Yogi Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life Tea Is Good, But Imbalanced.

The Good: Good aroma, Good ingredients, Sweet and flavorful, Actually seems to help metabolism, Caffeinated
The Bad: Packaging, Apple flavor only comes out when sugar or honey is added.
The Basics: Yogi Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life Tea is a decent metabolism-boosting tea that tastes like caramel, but not so much apple.


Lately, my wife and I have been changing our diets and, as it turns out, it’s around the same time that we started finding a number of good deals on Yogi teas. The perfect combination of those two things was when we had a coupon and found Yogi Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life Tea on clearance locally. As a result, my wife and I have been able to enjoy some decent dieting tea for less money than before. Fortunately, Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life actually seems to live up to its promises to help consumers diet, in conjunction with a healthy diet. On the down side, the Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life Tea requires consumers to add a sweetener to get the full flavor from the tea, which has the potential to undo some of the health benefits.

Even so, Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life is one of the better teas from Yogi I have yet tried and while I wish the apple flavor was more significant, this tea is still easily good enough to recommend.

Basics

Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life is a tea from Yogi. It is a tea that is caffeine free, has a light aroma and 100% natural herbal “supplement” tea. Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life comes in Yogi's standard individually-wrapped tea bags, meaning that each tea bag has a papery envelope it is sealed in for freshness. Each tea bag has a five-inch string with a little paper tab at the end, which is quite a bit more waste than I like from a tea bag. When I make pots of tea, I tend to use four bags in my 32 oz. tea pot, and making a steeping pot of Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life reminds me of why I like the easy environmentalism of Celestial Seasonings' stringless bags. A box of Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life comes with only 16 individually-wrapped tea bags, which makes it proportionately more expensive than many teas on the market.

Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life is marketed as Caramel Apple Spice-flavored/scented tea and it is good. Like many of the Yogi teas, Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life trades on a medicinal property of the tea, in this case accelerating the metabolism enough to aid in weight loss. It assists well in that regard.

Ease of Preparation

Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life is an herbal supplement tea (though it has some actual tea leaves in it), which means preparation is as easy as boiling a pot of water! Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life, as the directions clearly state, requires water that is boiling. 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 can be reused and the resulting beverage is about 1/2 strength; given the initial mild flavor of the tea, that makes a second cup not worth making up, in my book. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, even for a second pot.

To prepare Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life, simply boil up 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 pots, I've found that with boiling water, the tea is ready at the six minute mark and letting it steep longer does not truly change the results, save that it makes it impossible to get an even passable second pot out of the same bags. Letting the tea steep more than six minutes does not net any additional flavor, nor does it denature the flavor of the tea.

Taste

The Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life tea smells beautifully of caramel. The aroma that emanates from the steam from this tea is sweet and inviting. The scent lacks any hint of fruit, but is very truly the scent of caramel.

In the mouth, the Caramel Apple Spice is spicy, with only a hint of sweetness. The flavor is very dry. Nutmeg and cinnamon stand out in the Caramel Apple Spice, but the tea is not overly sweet and there is no hint of apple in the unadulterated tea. This is a dry tea with a mildly caramel-esque aftertaste, but it is not unpleasant or bad.

With a teaspoon of sugar or honey, the flavor of apples is revealed finally. The fruity flavor remains sublimated to the dry and sweet caramel flavor in the Caramel Apple Spice tea, but the apple is present at least.

This tea has a very dry aftertaste, though it does not endure for very long in the mouth at all.

Nutrition

It is utterly unsurprising that the dominant flavor in Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life is not apples in that the first ingredient outside the Organic Assam Black Tea Leaf, Organic Rooibos Leaf, Organic Cinnamon Bark and other tea-ingredients is Organic Apple Flavor. Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life tea is all natural, entirely organic, and contains caffeine. This tea may be devoid of any nutritional value, but it is delicious and has nothing bad in it. It contains no calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates or protein, save when one adds sweeteners.

Storage/Clean-up

Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life is a comparatively light colored tea. As a result, cleanup is rather simple, save on fabrics. The mugs and steeping pot easily rinse out. This tea will stain if it is left on fabrics, so simply do not let the tea cups or mugs linger on light colored materials that might stain!

Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life 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. One of the nice things about this tea - like most - is that so long as it is kept cool and dry, it can last for a long time (the box I just finished going through would have expired on July 11, 2015!) and it is easy to clean up. However, like all Yogi teas, there is extra waste from the strings, paper tabs and individual wrappings around each bag.

Overall

Yogi Caramel Apple Spice Slim Life tea is delicious and helps with weight management in conjunction with a healthy diet. It is flavorful and well worth trying for anyone who loves tea and wants some help with losing weight.

For other Yogi teas, please check out my reviews of:
Stress Relief Honey Lavender
Egyptian Licorice
Ginger Organic

8/10

For other beverage reviews, please check out my Food And Drink Index page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Light, Sweet, And Enough To Sooth: Yogi Honey Lavender Stress Relief Tea Works!

The Good: Good aroma, Good ingredients, Sweet and flavorful
The Bad: Lavender scent is not very potent, Packaging.
The Basics: Yogi Honey Lavender Stress Relief Tea lives up to its promise of being a soothing, relaxing tea.


Even though I understand completely how herbal teas are usually made with ingredients (no actual tea leaves) that usually preclude them from being caffeinated, that has not traditionally stopped me from griping about a tea’s lack of caffeine. That is not the case, though, with the Yogi Honey Lavender Stress Relief tea. In fact, the fact that I actually found the tea to be a relaxing tea was something of a miracle and I am impressed enough not to complain about what I think its ingredients ought to be (given that the brewmasters at Yogi seem to have a pretty good handle on what they are putting into the tea). I’ve been going through a stressful time at work lately and after thinking about a particularly irritating situation and getting myself worked up, drinking Yogi Honey Lavender Stress Relief tea . . . actually calmed me down. It’s intriguing; I found myself more relaxed and calm and able to manage and, yes, (given that the situation that caused the stress is ongoing) I attribute that to the tea!

Honey Lavender Stress Relief is one of the better teas from Yogi I have yet tried and were it not for how weak the lavender scent was from the tea and my desire for teas to be caffeinated, this could have been a perfect tea.

Basics

Honey Lavender Stress Relief is a tea from Yogi. It is a tea that is caffeine free, has a light aroma and 100% natural herbal “supplement” tea. Honey Lavender Stress Relief comes in Yogi's standard individually-wrapped tea bags, meaning that each tea bag has a papery envelope it is sealed in for freshness. Each tea bag has a five-inch string with a little paper tab at the end, which is quite a bit more waste than I like from a tea bag. When I make pots of tea, I tend to use four bags in my 32 oz. tea pot, and making a steeping pot of Honey Lavender Stress Relief reminds me of why I like the easy environmentalism of Celestial Seasonings' stringless bags. A box of Honey Lavender Stress Relief comes with only 16 individually-wrapped tea bags, which makes it proportionately more expensive than many teas on the market.

Honey Lavender Stress Relief is marketed as Honey Lavender-flavored/scented tea (I’m not sure what lavender is supposed to taste like, but I recognize the smell easily enough) and it is good. Like many of the Yogi teas, Honey Lavender Stress Relief trades on a medicinal property of the tea, in this case relieving stress and easing tension. To that end, it works masterfully!

Ease of Preparation

Honey Lavender Stress Relief is an herbal tea (no actual tea leaves in it), which means preparation is as easy as boiling a pot of water! Honey Lavender Stress Relief, as the directions clearly state, requires water that is boiling. 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 can be reused and the resulting beverage is about 1/2 strength; given the initial mild flavor of the tea, that makes a second cup not worth making up, in my book. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, even for a second pot.

To prepare Honey Lavender Stress Relief, simply boil up some water, and pour it over the tea bags in a cup, mug or steeping pot. This tea is recommended to take five to ten minutes to steep and after a couple pots, I've found that with boiling water, the tea is ready at the five minute mark and letting it steep longer does not truly change the results, save that it makes it impossible to get an even passable second pot out of the same bags. Letting the tea steep more than five minutes does not net any additional flavor, nor does it denature the flavor of the tea.

Taste

Honey Lavender Stress Relief smells surprisingly light and this is one of the few ways the tea falls down. Lavender is a pretty strong and distinctive smell and this tea does not carry that aroma well. Instead, it smells more like chamomile and lemongrass (both are ingredients in this tea) and the initial perception one gets from the scent is that they might be consuming a chamomile tea.

