Trader Joe’s Mango Black Tea, reviewed

Lately, it seems like green and white teas are chosen to blend with fruits more often than black teas are. Green and white teas can have such a mild flavor that it is easy to bring other flavors out in a blend with them. As a result, I wasn’t sure exactly how much actual mango flavor to expect when I tried Trader Joe’s Mango Black Tea – and was very pleasantly surprised when there was a lot of fruit flavor there!

This tea is made with black tea, natural mango flavor, blackberry leaves, hibiscus and calendula petals. Mangos are a fruit with a very sweet, floral flavor to them and it was a stroke of brilliance to add these extra elements to the tea (rather than just tossing in some dried mango pieces) because they really highlight the floral flavors of the mango. If you’re already familiar with the flavor of hibiscus, you’ll be able to pick it out from the other background flavors, too (although if you aren’t, it will most like just blend in). The tea has a smooth black tea background, but is really bursting with a tropical feel and a distinct mango flavor. I typically drink tea unsweetened, although this is one that I found was even better with a little bit of honey added to it, as that also served to enhance the mango and make the tea “juicier.”

I haven’t tried this tea iced, but I suspect that a pitcher of iced tea with some actual sliced mangoes in it would be a huge hit at a brunch!

Cook’s Country reviews supermarket green teas

To be honest, I almost never buy bagged green tea unless it is flavored with something fruity. The reason is that, while there are lots of excellent green teas out there, many of the more “mass produced” teas don’t have a flavor that appeals to me. They can range from bland to having somewhat unpleasant vegetal notes to them. In fairness, as green teas have become more popular the overall quality of what is widely available at grocery stores has improved tremendously, and a supermarket tea is likely to be much more affordable than a specialty blend. In the most recent issue (Aug/Sept 2011) of Cook’s Country magazine, the test kitchen set out to taste test a bunch of supermarket green teas to pick out a winner. They were looking for something with good flavor that was affordable for everyday drinking and for cooking with (cooking being a category where you really don’t want to use the most expensive wine or coffee out there, either!).

They tasted five nationally available brands and tested them brewed, infused in a custard and rubbed on their luau-style Kalua pork. The test kitchen admitted that none of the options blew them away, but they still were able to find one that fit their needs. The winner was Celestial Seasonings Authentic Green Tea, with a “clean” flavor and a  “nice grassy quality” that was good plain and in recipes.

Twinings Green Tea, Bigelow Green Tea and Lipton Green Tea were all “recommended with reservations.” The Twinings tea had a harsh, astringent flavor that the taste testers didn’t like, but that balanced out fairly well in recipes. The other two were subtle and bland, with the Lipton barely squeaking into this category. Tazo China Tips Green Tea was “not recommended,” with its overly strong “harsh,” “soapy,” and “tinny” flavor that verged on an unpleasant bitterness, even in recipes.

Punjana Irish Breakfast Tea, reviewed

Punjana tea is relatively new to US markets, but readers in Ireland or Scotland will probably recognize the name, as the tea brand has been popular there for more than a century. To give you an idea of how popular the tea is, something along the lines of 60,000 cups of Punjana tea are said to be drunk every hour of the day, 365 days a year. Given that it’s popular Irish tea, it seemed appropriate for me to start out with the Punjana Irish Breakfast Tea for my first tasting of this brand. The tea comes bagged and ready to brew.

The tea has a very classic Irish breakfast tea flavor – to the point where it is almost difficult to describe it because it is exactly what you expect to get from a good Irish breakfast tea! It is a strong and smoothly flavored black tea. It is very fresh and “clean” tasting – no dry notes, as from poorer quality tea or tea that has been sitting around too long. The tea takes well to different brew strengths, so double the amount of tea will get you a cuppa that will stand up to milk easily and you’ll still get the same clear flavor as you do from a single teabag brewed black.

This is a wonderful everyday tea for a tea fan, or for someone who wants a cuppa that can take the place of a cup of coffee and still be very satisfying.

Trader Joe’s Vanilla & Cinnamon Black Tea, reviewed

Vanilla is a great flavor in just about anything, but put it together with cinnamon and you have a combination that is perfect for warming you up on a cool night – especially when they’re put together in something like Trader Joe’s Vanilla & Cinnamon Black Tea. This is one of the seasonal winter teas from Trader Joe’s. Although I often go for spicy teas in the winter, this one appealed to me specifically because it was less spicy. I was hoping for a milder, sweeter tea that still had a lot of flavor, and that is just what I got.

The tea tastes surprisingly sweet, with the vanilla in the background and the cinnamon coming to the forefront of the flavors. The cinnamon, unlike the stronger spices found in chai teas, was very mellow and not aggressive or peppery tasting. This is definitely a dessert tea for me. I found that it didn’t need any sweeteners to be sweet, but it does go very well with home. Speaking of desserts, this tea is just right for making a tea latte, where the milk will blend smoothly with the vanilla and cinnamon to give this a very dessert-like feel.

Republic of Tea Hot Apple Cider Tea, reviewed

I love hot apple cider on a cold winter night, and I couldn’t resist the chance to try the Republic of Tea Hot Apple Cider Tea. This tea is a limited edition holiday release that hit shelves in the past couple of weeks. The tea is made with typical cider spices, including cinnamon, cloves and ginger, but it also includes several more subtle elements, including rose hips, berry leaves and cardamom. Of course, the most important element of this tea is the apples, and dried apple pieces are the primary flavoring element.

The tea tastes very much like apple cider, although it is much lighter in flavor and much less sweet than straight juice would be. You can actually taste the berry, enriching the apple flavor, and all the other spices blend in nicely. It is good plain and great sweetened, especially if you use honey or a bit of caramel.

Incidentally, the Republic of Tea also puts out a jam using this tea flavor. It’s definitely an interesting use of the tea and, if I pick up a few pounds of apples in the next week or two, I might try working out a batch myself!