The Good: Good aroma, Good ingredients
The Bad: Caffeine free, Proportionately expensive, Tastes absolutely terrible.
The Basics: A surprisingly gross tea made with excellent ingredients, Berry Detox is not worth drinking by those who love fruity teas!
I'm not a drinker (of anything other than tea) so I'm not exactly sure why I would need a “detox” tea, but I know I'm not one to turn away from a gift. So when Yogi Tea Berry Detox arrived on my doorstep, I vowed to try it even if it was not something I had a medicinal need for. As it is, from the taste alone, I am sorry I did! If this is what one has to drink to clear the body out of harmful toxins, it might be preferable to keep the toxins in!
Berry Detox is half clear in its name, half in the "adjective tea" category where the name does not actually tell the consumer what to expect. But, in truth, this is an herbal tea which just tastes terrible.
Basics
Berry Detox Tea is an herbal tea from Yogi Tea, an Oregon-based tea company that seems to be trading on the whole organic movement. As an herbal tea, it is very easy for Berry Detox to be caffeine free, as none of the ingredients naturally have caffeine. Yogi Tea has its Berry Detox tea available year round and it is one of the brand's staple teas. Yogi Tea Berry Detox is my first experience with Yogi Tea tea and I was a little surprised to discover that the brand, which is trading on environmental and health responsibility, was more expensive and did not mimic Celestial Seasonings' environmentally respectful packaging.
Berry Detox comes in Yogi Tea's standard tea bags, which are individually wax paper wrapped and have a five inch string. The string is attached to a paper tab, but the teabag slides uninhibited out of the foil-lined package when one tears the top open. A box of Berry Detox tea comes with only 16 individual wax paper-wrapped tea bags, which makes it a bit more expensive than other brands which have the same price, but more teabags in the box. This seems remarkably wasteful to have so much waste as far as paper, string and staples, especially for a company that is trying to appeal to environmentalists and organic health food connoisseurs.
Ease Of Preparation
As an herbal tea, Berry Detox is ridiculously easy to prepare. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea and may be reused and make a second cup of Berry Detox with significant loss of flavor. The second cup often comes out only about 1/2 as strong as the first, provided the first steeping was not over the recommended time. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though in this method, the second brewing is - at best - about 1/2 strength, making it less than ideal for the second brewing.
To prepare Berry Detox tea, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour it over the tea bags. This tea takes a full five to ten minutes to steep according to the directions. In my experience, it takes the full ten minutes to get up to full flavor.
Taste
Unfortunately, that taste is not worth the wait. Berry Detox has a surprisingly cinnamon tinge to its aroma. In addition to smelling like berries, as it claims, the tea smells faintly and distinctly of cinnamon, which is a nice touch. The aroma is in no way overbearing.
Unfortunately for those who love tea, Berry Detox tastes terrible. If there is a berry taste to Berry Detox one does not get it from drinking it without sugar. Instead, this is a terribly dry tea that tastes more like undiluted black tea than anything else. It is harsh on the tongue and as one swallows it, it tastes abrasive going down the throat. If it seems like I am describing the taste more with unpleasant textures, then I am describing the taste accurately; this is annoyingly flavorless and the more the aftertaste lingers in my mouth and throat, the more my mind is harkening back to Mucomist, a liver detoxifier used in radical cases when the body needs to detox. That is the sense memory this tea is calling up in me.
With a teaspoon of sugar, Berry Detox livens up some and becomes less disgusting and actually tastes vaguely fruit flavored. Even so, “berry” is not the precise flavor, though sugar does help cut the aftertaste. Discrete amounts of milk also cut the aftertaste of Berry Detox. Nothing seems top overwhelm the harsh flavor of this tea, though.
Cool or a second brewing results in a far more diluted and bland flavor. This is not an ideal tea for the teabag miser.
Nutrition
The ingredients to this tea are all organic or natural and are highlighted by: Organic ginger root, organic fennel seed, and organic hibiscus flower. There is nothing in this tea that cannot be pronounced.
In terms of nutrition, this tea is devoid of it. One 8 oz. mug of this tea provides nothing of nutritional value to the drinker. There are no calories (save what one adds from sugar, which I recommend), no fat, sodium, caffeine or protein. Even though I consume a lot of caffeine, the lack of caffeine in this is still a bit of a detraction for me. I have no objective test for whether it truly does detoxify the body or not.
Storage/Clean-up
Berry Detox tea is very easy to clean up after, provided one does not get it on fabric. The tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. If composting, though, one must remove the paper tag, staple and string, which is just a tedious extra step. The tea itself will not stain mugs or the steeping kettle.
Berry Detox is a rather light tea and as a result, it will stain any light fabrics it comes in contact with, but not darker ones. As a result, it is highly recommended that one not let it linger on anything they wish to protect and not have stained. It may be cleaned off if the spill is caught quickly, but if it lingers, it is not at all easy to wash out of clothes, linens or other fabrics.
Overall
Berry Detox is an unfortunately bitter beginning to my Yogi Tea experiences and it might help clean the body, but it does nothing pleasant for the tastebuds!
For other teas, please check out my reviews of:
Republic Of Tea Earl Greyer
Stash Coconut Mango Oolong
Celestial Seasonings Zingers To Go Peach Delight
3/10
For other beverage reviews, please check out my index page!
© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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