Commercial iced tea: Wendy's Green Tea

I drink bad tea so that you don't have to.

While on a recent road trip, I stopped at Wendy's in need of something to drink.  Wendy's black iced tea is a perfectly acceptable caffeine delivery system.   Given that I had few other choices while in the middle of gorram nowhere, it seemed like a reasonable stop to make.

But -- and there is always a "but" isn't there? -- I didn't want too much more caffeine that particular day, because the insomnia has been kicking my butt of late.  So I ordered Wendy's iced green tea.

Don't.  Just Don't.   Learn from my mistakes and never let this swill pass your lips.

To begin with, it was way too sweet, in that artificial bug juice sort of way that stops being appealing about the time one hits puberty.   After the sweetness smacked around my palate for a bit, the cloying, almost chemical, aftertaste kicked in.  I wanted to scrape the roof of my mouth to get that taste out of it.  There was nothing natural about this concoction and certainly nothing remotely connected to tea.

Tea tasting: Tea Forte's Blueberry Merlot

After some deeply disappointing tastings of late, Tea Forte's Blueberry Merlot herbal tea is a nice return to form.   It's got a rich, rounded blueberry flavor, quite fruity.   Adding honey brings out the richness of the flavor, but might make it overly sweet to some people.

I don't know where the merlot comes in.  I don't taste anything wine-like.  I suppose the aroma might have some wine-like qualities if you went looking for them.  This is not a disadvantage, in my world.

Tea Tasting: Republic of Tea's Downton Abbey Estate Blend

I admit, my first cup of Downton Abbey Estate Blend disappointed me deeply.  It's grown on me since then, with some careful handling.

Downton Abbey Estate Blend is essentially a combination of Earl Grey and vanilla: black tea, bergamot orange oil and vanilla.   By all rights, this should work for me, right?   On the first up, it Did Not Work.  I accidentally let it steep past 5 minutes and, unlike most other kinds of Republic of Tea teas, this long steep pretty much ruined it.   The bergamot became too perfume-y, the vanilla became gag-inducingly bad potpourri.  I didn't think there could be a vanilla flavor that I didn't like, but I should know never to say never.

Undaunted, I began to experiment to see whether the full package of tea could be salvaged.  Fortunately, it could.   Limiting the steeping to no more than 3.5 minutes keeps the bergamot and vanilla in line.  Adding some honey after the 3.5 minute steep manages the flavors to the point where they are a feature, not a bug.   With some attention and patience, it has become decently drinkable.

This is one of Republic of Tea's limited edition Downton Abbey-themed teas.  Unlike the sublime Downton Abbey English Rose, this one should stay "limited."

Tea tasting: Tea Forté's Cherry Cosmo

Tea Forté's Cherry Cosmo is a darn peculiar tea.  In addition to the cherry fruit flavor, there's a weird, almost fizzy over-taste.  It's not quite lime.  It's not quite hibiscus.  Looking at the ingredients, I can't quite account for it:  organic rosehips, organic hibiscus, organic apple pieces, organic raspberries, natural cherry flavor, other natural flavoring (berry).

As a hot tea, the over-taste is borderline unpleasant.  As an iced tea, however, it more or less vanishes; what's left is a flavorful tart cherry taste.

As between Cherry Cosmo and Adagio's similar Dewy Cherry, I like Dewy Cherry better as a hot tea, but this one better as an iced tea, although neither is ideal.  Honestly, the best cherry tea I've tasted so far is good old reliable Celestial Seasonings' Black Cherry Berry.

Tea tasting: Tea Forté's Tupelo Honey Fig

I've been trying to finish off the tea I have before acquiring any new tea, hence the radio silence for a bit.  However, in the midst of today's awful weather, I did manage to find my white tea sampler and try something new: Tea Forté's Tupelo Honey Fig White Tea.

Tupelo honey is a type of honey made from specific trees (white tupelo trees) that bloom in the Southeastern U.S.   Apparently it's considered a gourmet honey.  As with everything, you can find it for sale on the internet (http://www.teavana.com/us/en/tea/tea-sweeteners/tupelo-honey-011046728.html).

This is a very very lightly sweet tea, with a strong minty and herbal finish.  The sweetness is definitely the sweetness of honey, not sugar (and certainly not the taste abomination that is high fructose corn syrup).  There's a smokey quality to the sweetness, if that makes any sense.   In addition to fig and the honey, the tisane contains licorice root, fennel, myrtle and peppermint, all of which combine to make a fascinatingly complex flavor.    To be honest, I really don't taste fig at all amid all of the other stuff going on.

This is not a delicate white tea.  Because it's got strong flavors, I tried icing some of it, which worked surprisingly well.   If I were to plan on serving it iced, I'd make sure to have fresh mint to add to the glasses.

Tea tasting: Trader Joe's Raspberry Black

Raspberry is one of my favorite flavors, so I'm always eager to try teas featuring raspberry. Anyone who finds a tea that combines vanilla, raspberry and almond will earn my undying love.

Unfortunately, Trader Joe's Raspberry Black tea is a huge disappointment.  It's a decent black.  But it has nothing in it that makes it raspberry.  There's just the faintest aftertaste of something sweet.

However, combining this tea with the Raspberry Sugar from the Spice and Tea Exchange that I reviewed previously works out incredibly well.  The sugar brings out whatever raspberry qualities should be in this tea as well as adding its own raspberry sweetness.

Tea tasting: Tea Forté's Kiwi Lime Ginger

My newly blossomed head cold demands a lot of tea, and that tea needs to have flavor and not have caffeine.   So, I opened my sample package of Kiwi Lime Ginger herbal tea by Tea Forté.

My initial reaction is not promising.  The brew smells sort of like cough medicine, and not in a good way.  The aroma fairly reeks of ginger, with a sharp slightly unpleasant citrus overtone.  Looking back over the ingredients, I see the "problem": organic honeybush, organic ginger root, organic rooibos, organic lemon peel, natural kiwi flavor and natural lime flavor.

Ugh.   I wasn't expecting a tea billed as "herbal" to be rooibos-based.  Ugh.   But I will soldier boldly on in order to give you a proper review.

If I hold my nose, the flavor of the tea is no more than adequate.  It's not particularly flavorful, unfortunately.  There's a very little citrus bite in the background.  The ginger is relegated to an aftertaste.  It certainly doesn't make up for the sheer unpleasantness (to me) of the aroma.

I've got some single-steep packages left.  If you don't object to the scent of rooibos, I'll happily give them away to someone who might enjoy them.