The Secret Garden

This is the third of eight teas gifted to me in a beautiful tin which looked like a deep narrow tome. Since the person who gave me these teas is very dear to me, I am sorry that the teas I’ve tried so far have been wanting in more flavor. Each bag holds only .05 g of tea, which is a small teabag’s worth. I used 4 bags in about 25 oz of just-under-boiling water, and let them steep for 7 minutes.
The box these all came in doesn’t describe what variety of tea(s?) may be contained. It only says ‘black tea’ and ‘natural flavors’. The lack of any kind of actual orange zest or ground spice is all too evident. There’s neither enough tea nor enough flavor—natural or otherwise—to make much good impression.
Overall, even with four teabags in a half-teapot, the taste is weak, thin, watery, not very strong at all. There’s a barely-there spice after-note. I added some sugar to see if that would draw out any more flavor; sadly, the answer is no.
Because this was a gift from someone I love, I won’t give a formal lack of recommendation. Just read my review here, and use this tea to mellow out a too-strong pot of another tea, say—rather than drink it by itself. Or if you’re ailing and NEED to drink some weak tea, then this is the one.

A beloved niece gifted me with a beautiful large tin which looked like a large book. The Secret Garden Organic Teas, of which there were 8 different kinds of teas, 10 teabags each.
This is the second (of six types) of green tea.
I’m not really familiar with Acai Berry as a flavor. I’d already mixed 2 bags of this with another berry tea. This time I’m using all 8 remaining bags of this blend in one 57 oz pot.
I let it steep for about 8 minutes. From the other of this set I’ve tried, I learned the bags only contain 1.5 g of tea each, and there’s no bits of fruit in it, just natural flavor.
By having used 8 teabags in the pot of 57 oz, that comes out to a little over 7 oz of liquid per teabag, which is not too different from the “1 bag for a 6 oz cup” that Republic of Tea recommends on tins for their smaller weight teabags.
This is not a bad tea; the flavor is nice, still not too strong, but in this case, with eight bags together in a pot, the combined steepage renders a halfway decent cuppa. Still seems to me whoever buys this is truly buying the distinctive packaging, more than the tea experience.

A beloved niece gifted me with The Secret Garden Organic Tea Collection, which looks like a tall, thick metal book (12-1/2" tall X 7" wide X 2-1/2" deep). Though it looks like a book, it’s a large hinged tin with cardboard dividers which holds 80 teabags, 10 each of 8 different kinds of organic teas. 6 are green teas, 2 are black teas.
Having said that, I can only review one flavor at a time. So I’m starting with Organic Lemon Ginger, since that’s the only one of the eight flavors that was already here in Steepster’s system.
I have to say this tea was weaker than I thought it would be. The bag is an average size, is not flow-thru style. Looking at the back of the box, it is described simply as “ORGANIC LEMON GINGER GREEN TEA, organic green tea, natural lemon flavor, natural ginger flavor.”
In other words, it’s only green tea with flavors added, no lemon peel, no small pieces of ginger. That is why even though I used only one bag in one 10 ounce cup, had freshly boiled water, and allowed it to steep for six minutes, I could only taste the green tea, and that, just barely. I did not discern the lemon or the ginger flavors.
Now this is only the first of eight flavors for me to try. I am hoping for a better experience from any of the other types. I really hate that I didn’t like this tea better; my niece spent money to get me something special. The box IS special, and it’s got lovely packaging.
While I was disappointed drinking this tea by itself, I know I will use the remaining bags in blended pots with other ginger &/or lemon-flavored teas. Since that’s how I usually blend my different teas, this will not go to waste.

A couple nights ago I thought I’d give this one another chance, to see if I upped the amount of tea, would it taste better? So again I boiled the water, used about 9 ounces of it, and THIS time, I used two teabags in the cup, and allowed it to steep for about 5-6 minutes.
While I was waiting, I looked at the back of the big book-shaped tin, to look at the weight.
Hmm—120 grams of tea for the whole lot. Divided by 80 teabags, that means each teabag holds only 1.5 grams of tea! The average size of most American teabags is about 2.5 grams.
No wonder this tea tastes so weak—each bag is a whole gram less than a ‘normal’ teabag!

Sadly, while this second cup tasted more strongly than my first taste (which used only 1 teabag), I still barely tasted any of the lemon or ginger oils which were supposed to have been used. The tea was stronger, but still disappointing. Because someone who truly loves me gifted me this collection, with its very attractive, unusual packaging, I don’t want to ‘NOT REC’ it. But neither can I give it a formal "RECOMMEND’. Once the teas within have been consumed, it can make a great place to store tea packets that would otherwise be accumulating and cluttering a shelf or cabinet. Just be mindful of its unusual size (dimensions given above), and the fact it looks like a book. It’s quite decorative. See gmathis’ comment below!

Remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine couldn’t walk out of her office without somebody shoving a slab of cake in her hand and singing? It’s getting about that bad here with a slough (sloo? slew?) of spring milestone events and multiple coworkers whose love language is food. (Good people here. That’s a blessing that I don’t take for granted.)

Therefore, I am immensely grateful to yet another colleague who provided a tin of these teabags, which I am keeping on hand strictly for medicinal purposes. Discount outlet grade gift tea, but the bags smell great (ginger first, lemon next, green tea…um…er…well…let’s just assume it’s in there) and are efficient and efficacious when I have to try just one more homemade chocolate chip cookie in order to be polite.