Bigelow Pomegranate Green Tea

Huh. Didn't I already review this, way back when?

Quick check says I reviewed Bentley Pomegranate Green Tea many years ago. The other major grocery store brand of fruit infused green tea. Bigelow is that tea that is used to stock every workplace ever, since it's cheap and office/workplace distributors will ship it in bulk. Some of it is pretty grim. I'd stay well away from their black teas.

But this stuff isn't that bad, for a fruit infused green tea. It tastes more of fake fruit than tea, but I like that it's fruit-ish yet not sweet. The green tea provides a bitter undercut to what would otherwise be a cloying, nasty drink. It's not the best cup of hot tea, by a long stretch. But I like it a lot as a refreshing iced drink. Is pomegranate trendy bandwagon fruit with vague and certainly exaggerated health claims? Yeah, but who cares?

Brew is easy enough, I put 1 tea bag to six ounces of water, so two for a standard office issue hot cup. Add hot water out of the Keurig. Not in my office, though. For unknown reasons, we don't have a Keurig, we have the "other brand" with the flat pods. Oh well, coffee is coffee, I've had workplaces provide worse, or no coffee at all. We have dark roast most days, and it beats waiting in line at Starbucks or Dunkies to overpay for a burnt or sour low quality cup.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the hot water out of the "coffee machine" is hot enough for a middling quality cup of green tea. I only steep it for about two minutes, cheap green can get over bitter and astringent fast. If making iced, I reduce the water by half (two bags to six ounces of water), and fill the cup with ice once steeped.

So, is it iced tea? Maybe just barely, but it is a refreshing and sugar free cold drink. I'm not a big tea snob (anymore), most days that's good enough.

Culinary Teas Ginger Peach Black Tea

Summer time is fresh fruit time. Currently strawberries and blueberries, I'm eagerly awaiting the week or two until stone fruits are suddenly bursting into ripeness. All throughout the year, I eye the stone fruits in the store, and hell, I'll buy a few plums, nectarines, or apricots here or there, but I'm fascist about my peaches. Fresh and local, or none at all. A hard grocery store peach, picked before ripeness to survive a long shipping journey...blah. But a fresh peach, so soft and juicy that it bruises if you look too hard at it...man, there are just some things on this earth that you get all spiritual about.

I do love peach. It's a unique and versatile flavor, blending wonderfully with green tea, black tea, and more importantly, bourbon. I've even had peach wine, peach lambic, and heard tell of wondeful peach ciders out there. Ginger and peach are often paired together, probably since ginger's earthy spice complements peach's sweet fruit flavors so well. I've had ginger peach as a combo in white, green ,and black teas, but Culinary Tea's ginger peach black tea is easily the best of the lot.

The base is the familiar Metropolitan Tea Ceylon blend, generic black tea flavor, but clean, sturdy, and smooth. The flavor additions are perfectly balanced, a pleasant ginger burn at the back of the throat, mild peach fruitiness, black tea astringency. Nothing stands out, but this is just a perfectly balanced cup, a good cup of hot tea, and a sublime glass of summertime iced tea. In today's food and drink world, so much seems to be about extremes, but this cuppa is so great because it effortlessly finds a balance without being boring. Score:  92 (A-)

Pumpkin Cream black tea

This, the last for a bit of fruit and cream flavored black teas from Culinary Teas, is absolutely perfect for this time of the year.  Fall in New England means brightly colored foliage (well, at least most years...) and tons of squash and pumpkin.  Now, I have to admit, pumpkin flavored tea sounded odd when I first saw it on the website.  In my experience, mixing pumpkin with other stuff doesn't always work out so well.  Pumpkin coffee is pretty wrong, and pumpkin beers tend to run the range from "Ok, I guess" to "Wow, that's nasty!"  So it's a refreshing surprise that pumpkin and cream flavored tea is actually pretty good.

