Timothy's

This is my new go-to iced tea! It’s easy to brew (1 teabag for a 2 quart pitcher, steep 5 min in 1 qt hot water then add 1 qt cold) and there’s no sweetener required — the mango flavor adds just enough!

Incredibly sharp astringency which fills the mouth.
I added cream which cut down on the astringency but it is is still unpleasantly present. I really don’t like adding cream to anything that I consume as it adds many calories. The only pleasing flavour that comes through is that of the cream.
I am reminded of the smell of a dairy barn on the finish. This is something that I have found to have associated with English Breakfast teas that I have had in the past. I was not able to finish the cup as all the added cream was making my stomach churn and there was no value in the actual flavour of the tea which was quite hidden behind the strong bitterness.

I’M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

Sorry for my 148972238497 year long hiatus, I’ve been busy and tired lately but I am back and needless to say I have quite a few backlogs to do. I don’t know about you guys but I’m going through a phase where I just don’t drink as much tea….. I’m sure you all read that and are now going to unfolllow me because this is of course a tea website, but I find that I often go through phases where tea takes more of a backseat. I frankly hate it, but I hope to get out of this “slump” soon and start enjoying myself again!

Anywho, this one was a sample K-Cup I got from my grandma who doesn’t use her machine for anything other than flavored desert coffees. I’m assuming this one came in the initial starter sampler box thingy ma bob they give you when you buy your Keurig. I need something fast and so I popped this in and brewed it up. I hate brewing tea in a K-Cup because you can’t steep it physically, the water just pours through the leaves like coffee. Regardless, this didn’t taste very weak to me, so something happened right!

The verdict: I definitely don’t hate it, but it isn’t strong and spicy chai like I usually enjoy. I wouldn’t buy a whole box of it because I wouldn’t want tea that I can’t control, but if offered I wouldn’t turn down a cup. This is just a mediocre tea but hey, that’s part of the tea world!

This Breakfast Blend tea is, in my opinion, rather excellent. Full-bodied flavor without any bitterness.

This was a tea bag that my husband brought home from who knows where. It sounded like a pretty good flavor so I thought I would give it a try. Honestly, there is nothing about this tea that says gingerbread or chai in my opinion. It really, really reminds me of the rose tulsi I had a month ago. It is okay in flavor, but disappointing since I was expecting a chai type experience. I’ll probably finish the cup, but will definitely not look for this tea in the future. My rating is based on the fact that the tea tastes nothing like it should – it is perfectly drinkable though.

Out of morbid curiosity, I decided to try this this morning in place of the bag of Stash chai that I have some mornings. Mediocre at best. You know it’s not fantastic when your first sip tells you to do everything you can to cover up the taste of the tea so that you can drink it. Every bagged chai I’ve ever had is better than this.

Inspired by a review of another K-cup beverage, I decided to open one up to see what it’s made of. There’s a little paper liner on the inside of the cup, like a tiny paper garbage bag. The tea (1tsp!) sits inside, with a gap between the bottom of the liner and the bottom of the cup. The leaves look like granules of coffee, rather than leaves of tea.

Out of even more morbid curiosity, I decided to brew the leaves in my tea pot, to see if I could improve the taste by removing the packaging. I only let it brew for just over a minute, since the K-cup system doesn’t really have long brewing time and it looked very dark quite soon after adding water. The results are, shockingly, better, but not enough that I would go out of my way to open up a K-cup every time I wanted a cup of this.

I spent the night at a friend’s house and was very intrigued by their Keurig Hot Drink Maker. It makes coffee, tea, and hot cocoa out of individual cups into a single serve mug. Neat little device, had seen them before but never thought I would need one. So of course I tried the tea.

This one was powdered, no leaves to be found, no leaves to smell or enjoy, but you could tell (by shaking the “K-Cup”) that it was powder. Hmm. If you know anything about this device, it means you know none of the parameters for making the hot beverage: brewing time, temperature and parameters unknown.

The tea is an appropriate liquor color, the odor is faint green, but the cranberry and possibly destroyed green tea in the cup is very bitter. This of course could be for a number of reasons:
1. could be poor quality tea, who would know without ripping open one of the little K-Cups.
2. could just be abused tea, as in it is definitely powder, probably burnt, crushed and thoroughly abused in the process of making it into a single-serve cup.
3. cranberries can be very bitter, and they captured that flavor just right.
4. there are no adjustments on this machine, so no temperature or time adjustments, it simply could not be set up to make green tea.

So, I added a packet of Truvia (the natural no calorie stuff made from Stevia with the strawberry on the logo – thanks wombatgirl) and dealt with it. The tea itself was not good, but I do not blame the tea per se. I believe that the true problem with this product is that the tea was quickly made without taking the care or consideration of how tea should be prepared. After all, the Keurig, which is a product simply of convenience (and very much so for coffee I might add) that it is simply not made to make a good cup of tea, a convenient one, sure, but good, no.

I am curious to try another tea using the machine, just to see if it is the machine or the companies that make the instant tea. Next time I suppose.

Absolutely revolting. Avoid, avoid, aviod! (Exterminate!)