Hello my friends. This is probably my mildest post yet. It is about mild teas. I have practically been a caffeine addict for the last two years. Well, it’s begun to affect my sleep too much, so I am turning back to an old friend: herbal teas.
I had forgotten just how powerful hibiscus can taste when I had some the other day. Now I’m recalling such favorites as catnip, camomille, and nettle. I just got this “Very Berry” tea from Germany, and it has all manner of exotic berries in it as well as that staple of herb teas, hibiscus.
I like all teas including herbal/fruit teas because I am not a coffee drinker. I normally buy Healtheries brand which is a NZ company, and of the fruit teas, I do prefer the berry but often buy others too for variety. The one I’m drinking at the moment is Wildberry with blackberry, raspberry and blueberry.
I drink Chamomile before bed but I still need my caffeine hit in the morning, then it’s Dilmah black tea.
My long time favorite is Celestial Seasonings Red Zinger. A 2 pound bag of this was given to me on my 16th birthday. (Purchased at the local co-op, the only place we could find it back then.) That’s a lot of tea! I drink it hot in the winter and cool or room temperature in summer.
I love Rooibos tea (also known as Red Tea). It’s from South Africa and made from a certain bush that only grows there. It tastes like mild black tea and it’s caffiene free.
I don’t have much of a tolerance for caffeine, so I usually go for herbal tea. I prefer the citrus flavors, especially lemon, although a nice mint can be refreshing as well. Camomille is good for relaxing, and berry can be nice too…hmmm…sometimes I like a nice spicy ginger or cinnamon…I guess I love pretty much every kind of herbal tea!
I just finished a cup of Celestial Seasonings Honey Vanilla Chamomile, which is nice enough. I opened a box of CS Wild Berry Zinger yesterday, which I loved. I have had some nice teas from Republic of Tea, Stash & Tazo as well.
My standard is Bigelow Constant Comment. I’ll have Celestial Seasonings Blueberry if I’m feeling fruity (tastes like a blueberry muffin!). Both of these are excellent teas. However, I would highly recommend that you check out Revolution Tea’s Dragon Eye Oolong. Quality stuff, that. It has a luxurious apricot flavor. It’s also good to throw a bag of Dragon Eye in with regular Tetley for iced tea. I don’t use it very often, as it’s pretty expensive. Worth every penny, in my estimation. Linky-dink
I am a big iced tea drinker and there are several Celestial Seasonings that work well. My all-time favorite was “Blackberry”. They changed it to “Cherry Blackberry” about ten years ago, which was still good but not as good as it was. About two or three years back they changed it to something like “Super Cherry Berry” or some such and GACK – waaay to cherry. They have since discontinued that (I think) and come out with a Blueberry that is very similar to the old Blackberry, with added Blueberry flavor that’s my new fave.
A very close #2 has always been Country Peach Passion, which, fortunately, they have not messed with at all over the years.
Stash makes a few that make good iced tea also, such as their Black Currant.
Best way to make a quart (or liter) of iced tea: Boil about a quarter of a quart (0.25l) of water and have four teabags handy. Steep for at least a half-hour; I’ll often do this last thing at night and let it go overnight. Take out the teabags, pour into your iced tea container and add enough water to fill. Give the container a little shake. Easy!
I almost cried when Celestial Seasonings added all the cherry flavoring to their blackberry tea. I wrote them an email asking them why they had created a cherry Sucrets (a coughdrop sold in the US) flavored tea? They responded that they were sorry I didn’t like the new flavor, but that marketing said it was the way to go. Chortle, maybe it wasn’t. :wally
Anyway. Tazo makes a Wild Sweet Orange herbal tea that is wonderful.