Good Earth

Yuck. Disgusting. I can only taste the stevia. It’s like drinking sugar water with a twist of something vaguely fruity.

PASS. If I want a Sprite, I’ll crack open a can of it. I don’t want my tea to taste like it.

The stevia in this tea made it too sweet and gross. Bleh.

Wow, I’m surprised to be the first to review this tea! I picked it up on a whim when I was visiting the inlaws in Ohio. I liked the packaging and the thought of self-sweetening chai, even though it involved stevia leaf. That stuff is a little off-putting to me. I don’t like how it lingers in my mouth, sweetening the very air.

What I absolutely love about this tea is its aroma. It’s mouth-watering. It smells like butterscotch or butter rum and vanilla, with a hint of cinnamon and clove. It’s absolutely heavenly. Like a decadent ice cream dessert. The flavor isn’t entirely as strong, but it doesn’t disappoint. Very butterscotchy for a chai! It’s not heavy on other traditional chai spices like ginger or cardamom, but there’s a nice note of vanilla.

Now, about the self-sweetening aspect. It really is naturally sweet, but the sweetness sort of comes along in the finish. I guess I’m not tasting the stevia until the exhale. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just a sensation I’m not used to. I might be tempted to add just a little more sweetener, but I like my chai on the sweeter side, so that might just be me.

Picked this one up last night, and the new packaging is quite vague about what the flavor notes are. Loving black teas anyway, I picked it up for something new to try.

I’ll admit, I’m underwhelmed. I was excited when I opened the pouch and could smell lemon and something floral, and I figured the warmer black tea notes would come out when it brewed. They did not. I tried it first with nothing in it, then with a small bit of raw honey with very little noticeable difference. It’s a very light kind of tea. I suppose some would think it’s refreshing, but when I rely on my morning cuppa to kick me like a mule into wakefulness, this just didn’t stack up.

It might be nice in summertime, drank cold. I think with a mint leaf or two it would be lovely. I’ll try it again when the weather gets warmer.

My computer seems to be on the verge of dying, after nearly five fun-filled years of me writing tons of text on it. The screen keeps flashing white, and I just lost a lengthy tasting note on this tea, a box of which I found while continuing the seemingly endless excavation of my apartment as I prepare to move hopefully this coming Sunday. I’ll attempt to reconstruct what I just wrote and lost.

I recall always having found something slightly discordant about Organic Good Night, which is of course why I still have some around. I bought a box of six boxes from Amazon, but it was never my first choice for pre-bedtime brew. Something about the lavender and the coriander—or was it the hawthorne?—always struck me as a bit odd. I suspect that sarsaparilla may be among the “natural flavors” mentioned in the ingredient list. I must not have been alone in finding this brew a bit less inviting than some of the usual bedtime suspects, since this blend appears to have been discontinued, as it is no longer found at the Good Earth website.

Interestingly, the company taster notes don’t really mention the ingredients which I notice. They do say something about a “calming floral bouquet”, so maybe that includes lavender and hawthorne. But they also mention lime and apple, which are not a part of my experience of this infusion at all. Maybe I just don’t know what tasting notes are, as the list at Steepster is bizarrely abridged and—shall I be frank? (quoi d’autre?!)— arbitrary and tends to omit everything which I actually notice. I mean, why isn’t almond on the list? Or salt? Why cannot chamomile and lavender be tasting notes, I wonder? Seriously, who wrote the list? Why do I have to taste apple when I am tasting chamomile, when in reality I taste chamomile???? Is it allowed to taste chamomile as a note if it is not among the ingredients, I wonder? I mean, are tasting notes always supposed to be of substances not listed as ingredients? So if I can claim to taste spinach in sencha, then why can I not claim to taste chamomile in a honeybush blend? (As an aside: the “suggest a flavor” function has never worked on my computer for some reason… Does it work for anyone else, I wonder?)

Anyway, of late I’ve been exploring lavender and chamomile blends, of which this is one, except that here there are many other ingredients as well. Tonight I find this brew much less discordant than my memory of it, and its sheer oddity is the reason why I still have some of this creation still hanging around these parts though it cannot be purchased anywhere—at least as far as I can tell. After training on some hardhitting lavenders, Organic Good Night now seems mild to me—even somewhat harmonious!

Bonne nuit.

this tea is so, so sweet. not a fan. almost an orange syrup kind of flavor. would not recommend. i’m not sure if i’ll be able to finish the other 19 bags :-/

There’s nothing bad i can say about this tea! I went to the store with plans to but straight matcha but it was 50 dollars and not in the budget for me, right now. This tea has matcha in it, lo at the bottom of the list but it has a handful of other healthy and yummy ingredients, too. Plus, it was only 5 dollars. It is not bitter like green tea normally is. I appreciate that it comes presweetened with stevia and it is not too sweet. Delish!

My sweetie likes lemongrass and I thought I’d had this herbal tea once when I was at his house so I picked up a box recently. It’s made with decaf green tea, lemongrass and various other herbs. When you put the brewed tea to your nose it smells a bit like lemon pledge, eww. To me the flavor is just so over the top, sickening sweet. They definitely overdid the stevia in this blend. I wish tea companies would stop doing this. Most of us have access to sugar or sweetener of our choice so why not let people sweeten to taste?

