The Good: Nothing bad in it, Does not taste bad
The Bad: Not at all an extraordinary representation of Bergamot flavor, Extraneous tea garbage.
The Basics: Tazo Earl Grey tea leaves me unimpressed as it is a more tea-flavored tea than a Bergamot-flavored Earl Grey.
Once upon a time, I dated a young woman who believed that Tazo teas were the absolute best teas in the world. Having had no contact with her in years, I can only hope that her palate has improved since then. She provided me with my first Tazo teas and they were reason enough for me to give the brand a pretty wide berth. But, for the holidays, my in-laws came to visit and when they took us out for a fancy breakfast, I could not resist the reviewing potential of all of the teabags that were laying about. So, I helped myself to some Tazo teabags and the first flavor I decided to brew up was the Tazo Earl Grey tea. This makes a lot of sense for me as Earl Grey is my favorite tea, though so far no one has truly topped Celestial Seasonings’ Victorian Earl Grey (reviewed here!) in my book!
Tazo does not even come close, though this is, by far, the most palatable Tazo tea I have yet tried!
Tazo sells itself as "The Reincarnation Of Tea," a new age type tea company that is trying to appeal to those who drink tea for health, wellness and balance as opposed to just someone looking for a hot drink. While I might argue how successful they aren't with the way their products taste, I still find that corporate philosophy to be wonderfully reassuring.
Basics
Tazo Earl Grey is a caffeinated tea from Tazo, a tea company in Portland, Oregon. The tea comes individually wrapped in the box of twenty bags, each tea bag with its own string and paper tab, much like the classic Lipton look. For a company selling itself on responsibility to mind and body, one might find this ironic; why they did not mimic Celestial Seasonings' stringless bags in tribute to the environment is something of a mystery. The twenty bag box is generally found in the same price range as Celestial Seasonings tea and the stark contrast in boxes makes for an easy visual distinction.
Earl Grey is a black tea designed to give the consumer the flavor of a bold, distinctive Earl Grey tea. Unfortunately, while this tastes like tea and is not bad, the Bergamot flavor is hardly rich enough to call this an Earl Grey.
Ease Of Preparation
Earl Grey is a remarkably easy tea to prepare. Earl Grey requires one to open the box, remove the paper-wrapped tea bag, unwrap that, unwind the string from around the tea bag and then set it into the teapot. One need only place the tea bag in a mug or a steeping pot and pour near-boiling water over it. Let steep for three to five minutes and the tea is ready. For my first cup, I let it steep the full five minutes to get the full flavor from it. This produced a fairly dark cup of tea, which set it apart from other Tazo teas I have tried.
For those who are tea bag misers, a second cup made by reusing the same tea bag resulted in a mug of tea that was less than half as strong as the first cup. The second steeping also resulted in a tea which was much drier in flavor than the original brewing and that made it impossible to effectively reuse.
Taste
The scent of Tazo Earl Grey is, appropriately, that of Bergamot. Bergamot has a strong scent with a very subtle underscent that is just a little sweeter, almost like an insinuation of orange blossom. Tazo’s Earl Grey smells faintly of Bergamot, but it was enough for me to get my hopes up.
And then they were dashed. The Tazo Earl Grey tastes very dry and strong initially and I could not put my finger on why I wasn’t loving the tea for a few sips. Then it came to me; unlike most Earl Grey teas, Tazo’s tastes dark more than Bergamot. The tea flavor of the black tea overwhelms the Bergamot flavoring. And while this beverage has the trademarked Earl Grey dry aftertaste, it is not as bold as others and it is not as dry. In other words, Tazo Earl Grey hints at all of the elements of an effective and delicious Earl Grey tea, but then delivers a tea that tastes more like a standard black tea than an Earl Grey!
Nutrition
The ingredients to Earl Grey tea are rather simple, as this is just black teas blended with the essence of Bergamot. There appears to be nothing sinister hiding in this tea and that is refreshing for tea drinkers like me.
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), no fat, sodium, or protein. There is caffeine, but how much is not published. One should not attempt to live on Tazo Earl Grey alone! Earl Grey is Kosher for those who keep Kosher.
Storage/Clean-up
Because of the various layers of packaging, Earl Grey appears to stay fresh for quite some time. So long as it is kept dry, this tea has a decent shelf life. As far as cleaning up, one need only rinse out the steeping pot or mug to prevent it from staining. The tea bags may be tossed easily enough. For those - like me - who compost their old tea bags, it is important to remove the staple and string with the little paper tab before composting this. That's an annoying extra step, especially after a year of Celestial Seasonings teas!
As for the tea itself, this is a dark tea and I would recommend cleaning up any spills on lighter fabrics as soon after they happen as possible. This will stain dark and medium fabrics, so consult your fabric guide for how to treat stains.
Overall
Tazo Earl Grey is not a bad tea, but it is an underwhelming Earl Grey tea, making it yet another from Tazo that may safely be passed by.
For other Tazo tea reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Wild Sweet Orange
Passion tea
Lotus tea
4.5/10
For other food and drink reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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