"Just like big piles of pumpkins at roadside stands and perfectly baked pumpkin pies on kitchen tables, Sweet Harvest Pumpkin™ Holiday Black Tea in tea cups everywhere is a sure sign that the holidays are near. Featuring rich black tea, harvest-fresh pumpkin flavor and traditional spices like cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg plus a touch of natural sweetness, this festive blend is a delicious little slice of the season."
Ingredients:
Black Tea, Cinnamon, Ginger, Roasted Chicory, Natural Pumpkin Flavor With Other Natural Flavors (Soy Lecithin), Luo Han Guo, Cloves, Nutmeg, Natural Sweetener (Stevia Extract) and Pumpkin.
My Review:
The leaves are turning brilliant colors and covering the yard. The afternoon air has a chill. Yep, it's fall here. We all know what that means. It's time to break out the fall teas. This one was actually the very first Celestial Seasonings tea I had tried. Apparently, I never reviewed it, so let's do it now.
The bags are packed inside the box in a kind of re-close-able bag, kind of. It doesn't really seal but is better than nothing. The bags themselves are stringless, tagless, and staple free. What that means is you are going to need a spoon to get the hot bag out of the cup.
Dry, the bag smells intensely of spicy pumpkin pie filling. Mmmmmm. I used lightly boiling water and steeped for..... uhm..... a long time. Probably 5 minutes. I was watching the season premiere of Grimm, and got a bit distracted.
The cup did not suffer with the long steep. It was not bitter and I could actually taste the black tea base. It was nothing amazing, it is just that flavored bagged teas often overpower the actual tea. I was pleased.
The taste does not quite live up to the promise of the scent. Where as the dry aroma is unmistakably pumpkin, the cup is more pumpkin spice chai. The pumpkin just kind of gets lost. Even so, this is very tasty and pretty sweet (contains Stevia).
This is one of the better bagged teas of the type. Honestly, I have never had a pumpkin pie tea that lived up to my expectation. Then again I have never put a dollop of Cool Whip on top either. So maybe it is my own fault.
Pumpkin tea check. Christmas teas will soon appear on the shelves, then I'm ready for spring.
I was really liking the aroma of this tea and I was quite disappointed. I am forcing myself to finish this cup so that I'm not wasting it. The Stevia overpowers everything in this tea (at least to me). I bought a box of Yogi Vanilla Spice tea and oh my goodness it is so good I feel like I need to stock up because I don't want to run out. And it is a mixture of black and green tea with actual vanilla bean in it so that made me happy. It surpasses my expectations. I don't like to sweeten my teas very often and if I do I only really use honey. I don't really know why I pick up on the sweetener so much. I am very sad that I can't taste any of the other flavors in it and I am kind of frustrated that they added this in there. To me it would be better to let people sweeten it how they like so that everyone can enjoy it. I will pass this along to someone that doesn't mind the Stevia flavor.
ReplyDeleteI have heard many others complain of the Stevia in this one. Having only recently become accustomed to my tea without a Splenda crutch, I might well have the same reaction to the over sweetness next time I try this one. I do agree, tea company let me decide if the cup needs sweetened.
Delete