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Yet another “organize the boxes to systematically drink my way through them” find in the back of the pantry. How long has this one been around? No idea. Less time than my Sugar Plum Spice, that’s for sure. But it’s still been more than a few years.

Every time I have a cup of this one, I get an overwhelming smell of liquorice when I first open the box. I don’t really get any flavour of it, but the smell is definitely there. If you don’t like black liquorice, you will not like this tea.

As for actual CRANBERRY. I’m not so sure. I’ve had other cranberry teas that are yummy and cranberry-y and tart (because, let’s face it, you don’t need to add hibiscus to make a cranberry tart!). This isn’t one of them. If I get a cranberry tea, I want SOUR to be the first thing I think. Not “gee, this is mystery-fruity”. You want a sweeter cranberry? That’s what sugar and/or honey and/or agave is for (or whatever other sweetener is your sweetener of choice). As soon as I see hibiscus in a cranberry tea I’m instantly suspicious. Tea companies need to start using beet juice more often to turn teas pink if all they want is colour.

ANYWAY. The overall experience of this tea isn’t unpleasant to me, it’s just a) not what I expected, and b) doesn’t blow me away. I can do better.

Verdict: will not purchase again.

Well, I got this tea sometime prior to 2009…because the box I have in the pantry has an expiry date in 2010. I think of “best before” dates as simply that. After that date is when “life gets interesting”.

And since my life needs to get interesting again…why not give it a try?

Let me tell you. There’s no way this is what it tastes like anymore. The paper bag is stained and brown now, and smells more than a little spicy. It tastes very similar to how it smells; spicy first then a bit of sweet at the end. If someone told me it was plum I might believe them, but I certainly wouldn’t guess that. But that is completely my fault; there’s no way you can let a tea sit for 6 years and expect it to taste the same as it did when the box was freshly opened. You know what? I don’t even care. I LIKE IT this way. It yuuuuuummy. At the same time, I vaguely remember how much I liked this tea when it was fresh, too.

Verdict: if I ever find it again in stores, I’ll be buying more.

I’ve had many teas by this company before, and every so often Santa buys me a box for Christmas. I must say…I can’t remember the last time I tried one of the flavours and thought “geez. This is good!” Actually, I can vaguely remember…

Back in the good old days, you used to be able to buy a 25-pack of this tea and it came in a little balsa wood box. It was almost like a mini tea chest, and the balsa box was patterned with the tea company’s logo as well as a design motif for that specific tea. Likely very expensive packaging for a mediocre tea, but it’s not like balsa wood is THAT expensive. It’s in little kids’ airplane kits for darn sakes.

And then this company went to “new and improved cardboard packaging”. And with a decrease in the quality of the packaging came a decrease in the quality of the tea. I used to LOVE their ice wine tea. It was some of my favourite tea ever made in a bag. Perhaps some of my favourite tea ever. Their maple tea was also very good, as was their cranberry. I tried another flavour, too…maybe apricot? I don’t remember. It wasn’t as good as the rest, but certainly not bad. When Santa saw the blueberry flavour in the store again, he thought it would be a good blast from the past. Bad Santa. Very, very bad Santa!

I’m always leery of bagged teas that don’t come individually wrapped, even if it’s just in paper. I find within days of opening the metallic baggie that this tea comes in, it seems stale the next time I go to drink it. So wrapping in individual wrappers would be a good step. Going back to their “old recipes” would also be a good step. Now all I taste is artificial flavour and astringent black tea. It’s not good. I just realized this is the third blueberry tea in a row I’ve rated. I must be on a blueberry kick and didn’t realize it.

Verdict: would definitely not re-buy once the last 4 bags are finished.

I think this is another time when knowing what an acai berry actually tastes like would have been beneficial to me. So with that in mind…

I finally finished the box of this that I had. I forgot I even had it, really. When Lipton first introduced their “green tea with superfruit” line I thought I would get a box of each and try it. I flip-flop at work between loose tea being the best thing ever and being too big of a hassle to bring to a seminar or meeting. I like being able to walk in the door of a meeting and throw a bag out of my cup, not have to worry about having a coaster or whatever for my steeping basket to sit on so I don’t ruin the table. So I always have a nice stock of tea bags in my office, along with my collection of loose leaf.

Since one of the teas in my collection at work is Blueberry Jam, I have a hard time with blueberry-flavoured anything since I have something I can so easily compare. This is one of those that just doesn’t hold up. I can taste “berry” artificial flavour, and other than that it’s just a low-grade green tea. I can’t taste anything even remotely like an acai fruit (theoretically…), but since they’re so expensive I find it bloody hard to believe it’s in a tea bag I paid less than $0.10 for. The tea isn’t TERRIBLE, but it’s certainly no Blueberry Jam. In fact, it’s certainly no blueberry.

Verdict: would buy something else over this, even if I was looking for a bagged tea.

I don’t know whether I would go as far as saying this tea is GOOD, but it’s the best one that Timmy Ho’s offers. It has a wacky colour; not blueberry-steeped colour at all. There’s definitely some hibiscus in there, because it’s a blue-ish, purple-ish, red. Blueberry tea should be a greenish-black. That’s what happens when you add blueberries to hot water without vinegar (vinegar changes the colour from that wacky green-black to blueish like liquid pen ink). I doubt any of the contents of the tea bag contain blueberry anything other than artificial blueberry flavour.

