tart, and refreshing. So when I saw the Tazo Passion tea in the store, I decided to buy it to try on it's own.
Big mistake.
First of all, it's supposed to have a passionfruit flavor. I don't taste it at all. All I taste is tart hibiscus, and if that wasn't enough, there's added citric acid to make it even more tart. It's so tart that I doubled my usual amount of sugar, and it was still too tart. So I added more sugar...still not drinkable. I might keep it around to try to blend with other teas, but I honestly think that I can find much better teas to blend with more subtle teas.
Just...gross.
Rating:
1/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Passion
Price: $2.98/box of 20 bags
Price: $2.98/20 bags
This is another one of those grocery store herbal teas that I actually really like. It has a strong peachy flavor, but unfortunately some of that flavor is artificial. Also, like a lot of cheaper fruit teas tend to do, they use hibiscus to add a tangy flavor. Aside from all of that, it's peachy and refreshing. This tea is great blended with a non-flavored green tea for the flavor punch while getting the health benefits from green tea.
Rating:
3/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Perfect Peach
Price: $17.75/6 box case, 20 teabags per box
This is a tea I've had in my stash for awhile. Sadly, there's not much information on this tea online, including where to buy it. I bought it at an HEB when I was living in Texas, and two things drew me to this tea. First, the flavor...litchi (or lychee) is one of my favorite flavors. If I go to an Asian market or an Asian aisle in a supermarket, I'm looking immediately for anything lychee flavored. Second was the price. I remember purchasing this box of tea for less than $2.
I finally had a chance to brew some, and I think it was a good value. Since it was a black tea, I steeped it at 212 degrees for about 3 minutes and added a teaspoon of rock sugar. I had a few sips of it hot, and the lychee flavor was delicate, not as strong as I normally like, but still very pleasant. I saved the rest to drink cold, and I am enjoying it now. The flavor is more subtle when it is cold, which is normal for teas...heat helps enhance the flavor of most teas. It's lovely, refreshing, and tasting. I might steep a bag of this along with one of my Tangerine Orange Zinger bags at some point...I think the blend of those two would be tasty.
Rating:
3/5 stars
Purchasing information is unknown. This flavor is currently unavailable on Amazon.
Price: approx. $2/box of 25 bags
Oh my gosh, it's a SUPERMARKET TEA! *gasp!*
To tea snobs...I mean tea aficionados, supermarket tea bags are just not worth drinking. And in a way, they're right. Compared to quality, loose-leaf teas from respected tea sourcers, supermarket teas are the bottom of the barrel. Lipton, Celestial Seasonings, Bigelow and the like are dirty words to tea connoisseurs. Generally, I'd agree. These teas are like a McDonald's burger compared to a Kobe steak, or like Boone's Farm compared to Dom Perignon. But you know what, even though they're poor quality and bad for you, sometimes a Big Mac and a Solo cup of Strawberry Hill just tastes good.
So it is with that, that I say that this tea is a guilty pleasure of mine. A big iced glass of this stuff is just zippy, tangy, fruity, citrusy heaven. The ingredients aren't too bad...the typical fare you often see in fruity tisanes, such as hibiscus, rosehips and fruit, but the ingredients do list "other natural flavors", which leads me to believe that this tea has more in common with Kool-Aid than quality looseleaf teas.
No matter, I'm still going to savor this whole glass. Then maybe another one.
Rating:
4/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Tangerine Orange Zinger
Price: $3.39/box of 20 bags