The tea is the usual Ceylon blend for many of the fruit flavored teas, and while it continues to work quite well, I'm starting to wish for a bit more variety in tea bases.  I know that the tea is meant to play second fiddle to the flavors, but I think a bit more creativity in matching tea bases to added flavors would be more interesting.  Perhaps that's just because I've had so many "x and cream" teas lately.  At any rate, the Ceylon is a good base, and the earthy pumpkin and sweet cream really blend well with the tea.  Although it sounded weird at first glance, after thinking about it, the flavor of pumpkin is probably a more natural fit than sweeter fruits.  The vegetal flavor and mild natural sweetness pair up so well with the similar characteristics in the tea, and as always, the cream provides a touch of vanilla and that amazing velvet texture.  As with all the cream teas, pumpkin cream plays wonderfully with milk and sugar.  One oddity I found with pumpkin cream is that the loose tea itself is a smaller leaf size, which means a slightly faster brew, with stronger flavors from the tea.  I don't know if this was incidental, or if some aspect of the flavoring demanded a faster steep time, but I shaved a minute off the steep time and still got a full bodied, well developed cup.  Score:  90 (A-) All right, it's time for a break from the "whatnot and cream" teas, as excellent as they are!

Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Shortcake from Culinary Teas is a review that's been waiting to happen for a long time.  It's my wife's favorite tea, and is tied up with our discovery of Culinary Teas, thus having a huge impact on much of this blog.  So, for as long as Erin has been going to Mrs. Bridge's, our local teahouse, she's been getting Strawberry Shortcake, a black tea flavored with strawberries and cream.  Almost every time, she would look through the menu, deliberate, then order "the usual."  Then one day a year or so ago, they were out of Strawberry Shortcake.  And then the next time we went, they were still out.  Did they plan to re-order?  No, not enough demand.  Can we order through them?  No dice.  Thus an internet search ensued, finally leading us to Metropolitan Teas, the producers of Strawberry Shortcake.  We sent them an email, asking if we could order through them, but alas, they only sell in bulk to restaurants or teashops.  However, they kindly appended a list of retailers who sold their flavored teas.  First on the list was Culinary Teas, and the rest is history.

Strawberry Shortcake is a staple in our house, and pretty much every order from Culinary Teas includes at least some amount.  The tea is the same Ceylon blend as Peaches and Cream, flavored with strawberries (oils and actual dried fruit) as well as a good bit of cream flavoring.  The Ceylon blends perfectly with the strawberries and sweet velvety cream, especially with the addition of sugar and milk, or even half and half or actual cream.  For the most part, I agree with the traditional line that you add milk, not cream, to black tea, but the addition of cream flavoring sort of calls off all bets.  It's as if the texture was made for thick, heavy cream.

So, the usual drill for preparing black tea, full rolling boil, heaping teaspoon of tea per mug, steep for about four minutes and strain, sweeten and and add milk to taste.  The resulting mug is pretty amazing.  As I've mentioned in the past, fruit flavored teas often leave me disappointed, but this is a whole different story.  The best way I can describe the flavor is as if I had taken a quality cup of blended black tea, then dissolved homemade strawberry jam and a huge spoonful of sweet cream into it, which in all actuality, is not that far off from reality.  It's a great comfort cup and a solid go to tea.  Shockingly, we've yet to try it as an iced tea, though our recent experience with iced Peaches and Cream suggests it would be a huge success.  Score:  95 (A)

Peaches and Cream black tea

I've been less than enthusiastic about fruit flavored teas in the past.  I haven't always had the best experiences with them, ranging from obvious artificial flavors to weak, bland, and overdried actual fruit.  Special Teas, an otherwise great tea company was especially guilty of this, but then they got bought out by Teavana, and I've never had anything from Teavana, since they're pretty expensive.

My wife, however, is quite fond of fruit flavored teas.  Her favorite is Culinary Teas' Strawberry Shortcake, which I've been meaning to review here for a long time, but a close second from Culinary Teas is their Peaches and Cream.  Some of Culinary Teas' flavored offerings come from Metropolitan Teas, and use a common base blend of Ceylon teas.  The reasoning, of course, is that this offers a solid, unremarkable base for the added flavors to shine through, and for the most part, I think this a great strategy.

So, Peaches and Cream is the Ceylon base with peach flavoring and cream added.  Culinary Teas really does the cream flavors well...they don't get that specific on their website, but I believe it's actual freeze dried cream, which lends a really smooth, mildly sweet note to the cup, and of course, is a natural addition to peaches.  We brew in the regular way, rolling boil, steep for four minutes, you know the drill.  The resulting cup is great...I may not have been the biggest fan of fruit teas in the past, but this is done right.  The tea is a strong, broad base, never obtrusive, and the peach is sweet but never overpowering, while the cream brings a velvety texture and a mild hint of vanilla.