All that being said, Timmy Ho’s warm beverages are TERRIBLE. It’s either coffee that tastes like cigarettes, new dark roast coffee that tastes like burnt cigarettes, “lattes” and “cappuccinos” that are at least 90% sugar, and tea that tastes like….cardboard? I can’t quite place it. I feel like a Canadian traitor saying all of that, but it’s true. If you want good coffee in Canada you have to get it from an independent coffee shop or make it yourself. Period. Same goes with tea. Independent tea shop (or David’s/Teavana) or make it yourself.

Verdict: I’m not about to ditch my Blueberry Jam tea from David’s any time soon for this stuff.

Every so often I get headaches. I don’t really want to call them headaches because that makes it sound like “ouchie. I have a slight throb behind my forehead bone”, but I also don’t want to call them migraines because I don’t have a trigger, and nothing makes them worse once they start like your typical migraine. But picture the pain you might experience if, say, a blood vessel burst in your skull. The kind of brain-crushing pain that, at the same time, makes your eyeballs feel like they’re going to erupt out of your face. Mine start at the front of my head behind my eyes and near my temples, then the pain gradually moves to the back of my head, completely numbing the back of my neck. Then the nausea starts. Eventually all I’m left with is a slight rash on the back of my neck, and the pain disappears almost as fast as it starts. Like magic. Best part? No known cause. I’ve stumped many a doctor. One suggested I was fabricating the pain. I suggested I could fabricate him a broken nose and a puddle of blood on his nice white carpet. He retracted that statement.

Anyway. Relevance.

When I start to get a headache, this is the only beverage I can consume. I don’t know what about this SPECIFIC tea makes it so palatable, but this is it. I have it stocked at home and at work, and usually only drink it during those times of searing pain. I’ve tried regular peppermint or spearmint leaves (which ease a queasy stomach for other reasons), but they just don’t do the trick. It reminds me a lot of an herbal tea my friend from Saudi Arabia used to make; too bad I didn’t write down the ingredients of her tea. I’ve been looking for an equivalent ever since, and this is as close as it comes.

Two other ways to drink it like a pro: iced with dark rum, and half-tea half-coffee with frothed milk. I’ve never had it as a latte on its own; I should try this sometime.

Verdict: will always have this stocked at all times.

This was another one of those “things I need for my non-loose leaf travel mug to steep quickly and bring to seminars and/or meetings and it was on sale at the store” purchases.

And…yuck. I don’t know what it is about melon and mint together, but I now know I do not, under any circumstances, like this combination. The citrus in this one (a new flavour combination for me) added to the grossness factor, since it was just so darn unexpected to be in there. And it wasn’t TRULY citrus…lemongrass, maybe? I don’t know. But it wasn’t pleasant.

Verdict: will not buy again. So many other pyramid-bags I like better from Lipton’s.

IF I go to Starbucks for tea (this is such a rare occurrence it could very well be considered to “never” occur), this is my go-to flavour. Their prices for a cup of hot water (essentially free) and a tea bag (essentially $0.50) is ridiculous, so I always feel like a chump having to pay for a cup of tea. A few months ago I saw Tazo teas were on sale at the local grocery store and figured: never again will I ever be a sucker and buy Tazo at Starbucks. So I bought a box. And since this is my go-to tea when I’m paying $2.00 for a cup, it should also be my go-to cup when I’m paying $0.10 a cup. Yes, it was a good sale. Yes, I regret only buying one box.

The flavour of the tea is…weird. It’s not OVERLY fruity or berry-y, but that’s probably at least partly because of the concept of “artificial flavours”. They don’t taste overly artificial, either. But that’s probably mostly because…it’s just not an overwhelming flavour at all. Yeah, I taste some berry “stuff” but that’s about it. I also don’t taste a lot of white tea; tastes more like a weak green to me. Is that what white tea is supposed to taste like? It doesn’t any other time, in my opinion. Maybe all the other times I’ve been having weird white tea. I dunno.

The verdict: I would buy another box if it was on sale like this one. I would not, however pay full price. And I’ll be damned if I ever buy a cup of this again at Starbucks.

Had my last cup of this last night. I’m sad. This is probably my absolute favourite rooibos blend I’ve ever had in my life. Yes, it’s sweet because it has candied fruit AND candy pieces AND sprinkles in it. I’m OK with that. I don’t have it right before bed, and I don’t have it when I first get up in the morning and sweet overload is yucky. But the colour of the tea…I can’t get over the colour. Love it. It really does look like I scooped up a cupful of swamp water and am about to drink it. The first time I steeped it my dad thought there was something wrong with the tea and that I should return it. He just didn’t get that it was SUPPOSED to look greenish-blackish-blue. That’s part of the charm :) Took me almost 4 months to finally get him to try it.

Should there ever be a re-release of this tea, I’ll be buying 1 kg of it so that I never have to go without it ever again. I just hope they have the little cat sprinkles back (the first time had the cat sprinkles as it was a Halloween tea, the second time it was just regular black sprinkles because it was a summer tea). They made me smile.

Smells like grapefruit…sort of. I find it smells like “grapefruit flavour” which may or may not smell like actual grapefruit. I’ve always wondered if “grapefruit flavour” interacts with medications like real grapefruit. Until I find out for sure, this is off-limits for mommy.

Taste-wise…this is a pretty typical Tetley green tea. Tastes grassy, with some “flavours” mingling in there somewhere. Grapefruit? I’m not so sure. Something slightly citrusy. But not like I just chomped down on a piece of grapefruit. Then again, I often find that whenever any tea company says that their tea is flavoured with grapefruit (real or artificial), I need to take it with a grain of salt. I love grapefruit, and the flavour just never lives up to my expectations.

I can’t see my skin glowing any time soon because I’m drinking tea with “grapefruit flavour” in it. Although, I might start glowing soon because I’ve had 3 cups of tea and have to pee.