Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Good Earth online or Wherever Good Earth Teas are sold.
Tea Description:
Sure we all have responsibilities, but that doesn’t mean we have to settle into a routine. Break things up with the tingling intensity of Pomegranate Burst™. Blended with the goodness of green tea and the unexpected tart flavors of pomegranate and cherry, one sip will be enough to shake up an ordinary day.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I brewed this Pomegranate Burst™ Green Tea from Good Earth without knowing the ingredients in the tea – only knowing it’s a flavored green tea. So, I brewed it the way I’d brew any other bagged green tea: using 8 ounces of hot water (170°F) and steeping for 2 minutes.
After I finished steeping the tea, I noticed the color – it’s a vivid ruby color, just like the color of a pomegranate aril. This communicated “hibiscus” to me. And after my first sip, yep … there’s hibiscus in this. Ugh. That first sip told me something else: there’s stevia in this too. Double Ugh. And it’s not even the natural leaf from the herb “stevia” it’s steviol glycosides which is the chemical compound of stevia. And I can taste that chemical taste from it too. Triple UGH!
Served hot, this just isn’t my cup of tea. I taste to much hibiscus and stevia and a syrupy cherry flavor (read: cherry flavored cough syrup) for me to derive much enjoyment out of drinking it. I do taste pomegranate and hints of raspberry. Those flavors might be nice if my palate wasn’t overwhelmed by the flavor of hibiscus, chemical tasting stevia and cough syrup.
No green tea flavor to speak of here. Just none.
Not one to want to give up on a tea so quickly, I decided to cold-brew a few bags in my half gallon pitcher, hoping that the cold brew might soften the overpowering flavors that I experienced with the hot steep. I used 5 tea bags for 2 quarts of water and stashed it in the fridge for about 8 hours.
As an iced tea, this is a little bit better but not much. The cherry flavor is not quite as cough syrupy as when it’s brewed hot but it still has that cough medicine taste. The chemical stevia notes are a little less apparent although I can still taste it. To offset the flavor of the stevia somewhat and try to make the sweet taste more natural, I added some agave to it and this addition helped make the drink more palatable.
On the positive side: I do like that I taste the pomegranate and the raspberry and these two fruits have a pleasant fruity flavor. The hibiscus is also less apparent as an iced tea. This tastes a lot more like a fruit drink than a tea though.
I think it’s fair to say that this was not a win for me. It wasn’t horrible but I find it difficult to move past that artificial taste of the stevia. It really ruins this drink for me.
