Steaz Organic Teaz

Anytime something is spelled wrong on a label, I get thinking.  I wonder why the hell people can't spell things normally, for starters. And I never think "Hey, that's really clever," no, I usually consider pluralizing with a z or spelling things with an initial K instead of  C to be an irritatingly cutesy (if not plain stupid) marketing gimmick for something that probably sucks.

Allow me to present Steaz Organic Iced Teaz.

Steaz bottled teas are usually pretty good, for the record. I'm not talking about Teaz® here, I'm talking about the plural of the word tea. I've had their regular black tea and it's been good, and the white tea is good enough that I don't ask myself why I didn't make my own damn tea, but as soon as they're slapping pictures of happy tea farmers on the can and adding fruit to it, something happens. It gets nasty.

Steaz Organic Fruit Teaz come in six varieties: Green tea with Blueberry Pomegranate Acai, Green Tea with Peach, Black Tea with Lemon, and White tea with Pomegranate and Lime, unsweetened Green Tea with Lemon, and Green Tea with Mint. I'll be reviewing the first four here, because that's all I could find.

Where do I even start? I'll start with Green Tea Peach. The flavor was certainly that of green tea, but Dave and I found only the barest hint of peach flavor to it. Dave actually described it as, "Like someone walked a peach by it." And that's fairly accurate. The peach flavor was there, but it was more of an "essence" than a real "flavor." My mother, on the other hand, thought that it was "very peachy." She also likes things more subtly flavored than Dave and I, so maybe we're just the wrong market for theze Teaz.

The Green Tea with Blueberry Pomegranate Acai wasn't much better.  There was the typical green tea astringency with a vague fruit flavor there, but the blueberry and pomegranate flavors just sort of muddied each other together without letting either of them be distinct enough to really enjoy.  Acai might have been in the mix, but it was indistinguishable.

Next up was the White Tea with Pomegranate and Lime. My friend Jess was over when I cracked this one open, and I let her take the first sip of it. She described it as "Gymbag Tea." This time, the White Tea's natural flavor was overpowered by a flavor reminiscent of dirt, artificial limes, and something kind of soapy. It was such a completely nasty tea that I ended up dumping  it out, and nothing of value was lost. Everyone in the house who tried it had the same expression on their face: ( ﾟдﾟ)

The best of the ones we found was the Black Tea with Lemon, but even this was flawed.  The lemon flavor was completely out of proportion with the tea, and it tasted more like a blend of lemonade and tea than a tea flavored with lemon.  Props for the tea not being heavily sweetened - there was just a touch of "evaporated cane juice" to take the sharp edges off the lemon and tea, but not enough to make a sickly-sweet Liptonesque concoction - but otherwise still not what I was expecting.


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Peace Iced Tea

While shopping at a small, local grocery store a few weeks ago, Dave found a flat of canned raspberry-flavored iced tea. He'd said that he bought it partly because of the "ridiculous psychedelic artwork" on the can, and partly because it was a great deal - a 23 ounce can for 99 cents. And when he showed it to me, we both laughed and jokingly dubbed it "Hippie Tea." Well, to both our surprise, this iced tea is exceptionally good. The sugar is cut with sucralose, dropping it to 50 calories per serving and it comes in four flavors - Razzleberry, Imported Ceylon, Sweet Lemon, and Green Tea. Each of the Peace Iced Teas are made with all natural tea, with no artificial colors or flavors and no preservatives. With the exception of the Sweet Lemon Tea, which we haven't tried yet, we're all very pleased with them.

The only clue we had to go off of as to who made this iced tea came off of the Razzleberry Tea can - just under the barcode is a dog wearing a hankerchief around his neck. It had the telltale trademark green "M" that Monster Energy uses as their trademark. When I told that to Dave, he decided to do some looking on his own. As it turns out, both Monster Energy and Peace Teas are owned by Hansen Natrual Beverages, though Hansen's official site doesn't list either of them in their product listing. That's okay, though, because all of them list the same address to contact, right down to the letter.