Such is not the case with the flavor, though. This is one of the most innately sweet teas I have tried and it is delightful for that reason. This tea tastes like chamomile and honey . . . a noticeable amount of honey. The honey flavor is intriguing in that it is present, recognizable and sweetens the tea, without overwhelming the tea at all. In fact, the best possible description I can give is that the Honey Lavender Stress Relief tea tastes like a honey tea where the sugary quality of the honey has been removed. It’s hard to conceive of honey without the sweetness, but honey has its own flavor and this tea has it!

This tea was sweet enough on its own to not require additional sweeteners be added. This tea does not have a noticeable aftertaste, which is nice as well.

Nutrition

It is utterly unsurprising that the dominant flavor in Honey Lavender Stress Relief is honey in that the first ingredient outside the extracts and leaves is Natural Honey Flavor. Honey Lavender Stress Relief tea is all natural, entirely organic, and does not contain caffeine. This tea may be devoid of any nutritional value, but it is delicious and has nothing bad in it. It contains no calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates or protein.

Storage/Clean-up

Honey Lavender Stress Relief is a comparatively light colored tea. As a result, cleanup is rather simple, save on fabrics. The mugs and steeping pot easily rinse out. This tea will stain if it is left on fabrics, so simply do not let the tea cups or mugs linger on light colored materials that might stain!

Honey Lavender Stress Relief 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. One of the nice things about this tea - like most - is that so long as it is kept cool and dry, it can last for a long time (the box I just finished going through would have expired in August 2015!) and it is easy to clean up. However, like all Yogi teas, there is extra waste from the strings, paper tabs and individual wrappings around each bag.

Overall

Organic Honey Lavender Stress Relief tea from Yogi Tea is good, but could use more lavender scent to live up to its name. But, because I’m so relaxed from having drunk a pot, I’m not going to sweat it!

For other Yogi teas, please check out my reviews of:
Egyptian Licorice
Ginger Organic
Berry Detox

7.5/10

For other beverage reviews, please check out my Food And Drink Index page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Sweet, Delicious, Healthy, And Worthwhile, Yogi Egyptian Licorice Is One Of Their Best Teas!

The Good: Great aroma, Good ingredients, Amazing taste!
The Bad: I’m not wild about the packaging, Caffeine-free!
The Basics: Easily the best (by far) Yogi tea I have yet tasted, Egyptian Licorice is a pretty incredible beverage!


Right before my wife departed for the summer, she began to stock up on tea for me! One of the teas that she picked up was one I am shocked it has taken me so long to review. That is Yogi Egyptian Licorice tea and given how much I have been enjoying the beverage, perhaps the reason I have not reviewed it before now is that I have been too busy consuming it to stop and evaluate it! What surprised me even more was that this is only the third Yogi tea I have reviewed! Before now, I have only tried and reviewed Berry Detox (reviewed here!) and Ginger Organic (reviewed here!).

Egyptian Licorice is easily the best tea from Yogi I have yet tried and were it not for my usual issues with the lack of environmentalism surrounding the packaging and my desire for teas to be caffeinated, this would be a perfect tea. Easily.

Basics

Egyptian Licorice is a tea from Yogi. It is a tea that is caffeine free and it is an aromatic and 100% natural strong herbal tea. Egyptian Licorice comes in Yogi's standard individually-wrapped tea bags, meaning that each tea bag has a papery envelope it is sealed in for freshness. Each tea bag has a five-inch string with a little paper tab at the end, which is quite a bit more waste than I like from a tea bag. When I make pots of tea, I tend to use three bags in my 32 oz. tea pot, and making a steeping pot of Egyptian Licorice reminds me of why I like the easy environmentalism of Celestial Seasonings' stringless bags. A box of Egyptian Licorice comes with only 16 individually-wrapped tea bags, which makes it proportionately more expensive than many teas on the market.

Egyptian Licorice is marketed as an Egyptian Licorice-flavored tea and it is absolutely incredibly. While many of the Yogi teas trade on a medicinal property of the tea, Egyptian Licorice seems set only on warming and delighting the consumer and it certainly lives up on that front!

Ease of Preparation

Egyptian Licorice is an herbal tea (no actual tea leaves in it), which means preparation is as easy as boiling a pot of water! Egyptian Licorice, as the directions clearly state, requires water that is boiling. 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 can be reused and the resulting beverage is about 1/2 strength and has a more potent dry aftertaste than the original brewing. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, even for a second pot.

