The Good: Decent ginger flavor, Good environmental impact, Aftertaste is not unpleasant.
The Bad: Caffeine Free, Not strongly lemon at all.
The Basics: Jammin’ Lemon Ginger nails the ginger flavor at the expense of a rich lemon taste . . . which is not enough to sink their new herbal tea!
These days, it seems I only get around to reviewing Celestial Seasonings teas when they have a new or limited edition flavor on the market! Celestial Seasonings teas were one of the first brands I truly delved into to review. It helped that I had had some positive experiences with the brand and truly enjoyed visiting the Celestial Seasonings factory in Boulder, Colorado (the tour experience is reviewed here!). So, I was quite happy when my local grocery store started carrying Jammin’ Lemon Ginger tea by Celestial Seasonings. In addition to having something new to try, I had something new to review!
The new herbal tea was (mostly) worth the wait. While I enjoyed the tea for its dry ginger flavor, Jammin’ Lemon Ginger is unlikely to satisfy those who truly love fruit teas as the lemon flavor is understated relative to the ginger flavor of the tea.
Basics
Jammin’ Lemon Ginger is a tea from Celestial Seasonings. It is a 100% natural herb tea that has no caffeine because all of the all natural herbs in it are naturally devoid of caffeine. Jammin’ Lemon Ginger 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 four bags and leave them connected. A box of Jammin’ Lemon Ginger comes with ten pairs (20 individual) of tea bags.
Jammin’ Lemon Ginger is marketed as a lemon flavored tea, but for those looking for lemon, Lemon Zinger (reviewed here!) might be a better choice; this is dominated by the ginger in it!
Ease Of Preparation
Jammin’ Lemon Ginger 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. My attempts found the second pot yielded a fluid that was - at best - 3/8 as strong as the original pot.
To prepare Jammin’ Lemon Ginger, 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 strangely does not 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
Jammin’ Lemon Ginger is an aromatic tea. It smells faintly of citrus and strongly of ginger. The earthy, substantial scent is familiar and strong enough to open the airways with just the steam! That makes this a great tea for those who are just a little stuffed up and looking for relief.
On the tongue, Jammin’ Lemon Ginger has a dry, forceful flavor that is indicative of ginger. It has a slight sharpness to the flavor that insinuates cloves, especially as the tea cools. The mildly bitter tea is not at all unpleasant, but the lemon flavor to the tea deserves the credit for that. Between the dry/bitter of the distinctive ginger flavor and the slight dryness of the final flavor of the Jammin’ Lemon Ginger tea, there is a slightly tart, vaguely lemon flavor that washes over the tongue. It’s like the lemon flavor is working so hard to cut the brutal ginger taste and make it palatable that it cannot assert itself enough to be a fully realized flavor.
With a teaspoon of sugar, the lemon flavor comes to the surface faster, though it does not overwhelm the ginger flavor. Either way, the Jammin’ Lemon Ginger tea leaves the consumer with a slightly dry aftertaste in the mouth, though not one so strong that one feels the need to instantly drink something more.
Nutrition
It's unsurprising that the dominant flavor of Jammin’ Lemon Ginger is ginger, considering that the primary ingredients are: ginger, lemongrass, and lemon verbena. Jammin’ Lemon Ginger tea is 100% natural and it is caffeine-free.
Were it not for the sugar I add occasionally when I make pots of Jammin’ Lemon Ginger (I tend to enjoy this tea for its strong ginger flavor, so I don’t usually add any sugar to it!), this tea would be devoid of any nutritional value. It contains no calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates or protein.
Storage/Clean-up
Jammin’ Lemon Ginger 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, even at full strength, but it would probably stain, if one left it on fabric for a long time, but mugs that hold the tea rinse 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 Jammin’ Lemon Ginger tea.
Overall
Jammin’ Lemon Ginger was a pleasant surprise. It was only after enjoying it that I truly realized that Celestial Seasonings had not created a memorable ginger tea before now. My hope is that, despite the issues with it not being terribly lemon flavored, Celestial Seasonings keeps Jammin’ Lemon Ginger in their new rotation; it is certainly worth it!
For other Celestial Seasonings tea reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Natural Antioxidant Green Tea with White Tea for Smooth Taste
Sugar Plum Spice
Sweet Harvest Pumpkin
6/10
For other tea reviews, please visit my Food Review Index Page for an organized listing!
© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |
No comments:
Post a Comment