Links:
Hansen's Natural Beverages - Home
Peace Iced Tea - Home (very Flash heavy; may be slow on some computers!)

Eight Treasures Chrysanthemum Tea

Today I am going to let you in on one of the best-kept secrets in the world of tea: Ten Fu Eight Treasures Chrysanthemum Tea. Next to Lapsang Souchong, this is my favorite tea of all time. It can be hard to find in the US - I have to order it online, because no markets carry it in my neck of the woods - but it is so worth it.

Eight Treasures Tea is a type of green tea with seven other ingredients, each of which are used in traditional Chinese herbal medicine:

• Chrysanthemums - help reduce fever and sore throat.
  
• Jujube - is said to help relieve stress; it also soothes the throat and is a general tonic to help fight the common cold
• Chinese Wolfberries are small bright-orange berries that are rich in nutrients and especially high in antioxidants
• Dragoneye fruit, also known as longan, is another relaxant
• Tremella, or snow fungus, helps soothe coughing, is valued as an immune stimulant, and may help lower LDL (or "bad") cholesterol
• Raisin - are said to reduce fever
• Rock Sugar - while it may not be medicinal in and of itself, it's common in Chinese medicinal preparations and is considered healthier and purer than common sugar
  

When I first discovered Eight Treasures Chrysanthemum Tea, I wasn't aware of any of this. I loved the taste - similar to green tea, but with soft floral and fruity notes - and because it was so hard to find in my area, I was careful with my stash and only had it occasionally, as a treat. But then I noticed that when I was miserable with the flu or a cold, a nice pot of Eight Treasures made me feel better, and that's when I researched the ingredients and found out about their special properties. I'm not convinced that the tea makes my colds go away faster, but I know absolutely that I suffer less by drinking it when I'm feeling under the weather, but it's a tea that I enjoy any time.

Links:

Eight Treasures Chrysanthemum Tea is made by the Ten Fu division of the Ten Ren's Tea Company, and can be purchased directly from their online store, Uncle Lee's Tea.

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Lapsang Souchong

Autumn's just about here. The nights are getting cooler and longer, and until I fire up the pellet stove for the season, the house gets a little chilly at night. Chilly enough for a good cup of tea, y'know?

So I brew a big mug of Lapsang Souchong. It's a unique variety of black tea: the leaves are dried over pine fires, which impart an unusual smoky taste to the tea. It's not a "culinary" smoke flavor, like hickory-smoked bacon or applewood-smoked pork. No...it's a"true" smoke. A "wild" smoke. The smoke of a lightning-kindled brush fire, or a latenight campfire.

When I was a kid and October came around, the whole family would work outside on cold clear Sunday afternoons, raking and piling leaves. The days were sunny and the skies were cloudless and bright blue, and we could see our breath as the wide bamboo rakes pulled oak leaves across the yard to the burn pile out by the toolshed. Late in the afternoon, we'd light the leaves and burn the piles down to ash. The fire was warm on our faces and the smoke stung our eyes when the wind shifted. We'd watch the fire and smell the smoke and we were tired from raking leaves and piling branches all day, but we knew there was beef stew with dumplings waiting in the kitchen and besides, the smoke smelled great.

October skies and leaf fires. That was where my very first mug of Lapsang Souchong took me. The aroma and taste of the tea is almost a perfect simulation of that long-ago autumn air.

And that's not the only memory that Lapsang nudges awake. Some of the best times of my life have been wrapped in fire and smoke. Clambakes on the beach cooked over driftwood fires. Half-drunken marathon Monopoly games in front of the fireplace at my best friend's house back in the '70s. Poking at a bright campfire while my three-year-old daughter sings herself to sleep in the tent behind me. Thawing out beside the fire, winter camping during hunting season in Vermont.

Yeah. That's one damn amazing cup of tea.