To prepare Egyptian Licorice, simply boil up some water, and pour it over the tea bags in a cup, mug or steeping pot. This tea is recommended to take five to ten minutes to steep and after a couple pots, I've found that with boiling water, the tea is ready at the five minute mark and letting it steep longer does not truly change the results, save that it makes it impossible to get an even passable second pot out of the same bags. Letting the tea steep more than five minutes does not net any additional flavor, nor does it denature the flavor of the tea.

Taste

Egyptian Licorice smells like unsurprisingly like licorice and anise. However, what caught me by surprise was how several of the other ingredients – cinnamon, ginger and orange peel being my primary bets – combine to create a strong underscent of chamomile. In addition to the slight chamomile scent, as the beverage cools, Yogi Egyptian Licorice tea takes on the scent of black pepper. In combination with the licorice vapors, this makes for a surprisingly inviting scent!

From the moment that it hit my tongue, the Egyptian Licorice tea surprised me with its sweetness. With all of the various scents associated with the Egyptian Licorice tea, I was most prepared for the flavor to be dry and spice. Instead, Egyptian Licorice is sweet – sweet enough to not require sugar – and the spicy flavors chase the anise flavoring. Just as with the aroma, the net result of many of the spices is that they combine on the palate to flavor the tea much like a chamomile flavor. As a result there is a primary sweet, flavorful burst followed by the drier, ricey flavor that has a slight fruit and pepper aftertaste.

For such a flavorful tea, it is astonishing that the Egyptian Licorice tea lacks any sort of strong aftertaste, nor does it leave the mouth dry and the consumer wanting something more to drink. This is a remarkably satisfying beverage!

With a teaspoon of sugar, the Egyptian Licorice tea becomes less impressive. While the licorice flavor comes out even more, the pepper taste is completely destroyed and the tea loses its subtlety and charm.

Nutrition

It is utterly unsurprising that the dominant flavor in Egyptian Licorice is licorice as organic Licorice root tops the ingredients list (followed closely by organic cinnamon bark and organic orange peel). Egyptian Licorice tea is all natural, entirely organic, and does not contain caffeine. This tea may be devoid of any nutritional value, but it is delicious and has nothing bad in it. It contains no calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates or protein.

Storage/Clean-up

Egyptian Licorice is a comparatively light colored tea. As a result, cleanup is rather simple, save on fabrics. The mugs and steeping pot easily rinse out. This tea will stain if it is left on fabrics, so simply do not let the tea cups or mugs linger on light colored materials that might stain!

Egyptian Licorice 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. One of the nice things about this tea - like most - is that so long as it is kept cool and dry, it can last for a long time and it is easy to clean up. However, like all Yogi teas, there is extra waste from the strings, paper tabs and individual wrappings around each bag.

Overall

Organic Egyptian Licorice tea from Yogi Tea is an exceptionally good tea well worth picking up. Right away!

For other teas, please check out my reviews of:
Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Sinus Soother
Twinings African Rooibos Red
Tazo Earl Grey

8.5/10

For other beverage reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Tasty With A Nice Kick, Yogi Tea's Ginger Organic Is Just Good Enough To Recommend!

The Good: Good aroma, Good ingredients, Good ginger kick
The Bad: Expensive (comparatively), Weak primary taste
The Basics: A good, but in no way extraordinary tea, Organic Ginger from Yogi Tea meets the ginger tea enthusiast's needs at a steep price.


In recent years, tea has become a health food that is associated with almost every diet fad and alternative lifestyle. I tend to like my teas made from all natural ingredients and environmentally responsible, but I don't subscribe to any specific philosophies that surround tea drinking, like practicing yoga (not since college), eating all organic (I'm a cheapskate) nor embracing vegetarianism (I love meat). So when I was granted some Yogi Tea - check out my review of the Berry Detox by clicking here! - my instant thought was that Ginger Organic was more part of a food fad than an actually wonderful product.

Fad or not, the Ginger Organic is a good tea, but it's not an extraordinary tea. This comes from the simple fact that Ginger Organic is more robust in its aftertaste than its primary flavoring. The result is a tea which is good, but in no way extraordinary. When one considers that it is also one of the more expensive teas on the market, it becomes even harder to recommend.

