Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Bigelow
Also available at Goodies Company
Tea Description:
Fall in love with Bigelow® Pumpkin Spice Tea. The harvest moon brings bountiful blessings for us to enjoy, not the least of which is Bigelow Pumpkin Spice Tea. Smooth and satisfying, its rich, round flavor is a masterful blend of the finest, mountain-grown teas. Pumpkin Spice Tea has no calories – just sweeten to taste for an Autumn treat that is sure to warm the hearts of family, friends and all who gather ’round.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I received this individually wrapped bagged tea in my November Goodies Box, and while I review most of the items that I receive in my tasting boxes on my foodie blog, since this is tea, I felt that I should review this right here.
While I’m not thrilled about bagged tea in general, I was happy to find tea in my Goodies box. (But hey, Goodies Co., how about some LOOSE LEAF tea?) I mean, whenever these kinds of boxes showcase tea, it feels like a win for tea lovers. Even if it is a bagged tea.
And for a bagged tea, this isn’t all that bad. The black tea base tastes strong and pleasant, with a slight astringency but no bitterness. It is smooth and has a nice earthy quality to it that offers a good background for the warm spices in this blend.
I can taste the pumpkin, which is always a plus when it comes to pumpkin flavored teas as I’ve come across a few where the pumpkin flavor was lacking. That is not the case here, it has a sweet, pumpkin-y flavor that is complemented very nicely with the cinnamon, clove and ginger. I also taste a hint of licorice in this, and at first I thought maybe my taste buds were playing tricks on me, but I checked the list of ingredients, and sure enough – there’s licorice in this! Nice!
Overall, this is a satisfying tea. I do wish it wasn’t bagged because perhaps I’m becoming even more snobbish these days, but I have gotten to the point where the taste of paper often accompanies these bagged teas, and I don’t like to drink paper flavored teas. Call me crazy. Fortunately, the intended flavors of spice, pumpkin and tea are strong enough here that the paper is not a dominating component in this cup, but I do taste faint paper-y notes and I’d really rather they not be there.
So, I’ll summarize by saying as a bagged tea this is alright. If it were a loose leaf tea, I think I would categorize it as better than alright … it would be very good!
Cranberry Pomegranate from Rooibee Red Tea
Product Information:
What It Is: Ready-To-Drink beverage crafted from Red Rooibos
Where to Buy: Goodies Company
Product Description:
Refreshing and delicately flavored with cranberry and pomegranate, Rooibee Red Tea is sure to please. It’s also rich in antioxidants, low in calories, naturally caffeine-free, and certified USDA organic. What’s not to love?
Learn more about this product here.
Taster’s Review:
Recently, I subscribed to a new monthly subscription with Goodies Company, a company that sends out monthly “foodie” tasting boxes. This bottle of Rooibee Red Tea was one of the products in my very first box, which I received a couple of months ago, but am just getting around to trying it now.
I guess you could say that I’m very often reluctant to try Ready-to-Drink teas. I usually find them to be too sweet for my liking, as most of them seem to be crafted with more sugars and sweeteners than actual tea. Add that with the fact that I’m not wild about red rooibos, and you have a product about which I am – at the very least – skeptical.
However, I’m finding this to be quite pleasant to drink. I like that the sweetener used here is Cane Sugar rather than corn syrup, so it doesn’t have that sickeningly, sticky sweet taste that not only sticks to the tongue but to the teeth. The rooibos is naturally sweet, so I think they should have maybe added a little less cane sugar here than they did, because this is still rather sweet.
The flavors of cranberry and pomegranate are not overtly obvious, they meld well into the flavor of the rooibos to create a very unified taste that is part nutty, sweet rooibos, part cranberry and part pomegranate. I notice that the taste of the fruits is most prominent in the aftertaste, where I get a gentle berry tingle on the tongue that tastes very much of both cranberry and pomegranate, but I think that this could be tastier of the two fruits were better represented during the sip and not just after.
Overall, I enjoyed this bottle of RTD rooibos. It is sweet, yes, and a tad too sweet for my liking, but, it was also very refreshing, and nice to drink after a meal. It managed to curb that tendency to hunt down some dessert when I sipped it right after my meal, and I do like that.
Will I buy it again? Probably not. I might try another flavor of the Rooibee Red Tea if I happened to find it while I was out and about, but, I don’t know that I’d go out of my way looking for the product, nor do I think it would be my first choice of beverages if given a wide variety of choices, but if the choices are limited, and the Rooibee Red Tea products happened to be one of those limited choices, I might choose it.