Peaches and Cream also makes a great cup of iced tea.  For most iced teas, I'll brew double strength tea and dilute with ice, though for this batch, my wife made a huge batch in the dutch oven, strained the tea out, and we chilled it in a pitcher in the fridge.  It came out a hair strong, so we added plenty of sugar, and unusually for iced tea, cream.  I've only really come across cream or milk in iced tea in Thai tea, but in the right cup, it's a great addition, and of course, cream goes great with, well, cream.  Score:  90 (A-)

Iced Tea Double Feature

It's been a busy couple of months!  Cups of tea, let alone the time to write about them have been few and far between, but a few weeks ago, the wife and I did make a couple of excellent pitchers of iced white tea.  In each case, we filled a big pot partway with water (~2.5 quarts in a 5 quart pot), approximated the number of tea bags for a good strong brew (about 25, though it depends on the tea), and steeped for about 2 minutes (white tea is fragile and usually doesn't overbrew well, especially bag tea).  We scooped the tea bags out, sweetened lightly, and chilled.


Bentley's Ginger Peach White Tea

As a stand alone cup of hot tea, I don't think I'd have that much to say about this tea.  It's pleasant, but pretty unremarkable.  As a well brewed, slightly sweetened ice tea, however, it really shines.  The touch of sweetener, agave nectar in this case, really brings the peach to the forefront, while the tingle of the ginger and the brightness of the tea balance out the profile.  White tea can be finicky and bitter if brewed too long or too hot, or even if it's just not a high enough quality, but I find Bentley's to be decent quality tea, especially for a bag, and a bit more forgiving than some other brands.


Overall, a great cup of summertime iced tea, and pretty easy to make. B+


Tea Nation Raspberry White Tea

Tea Nation's Raspberry White was the second big batch we tried, and it was a bit more finicky than the Bentley's, but with some creativity, came out great.  After our initial steeping in the big pot, I fished out the 25 or so tea bags, and sweetened with some regular old sugar (couldn't find the agave nectar), and taste tested.  My initial impression was that we'd overdone some aspect, and it had come out a hair bitter.  Not wanting to waste a huge pot of fresh tea, my wife did some quick thinking, and grabbed a bag of frozen raspberries from the freezer (I love raspberries, so we're not often without them in some form) and chucked them in the still warm tea.  We let them sit for a few hours to thaw and let the flavors mingle, then chilled the whole thing.  The result was really excellent...more an ice tea based fruit drink than true iced tea, but semantics aside, it was great!  The tea provided a nice astringent backbone for the huge raspberry flavor, and the raspberries were of course, delicious.

I have to give the tea itself a C, as it was kind of finicky and unexciting, but the end result was far better than that, thanks to the wife's quick thinking.


I started writing this entry over a month ago!  Children certainly are free time vampires...it's good to be writing again, though, even if it's not as often as I'd like.  I hope to be posting a bit more often over the next few months, though I'll just have to take it as it comes.  I have a few good posts hanging out in the back of my mind, as well as another project in the background (running related), but all these things depend on the whims of a colicky infant.  Anyway, hopefully more to come in the near future.
 

Bentley's Flavored Green Tea Double Feature

I like Bentley's.  I've never had anything spectacular from them, but they produce some decent bag teas that I enjoy at work, where I don't have a proper tea kettle or the time to make quality tea.  I'd like it if they made the step up from flat tea bags to sachets or tea pyramids, but still and all, they make a pretty decent cup of tea.  So, today's review is a double feature from Bentley's:  Pomegranate green and Acai Blackberry green.


Pomegranate Green Tea

In an earlier post, I reviewed Bentley's Pomegranate black tea, and I spent a fair bit of time pointing out how irksome it is when a trendy new "miracle fruit" starts showing up everywhere.  I won't rehash any of that here, since a) I already kind of drove the point into the ground, and b) this is a pretty good tea.  I think that green tea plays better with fruit flavors than black tea, and here, the sweet and tart flavor of the pomegranate mingles well with the clean taste of the tea.  The tea itself is nothing fancy, just basic "no frills" green tea.  It's mellow and somewhat astringent, and has a very clean mouthfeel.  The fruit flavors complement the mild floral notes of the tea, and provide a sweet contrast to the mildly bitterness.  The finish is short and astringent, but not unpleasant.  Score:  80 (B-)