Basics

Ginger Organic is a tea from Yogi. It is a tea that is caffeine free and it is a fairly weak herbal tea. Ginger Organic comes in Yogi's standard individually-wrapped tea bags, means that each tea bag has a papery envelope it is sealed in for freshness. Each tea bag has a five-inch string with a little paper tab at the end, which is quite a bit more waste than I like from a tea bag. When I make pots of tea, I tend to use two bags and making a steeping pot of Ginger Organic reminds me of why I like the easy environmentalism of Celestial Seasonings' stringless bags. A box of Ginger Organic comes with only 16 individually-wrapped tea bags, which makes it proportionately more expensive than most teas on the market.

Ginger Organic is marketed as a ginger-flavored tea and it is adequate in that regard, but only because of the aftertaste. For those looking for a prepackaged ginger tea, this might fit the bill, but it is a bit pricey and the benefits are not as plentiful as one might hope. Yogi Tea recommends using Ginger Organic tea as a digestive aid, but I've not had digestive problems to evaluate the medicinal aspect of this tea.

Ease of Preparation

Ginger Organic is an herbal tea (no actual tea leaves in it), which means preparation is as easy as boiling a pot of water! Ginger Organic, as the directions clearly state, require water that is boiling. 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 can be reused and the resulting beverage is about 1/2 strength and has a more potent dry aftertaste than the original brewing. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, even for a second pot.

To prepare Ginger Organic, simply boil 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 pots, I've found that with boiling water, the tea is ready at the four minute mark and letting it steep longer does not truly change the results. Letting the tea steep more than five minutes does not net any additional flavor, nor does it denature the flavor of the tea.

Taste

Ginger Organic smells like ginger, which prepares the consumer for a strong tea from the first sip. The aroma is distinct and clear and those looking for a ginger scent (not gingerbread, but actual ginger root) will find it from this tea.

The taste, however, is very bland, for the first two to three seconds. In that time, Ginger Organic tastes like a diluted black tea which is utterly disappointing. For seconds, the tea tastes like mildly flavored water and the consumer is likely to be seriously bummed by the experience.

But then, the aftertaste kicks in. The aftertaste is a mix of ginger and black pepper and it is sharp and delightful. The flavor is a perfect liquid embodiment of ginger and the black pepper flavor enhances it with a bite that is an intriguing taste sensation.

With a teaspoon of sugar, Ginger Organic's flavor is muted, but not undone. The tea is only mildly less sharp and sugar does not dilute the pepper taste much at all. As a result, this is a tea that always has kick. Similarly, milk does little for the tea, as it is overwhelmed by the pepper kick and the ginger sharpness. This is not an ideal tea to have iced, unless one likes cool, dry and sharp for their beverage choices.

Nutrition

It is utterly unsurprising that the dominant flavor in Ginger Organic is ginger as organic ginger root tops the ingredients list (followed closely by organic lemongrass and organic licorice root). Ginger Organic tea is all natural, gluten free, and does not contain caffeine. Were it not for the sugar I add whenever I make pots of Ginger Organic, this tea would be devoid of any nutritional value. It contains no calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates or protein.

Storage/Clean-up

Ginger Organic is a fairly light tea. As a result, cleanup is rather simple, save on fabrics. The mugs and steeping pot easily rinse out. This tea will stain if it is left on fabrics, so simply do not let the tea cups or mugs linger on light colored materials that might stain!

Ginger Organic 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. One of the nice things about this tea - like most - is that so long as it is kept cool and dry, it can last for a long time and it is easy to clean up. However, like all Yogi teas, there is extra waste from the strings, paper tabs and individual wrappings around each bag.

Overall

Organic Ginger tea from Yogi Tea is good, but because most of the taste comes delayed from the aftertaste, it is tough to laud it as a great tea, especially with the expense of it.

For other teas, please check out my reviews of:
Celestial Seasonings Candy Cane Lane
Twinings Herbal Revive Blackcurrants, Ginseng and Tahitian Vanilla
Dilmah Ceylon Green Tea

6/10

For other beverage reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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I'm Not Sure It Actually Detoxifies, But Yogi Tea Berry Detox Is Gross!

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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