Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Our premium buttery sweet organic Chinese fannings green tea blended with organic yellow cake, pineapple, brown sugar, and a hint of maraschino cherry flavors. This is ridiculously delicious. Don’t miss your chance to grab one.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
Really nice! This Pineapple Upside-down Cake Iced Green Tea from Southern Boy Teas is a really tasty treat!
I love that I can taste all the flavors: I taste a buttery cake, I taste sweet pineapple, brown sugar and just a touch of maraschino cherry. And I taste the smooth green tea. It’s light, fresh and buttery, and those buttery notes meld really nicely with the buttery notes of the cake.
You’d think that with so many different flavors going on that you wouldn’t be able to discern one flavor from another. And I have to admit that at first, I couldn’t. My first glass – I was tasting kind of a muddled mess of flavors that were sweet and there was certainly a refreshingly tasty element to it but it was difficult to say – “oh, I taste the pineapple” or “I taste the buttery cake-like flavors” or “I can taste the green tea!”
But now that I’ve finished that first glass and am working on the second one, the flavors have come forward and have distinguished themselves on my palate.
I like that this is sweet but not so sweet that I’m overwhelmed by the sweet notes. It’s sweet and maybe even a tad ‘dessert-y’ but it’s still refreshing enough to guzzle down when you need to quench that thirst.
Quite yummy!
Breakfast Blend Black Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Description:
The Breakfast Blend 100’s is a hearty blend of the finest Assam and Kenyan leaf teas.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
After having a few less than exciting experiences with some of the teas I’ve tried from Rington’s, I wasn’t sure what this Breakfast Blend Black Tea had in store for me, but I braced myself, thinking I probably wouldn’t really care for it. But you know what? This is actually quite pleasant!
The flavor is bold and robust. I’m not getting a lot of astringency from this tea and there’s no bitterness. To brew it, I put one tea bag into a mug and brought the kettle to near boiling (205°F). Then I poured 8 ounces of water into my mug and let it steep for 2 1/2 minutes. I’m not sure if it’s the slightly lower temperature or the short steep time that contributed to the smooth, pleasant flavor of this tea, but I’m finding it enjoyable.
Maybe I’m not quite the snob I thought I was. Ha!
Yes, after having experienced several very disappointing bagged teas I had resolved that maybe, just maybe, I had crossed over to the land of tea snobbery. But I’m not hating this bagged tea as much as I thought I would so maybe I just had a few experiences that weren’t up to snuff and I’m not quite as snobbish as I thought I was.
Sure, I still prefer loose leaf and I shudder somewhat when I encounter a bagged tea. I still put my nose up when I pass the tea aisle in the grocery store. But, I can appreciate the convenience of the bagged tea – it’s certainly easier when you’re away from home to pop a bagged tea into a teacup and add hot water than it is to do the loose leaf thing. And it’s nice when you can find a bagged tea that you actually like. (I’ve had so many disappointments when it comes to bagged teas that I’d find in a hotel!)
All that aside, I’m finding myself quite pleased with this cup of tea from Rington’s. The flavor is strong without being too aggressive. It has a lovely malty note and a rich taste. While I’m drinking this straight up, I’d imagine that it’d take the additions of milk and/or honey (or sweetener of your choice) quite well. And this would be a nice choice for iced tea, too!
Pure Peppermint Herbal Tisane from Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal Tisane
Where to Buy: Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Description:
An exciting and invigorating herbal infusion of pure peppermint leaves to revitalize and refresh. Peppermint has been shown to aid digestion.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This Pure Peppermint Herbal Tisane from Rington’s Premium English Teas is really bright and fresh tasting! I know that I’ve been down on bagged teas quite a bit lately but this particular bagged tea is quite enjoyable. The flavor is really strong and has the cool, crisp flavor that I expect from a good quality peppermint tisane.
Very minty – as you might expect it to be. It IS pure peppermint, after all! It has a zesty, slightly peppery bite to it and my mouth feels minty fresh after I drink it.
I like to keep peppermint on hand because I find it to be a soothing tea to drink after I’ve had something spicy. (I eat a lot of spicy stuff!) It helps to settle the tummy and it’s ideal when my daughter has a stomach ache.
A really nice pure peppermint.
Kenyan Gold Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Description:
Kenyan Gold 80’s is a luxury, top quality tea from the “Extra Fresh” family of teas.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I’ve tried a couple of different teas from Rington’s Premium English Teas now, and I think that this Kenyan Gold Tea might be the best one that I’ve tried thus far.
Yes, it’s a bagged tea. Yes, I know that I’ve been ‘bagging’ on bagged teas a lot lately. I guess after spending the last six plus years tasting teas and writing about what I’m tasting has shaped my opinions about bagged teas because as I’ve said before (and am likely to say again) – loose leaf tea is superior.
But this bagged tea is actually quite pleasant. The flavor of the Kenyan tea is rich and flavorful. It’s nice and smooth. There’s very little astringency to this and no bitterness. Just smooth, rich flavor that is bold and invigorating.
To achieve this flavor, I brought my kettle to a boil and put one bag into my mug and poured 8 ounces of boiling water over the bag. I let this steep for 2 1/2 minutes.
It’s a little sweet with a flavor that is somewhere between molasses and caramel. It has some fruit notes – reminiscent of raisin and plum. Hints of earth. Notes of leather. It has a pleasant, round flavor. Nice.
Earl Grey Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Description:
Aromatic light black tea bags. From our ‘Extra Fresh’ family of teas. A premium quality fair traded aromatic blend of black tea, delicately flavoured with natural bergamot flavour.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Earl Grey Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas: another bagged Earl Grey. I decided to go into this experience with an open mind and determined to find the good in this tea. I feel like lately, most of my bagged tea reviews have been ‘bagging’ on the tea bag. I want to try to keep an open mind because I have, in fact, tried decent bagged teas. Sure, loose leaf is better. Loose leaf is the way to go in about 98% of all situations, but there is the occasion when bagged teas are certainly more convenient even if they aren’t more flavorful.
So I steeped the bag in one of my favorite mugs, using 8 ounces of boiling water for 3 minutes. Now that I’m sipping this, I wish I would have gone with 2 1/2 minutes because this is a tad more astringent than I would like it to be and I think that a slightly shorter steep time might help to reduce that.
My first impression: the flavor is a bit off. The bergamot tastes strange to me, it doesn’t have that crisp tangy flavor that I expect from bergamot.
Again, I want to find the good in this tea, so I’m not tossing it yet! The black tea. It’s alright. It has a pleasant flavor. It’s rich and has a light malty note to it. It is astringent, like I’ve already mentioned. It has a dry sensation toward the tail of the sip.
On the good side: although the bergamot isn’t quite what I expected when I tasted this tea, it isn’t ‘bad’ – it’s just a bit sweeter than I expected from bergamot. It tastes like maybe the bergamot has been ‘enhanced’ by another orange flavor to soften the edge of the bergamot. The black tea has a pleasant flavor. And this tea does taste better as it cools – this would make a really nice iced tea.
I suspect that this might be alright to someone who hasn’t tasted better Earl Grey teas. That is to say, if all they’ve been drinking is other brands of bagged Earl Grey teas, they might find this one to be just as acceptable as some other bagged Earl Grey teas, perhaps even better than others. It’s certainly not the worst Earl Grey I’ve ever tried, but it’s not the best either. But if you’ve tried a really good, loose leaf Earl Grey tea, you’ll more than likely find this one lacking, I’m sorry to say.