The Good: Two good teas
The Bad: Three mediocre or bad teas.
The Basics: With yet another disappointing sampler pack, Celestial Seasonings unloads the mildly flavored green teas on the unsuspecting tea drinkers.
For all of my love of Celestial Seasonings, I often find that I do not enjoy the sampler packs that they produce. I think it is too often the way the company makes a cunning way of getting rid of their slower selling products. In the case of the Green Tea Sampler, I had discovered in my tea sampling that most of the flavors were thoroughly underwhelming and as a result, it was hard to get excited about the sampler that combined them.
Indeed, perhaps part of the reason the samplers are so hard to enjoy is all of the extra waste they generate. Celestial Seasonings is remarkably environmentally friendly, so the added individual wrapping for each tea in this multipack is a marked change from the usual.
Basics
The Green Tea Sampler is a collection of five teas from Celestial Seasonings: Raspberry Gardens, Authentic Green tea, Decaffeinated Green tea, Decaf Mandarin Orchard, and Honey Lemon Ginseng. They are Green teas and some are caffeinated (see "Nutrition" below). The Green Tea Sampler separates the flavors by wax/plastic coated packages that have four each of the Celestial Seasoning's standard stringless tea bags. They are individual tea bags in these packs, not the standard pairs. When I make pots of tea, I tend to use two bags, which means the Green Tea Sampler gives me only two pots of each. The Green Tea Sampler has twenty tea bags total; four of each of the five flavors.
Ease Of Preparation
All five teas in the Green Tea Sampler are teas, which means preparation is as easy as almost boiling a pot of water! Green teas, as the directions clearly state, require water that is not quite boiling. Boiling water cooks the tea leaves and ruins the flavor, so water used for green teas like this one must be kept below a full boil. 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." Indeed, the second pots I've tried were incredibly weak, tasting only like the remnants of green tea. These bags are one-use only. 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 green tea, simply heat up some water, and pour it over the tea bags in a cup, mug or steeping pot. This tea is recommended to take three to five minutes to steep and after a couple cups and pots, I've found that with almost boiling water, the tea is ready at the five minute mark and letting it steep longer does not truly change the results. Letting the tea steep more than six minutes does not net any additional flavor, nor does it denature the flavor of the tea.
Taste
Raspberry Gardens, on its own, does not taste even vaguely like raspberries. The green tea flavor easily overwhelms it. Sadly, it is not even vaguely fruity. It is not sour like real raspberries, it is not fruity or delicious, it is dry and bland. Many people complain that Celestial Seasonings teas are more like hot fruit drinks than teas; Raspberry Gardens is very much the opposite of that. There is almost no fruit flavor to this very tea-flavored tea. Raspberry Gardens does have a minimal aftertaste to it that is a tiny bit sour and quite dry. The dry mouth aftertaste is emblematic of most green teas in my experience and Raspberry Gardens is no better or worse in that regard.
Authentic Green Tea might well be one of the teas that is best to talk about in terms of coffee. If one makes a pot of coffee and reuses the grounds, one ends up with a remarkably diluted second pot of coffee that tastes only like the aftertaste of the original beans' flavor. Green tea is like that for tea, but that is how it starts out. If one were to take a standard black tea, brew a pot or even two with the leaves and then brew another pot, you would have a tea that is about as intense and dark and flavorful as green tea. The only taste note of note is the aftertaste. Green teas are notorious for a dry aftertaste. Authentic Green Tea is no exception in this regard; the tea leaves the mouth feeling and tasting dry. It is not distinct or carrying any other flavor, it is simply the essence and taste of dry. It is a pretty worthless drink that leaves the consumer feeling thirsty after drinking it.
Decaffeinated Green Tea quite seriously tastes identical to the Authentic Green Tea. As a result, this is like a weakened version of a standard, bland, no-brand-name tea one might find in a hotel. If one were to take a standard black tea, brew a pot or even two with the leaves and then brew another pot, you would have a tea that is about as intense and dark and flavorful as green tea.
Decaf Mandarin Orchard, on its own, does not taste even vaguely like oranges. The green tea flavor easily overwhelms it. Sadly, it is not even vaguely fruity. There is nothing even that hints at citrus or fruit in this tea; it is simply dry and bland and tea flavored. Many people complain that Celestial Seasonings teas are more like hot fruit drinks than teas; Decaf Mandarin Orchard is very much the opposite of that. There is no fruit flavor to this very tea-flavored tea.
Honey Lemon Ginseng tastes great. There is a subtle flavor to it that balances the actual taste (but not the sweetness) of honey with the tea leaf flavor. The lemon is almost entirely absent, but this also means that the tea is not at all tart. Instead, there is a somewhat generic, ginseng tea flavor to this that is not in any way overpowering. Sadly, that makes it very difficult to describe as well.
All of these teas are enhanced by the addition of even a little sugar. Most of them, however, are not improved enough to overcome their generally weak flavor.
Nutrition
These teas are primarily made of varying proportions of Green Tea and accenting herbs. Ironically, for the flavored teas, most of the primary fruits tend to fall near the bottom of the ingredients lists. Some of the teas have caffeine and some are naturally decaffeinated in this pack. Raspberry Gardens, Authentic Green Tea and Honey Lemon Ginseng are caffeinated. There is no caffeine meter on the box, though to tell how caffeinated they are. The other two teas are naturally decaffeinated.
Were it not for the sugar I add whenever I make pots of teas from the Green Tea Sampler, these teas would be devoid of any nutritional value. They contains no calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates or protein. Fortunately they have some taste, even if they lack caffeine!
Storage/Clean-up
The Green Tea Sampler teas are 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 teas are generally fairly light, though they will stain, if one left them on fabric, but mugs that hold the tea rinse clean. Spills ought to be cleaned up quickly to prevent these tea from staining fabrics, though that's a pretty good general rule not just limited to the Green Tea Sampler teas.
Because of the inner packaging of the Green Tea Sampler teas, less care is needed before the package is opened to keep the box in a cool dry place, but once the individual pouches holding each flavor are opened, it is very important to keep them sealed away from moisture as there is no easy to close the inconvenient little packs.
Overall
Sadly, even for pleasing guests, I cannot see having a box of this on hand. There are too many mediocre teas in this pack and I see no reason to not expect the extraordinary from Celestial Seasonings, even in a sampler pack.
For other Celestial Seasonings tea reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Organic Green tea
Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride
Herbal Sampler
4/10
For other food or 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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