It’s kind of rare that I don’t want to finish a cup of tea but I can barely get started with this one. Ick.

I’m usually easy when it comes to tea, but I just couldn’t get through this one. It was overly sweet unlike any other tea I’ve tried likely due to the stevia and had an overwhelming chemical after taste that sticks to the back of your mouth. I wanted to like this tea but just couldn’t get past the after taste. On a positive note it did smell nice.

It is rare for me to reach for the Good Earth functional teas, though a few errant filter bags are still fluttering about in my “maybe I’ll drink this some day” chest. Yesterday evening, however, was such an occasion, as I had prepared a shredded raw yellow squash salad, tasting it along the way as I added: EVOO, True Lemon, diced red onion, fresh parsley leaves, cracked black pepper, white wine vinegar, and finally organic aduki beans. Obviously, this is bound to be a challenging salad for all but the “raw food only” crowd, to which I do not belong.

My tummy began rumbling and I began asking myself such questions as: why did no one ever serve raw squash salad when I was growing up? Yes, there’s probably a reason for that. Some percentage of human beings are probably completely and utterly unable to digest such veggies raw. Could I be a member of that class?

No matter, I brewed up a glass of Tea for Digestion, and shortly thereafter, I was feeling much, much better. I still have a large bowl of the salad in my fridge. Perhaps I should let it marinate a bit longer before trying again. Maybe just a couple forkfuls next time…

In conclusion, this is a functional tea comprising primarily anise seed, fennel seed, and licorice root. It works, but you obviously must like (love?) the taste and scent of licorice, else this blend may exacerbate rather than ameliorate your condition!

I was craving licorice this evening and happened upon a bag of Good Earth Tea for Digestion. It appears to be one of the last of a collection of Good Earth herbal infusions which I had acquired a while back. I had purchased several boxes, including Tea for Flu, Tea for Colds, Tea for Tension, and this one.

Tea for Digestion offers a triple dose of licorice flavor, featuring not only licorice root (which is pretty common in herbal teas), but also anise seed and fennel seed. These blends are all 100% natural and based on recipes from “Father Kuenzle”, an herbalist from Switzerland. So now Good Earth produces them, boasting of 100 years of success in providing “relief to European families.”

This blend has a strong fennel flavor, much stronger than the licorice (which is the fourth ingredient) or the anise (which is the second ingredient). Basically you must appreciate the scent and taste of fennel seed to be able to stomach this brew. I like it, so I do.

Does this blend alleviate indigestion? That would be an added benefit, though I myself have primarily consumed Tea for Digestion as a source of fennel/anise/licorice flavor in a hot beverage. I think that I really prefer licorice to fennel, so I probably won’t buy this one again.

Sometimes the Stevia gets a bit sweet for me and gives me a headache. In general, it is a juicy, albeit mediocre, cup of tea.

This was formerly known as Good Earth Original Decaf, and now is called Sweet and Spicy Decaf. It is also available in an organic version. This tea is an old time favorite of mine in the fall and winter season to enjoy at night. It is magnificently warming in it’s perfect balance of being both spicy and sweet, and is much like red chai. It actually warms up my chest, and is so pleasantly sweet that there is no need to add anything to it. I detect mostly cinnamon and orange with a mellow ginger zing. It doesn’t need to be steeped more than a few minutes to get a very full robust flavor. I find Celestial Seasonings “Bengal Spice” to be quite close to this flavor, but I favor Good Earth a bit more.

I need to learn to buy tea based on its ingredient list rather than the front of the box… this tea’s name and the blurb on the front make it sound like it’s a matcha (or at least a generic green tea that includes matcha) with orange flavoring, when in fact it’s more of a green/herbs/flavors blend with a hint of matcha near the end of the ingredient list. At least it was only a few dollars.

It smells… weird. Not much like tea, I think it’s the combination of licorice and chamomile that contribute the most to the scent, making it reminiscent of those herbal blends that are sold as something to drink when you’re sick. Only weirder, I’m not sure how else to describe it because it’s not entirely like any other tea I’ve had before. It tastes more or less like it smells, only way sweeter than I’m used to — must be the stevia! I wish this wasn’t pre-sweetened, I don’t think the flavor combo works with this high level of sweetness.

That said, I find this tea pretty drinkable, I suppose the strangeness gives it an unexpected charm. I wouldn’t buy it again or recommend it, but I’ll finish it.

(And no, it doesn’t taste like matcha.)

do not over steep. it’s a good tea , has a nice kick to it. needs a smidge or a pinch of sugar and it’s like drinking spicy hot cocoa

This tea has an exotic combination of ingredients. When I first opened the foiled package the aroma was delightful. The cocoa dominated and yet there was a spirited tangy smell accompanying it.

I poured the boiled water over the tea bag and let it steep 4 min. as suggested on the box. Sadly, I was disappointed

The first sip told me this tea was not up to the task assigned to it on the box. I tasted watered down. The cocoa was barely there, almost as if a cocoa leaf was waved over the hot water. The pepper barely lingered in the background and the other flower ingredients didn’t make it on stage.

Maybe it’s me and maybe I expected too much, but this tea won’t make it into my cupboard.

Very sweet and spicy. Delicious but one cup is definitely enough. Have to be in the mood for it.