The Good: Decent with sugar, Nothing bad in it
The Bad: Naturally decaffeinated, Not strongly mango.
The Basics: A good, but not great, tea, acai mango's fruity properties are too often overwhelmed by the tea flavoring.
It's always nice to be back with brand new tea reviews! My new stock of Celestial Seasonings teas is already rotating well as I write reviews of flavors of teas that are new to me as well as some that are completely new to the market! One of the more intriguing flavors of tea I picked up last year on my cross-country trip to the Celestial Seasonings plant in Boulder, Colorado, was Acai Mango Zinger!
I'll be honest up front: I love mangoes, but to the best of my knowledge, I have never had an acai berry in my life. According to the box of Celestial Seasonings tea, the acai is a berry that is grown in the Brazilian rainforests. Whatever they are, it is refreshing to know that Celestial Seasonings acquired them according to fair trade practices. Thus, Acai Mango Zinger is not only tasty, but socially responsible, as far as tea goes.
Basics
Acai Mango Zinger is a tea from Celestial Seasonings. It is a 100% natural herbal tea that has no caffeine because all of the all natural herbs in it are naturally devoid of caffeine. Acai Mango Zinger comes in Celestial Seasoning's standard stringless tea bags, which are paired together with easy to separate perforations that allow one to separate the tea bags. When I make pots of tea, I tend to use two bags and leave them connected. A box of Acai Mango Zinger comes with ten pairs (20 individual) of tea bags.
Acai Mango Zinger is marketed as a mango and acai flavored tea and it manages the mango with sugar and by the scent of the tea. If acai is a berry that tastes somewhat like tea leaves, then it gets the acai right, too. This is a tea that works, barely, given my strict qualifications that the tea must taste like the fruit it claims to. It is certainly not bad, but it is only faintly mango flavored.
Ease Of Preparation
Acai Mango Zinger is a tea, which means preparation is as easy as boiling a pot of water! A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea, though reusing the tea bags yields little more than hot water. These tea bags cannot be reused and even credibly call the result "tea." I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though it is impossible to get a decent second pot out of the bags.
To prepare Acai Mango Zinger, simply boil some water, and pour it over the tea bags in a cup, mug or steeping pot. This tea is recommended to take four to six minutes to steep and after a couple cups and pots, I've found that with truly boiling water, the tea is ready at the four minute mark and letting it steep longer does not change the results in any significant fashion. Letting the tea steep more than six minutes does not net any additional flavor, nor does it denature the flavor of the tea.
When visiting the Celestial Seasonings plant in Boulder, Colorado and taking the free tour there, I remember distinctly the tour guide warning us all that with the Zinger teas milk cannot be added. If you add milk to a Zinger tea, the tea curdles the milk, I'm fairly sure it was because of the citric acid in the tea. The problem is, I'm not positive that's the reason (I am sure of the warning and the result of adding milk to Zinger teas), but I seem to recall that citric acid was to blame. As a result of a good faith belief that the people who produce this product know what they are talking about, none of my sampling of Acai Mango Zinger involved adding milk to it.
Taste
Acai Mango Zinger has a decent aroma that is faintly of mango when the tea is steaming hot. This prepared me to be wowed by the taste of the tea I was sampling. Unfortunately, the steam and the tea could be from two different cups!
Acai Mango Zinger tastes like tea, a mild tea, somewhat bland and tasteless. There is a vaguely sweet quality to the tea that is reminiscent of mango and a little bit of an aftertaste that is just a bit tart, which could be acai.
With a teaspoon of sugar, however, the blandness dissipates and the full fruity undertone of this tea erupts! Instead of only being subtly mango, this tea suddenly becomes a very true blending of mango flavor and tea. I suppose this tea tastes like what one might expect tea to taste like if it were brewed and filtered through a mango skin (or in a mango steeping pot). It is not intensely mango, but between the smell and the taste, it becomes pretty obvious what fruit it is supposed to taste like.
Acai Mango Zinger is dull cold, even with sugar. There is nothing that makes it scream - or even whisper - mango, so it becomes a very average tea cold.
Nutrition
It is not surprising that the dominant flavor of Acai Mango Zinger not particularly mango, considering that the primary ingredients are: hibiscus, rosehips and orange peel. While acai is represented fairly well in the tea, mango is given a lip service with "Natural Mango Flavors" defining that portion of the tea mix. Acai Mango Zinger tea is 100% natural and it is caffeine-free.
Were it not for the sugar I add whenever I make pots of Acai Mango Zinger, this tea would be devoid of any nutritional value. It contains no calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates or protein. It is Gluten free for those for whom that matters.
Storage/Clean-up
Acai Mango Zinger is easy to clean up after - the tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. The tea is fairly light, though it has a bit of a red color to it, even at full strength. It would likely stain, if one left it on fabric for a long time, but mug that holds the tea rinses clean. Spills ought to be cleaned up quickly to prevent this tea from staining fabrics, though that's a pretty good general rule not just limited to the Acai Mango Zinger tea.
Overall
Acai Mango Zinger is good, but it is not as distinct in its advertised flavor as I would usually like. The scent is good and with sugar it tastes like mangoes, but otherwise, it is a somewhat bland tea.
For other Celestial Seasonings tea reviews, please check out:
Bengal Spice
Raspberry Zinger
Peach Apricot Honeybush
5.5/10
For other food and drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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