Acai Blackberry Green Tea

Right, I promised I wouldn't go on and on about trendy fruits, so I'll leave alone the addition of Acai, a South American berry with a rather sharp, tart taste.  This tea is actually a whole lot like the Pomegranate green, but I find the fruit additions to work even better than the pomegranate.  I taste more blackberry than Acai, which is great; blackberry and raspberry are two of my favorite flavors.  The berry blends even better than the pomegranate with the mellow floral notes and astringency of the tea.  I'm not usually one for iced green tea, but I can't wait to try this tea ice cold, with a splash of sweetener, on a really hot summer day.  Score:  85 (B)


Overall, two decent teas...nothing fancy about them, other than the inclusion of the latest in trendy fruit, but both make a clean, refreshing cup.

Raspberry black tea

This morning, with my selection of tea dwindling, I decided on a raspberry flavored black tea from Special Teas, who it seems has been subsumed by Teavana, for whatever that means.  Anyway, a while back, we ordered a big grab bag of 2 oz. samples packages from Special Teas, including a bunch of fruit teas, and the fruit teas were all disappointing.  They shouldn't have been; Special Teas does a great job with non-flavored teas, but the fruit teas are all bland.  The tea base is boring and average, and the fruit flavors are muted and don't stand out.  Which pretty much sums up the raspberry.  Despite using real fruit to flavor the tea, even actual dried raspberry pieces, the tea was bland.

I made it in my usual stopgap, I need to replace this, it came from the 70's teapot.  1 flat teaspoon to a cup, 4 teaspoons to fill the pot, water at a rolling boil, brew for 3 minutes.  Strain, add a dash of sugar and some milk...and meh.  My wife added cream, and found that it gave a smoother texture and a sort of raspberry and cream flavor, which wasn't bad.  I almost never use cream in tea...always milk, though there are a couple of exceptions, this being one.

Overall, a disappointment.  I don't know how the merger with Teavana will affect Special Teas, but I'd shy away from their fruit teas, and stick to the estate teas and traditional blends that they do such a great job with.

Score:  60 (F)

Bentley's Pomegranate Black tea

Pomegranate shows up in everything these days, courtesy of it's new reputation as a "superfood.'  To be fair, pomegranate is a tasty and very healthy fruit, it just sounds like the latest trend, like Acai.  Once we start getting trendy liquor flavored with the latest miracle fruit, I start rolling my eyes.  But pomegranate really is very good for you, and tastes amazing, even if it is a huge pain to actually eat.  Besides, my wife bought this tea.

I tend to stay more to non-flavored teas.  Estate or blended green, white or black teas are my favorites, but my wife really enjoys fruit flavored teas (her favorite is strawberry shortcake, a blended black tea flavored with strawberries and cream...an upcoming review at some point.)  I don't mind the occasional flavored tea; some are quite nice.  Earl Grey, for instance, is probably the most widely known flavored tea, with added oil from bergamot, a citrus fruit.  And who hasn't had a cup of Earl Grey, even if just to say out loud: "Tea.  Earl Grey.  Hot."  I just find the added flavors can sometimes distract from the actual tea.

So, then, onto Bentley's Pomegranate black.  I've only found this in bags, and while there are some high quality teas available in bags, for the most part, bag tea is low quality, fannings and dust.  But, they're also damned convenient.  Feeling under the weather today, I just don't have the oomph to make loose tea, with all the extra steps.  So, two tea bags to a 10 oz. mug, water at a rolling boil, brew for about 4 minutes, add milk and sugar liberally.  And the result is actually pretty good.  There aren't really any nuances of flavor here; the blend of teas is pretty generic so that nothing stands out (fans of Scotch, compare to a boring blend like Johnny Walker or Cutty Sark).  The pomegranate flavor takes center stage, but it blends smoothly with the tea, and leaves a mild sweet finish.  Overall, nothing fancy or delicate, but a good quick cup of sweet, hearty tea that makes a nice pickup on a winter afternoon.  This is really the kind of tea that got me drinking the stuff in the first place.  My first proper cup of tea, about ten or eleven years ago, was from a Red Rose tea bag, and even with all the far bigger and better teas I've found, I still like Red Rose...it's hearty, pleasant, and a cinch to make a cup.  Not Lipton, though, that stuff is gross.

Score:  70 (C-) Nothing exciting, but a pleasant cup, and teabags make the process painless.