Harney and Sons Tea
Was recommended this brand of tea and decided to buy their sampler tea bags sets to try. I am not a tea expert so there won't be comments on body or aroma of the tea. Their website has a sophisticated design and a member of 1% for the Planet an organization to help the environment where the members donate 1% of their proceeds to. Every bag is labeled with it as well as a kosher label and USDA Organic label depending on the tea. They're located in New York.The foil tea bag sampler have bright colored packaging and the types of tea or the usual tea you see everywhere like Earl Grey, green teas, herbal teas like chamomile, flavored teas like passion fruit, and Darjeeling. The sampler is a really nice set of the variety of teas they have. The front of the bag clearly had the name of the tea and a small description. The back has the ingredients list, caffeine content, and directions. Some of the tea bag's tags will stay how long to steep the tea. Most of the tea I drank as is even the black tea. I did use milk and honey for some of the black teas, and its definitely much better tasting than straight black tea. The milk and honey brings out the flavors from the tea. Its hard to say which is my favorite. They all smelled really amazing when I open the bags that I like smelling them before making the tea. Overall I think the black teas are quite flavorful and there's a lot of them. I find cinnamon tea weird so I can't say much for their cinnamon other than that its very fragrant. The fruit and herbal teas are much lighter in taste compare to the black tea, but they are good and relaxing evening. They don't last as long as the black teas. The black teas I can make up to 3 cups of tea with one bag, but the herbal ones I can make 1 and a half. I've managed to save most of the bags so I'll list them in no particular order: Orange Pekoe mellow black tea, Pomegranate Oolong, Irish Breakfast bold black tea, Darjeeling bright black tea, Passion Fruit succulent black tea, Earl Grey black tea with bergamot, Paris fruity black tea with bergamot, Apricot irresistible black tea, Decaffeinated Early Grey, Organic Green with citrus and ginkgo, Black Currant fruit black tea, Egyptian Chamomile caffeine free herbal, Organic Peppermint cafeinne free herbal, Organic Citron Green crisp green tea, Decaffeinated rich black tea, English Breakfast chinese keemun black tea, and Raspberry Herbal caffeine free herbal.
The premium foil tea bags come in black packaging. The design on the packaging comes in different colors depending on the tea. This sampler set has a much more exotic type of teas ones that I have no idea how they will taste! Not all are exotic. The Red Raspberry is like the Raspberry herbal tea but the ingredients are different. The raspberry herbal has rosehips, hibiscus, raspberry leaves and raspberry flavors. The red raspberry tea has hibiscus flowers, rosehip berries, apple granules, natural and artificial flavors, raspberry leaves, orange and lemon peels, red poppy flowers, spearmint and peppermint. The red raspberry in my opinion tasted better than the herbal version. It has a nice jusicy flavor and sweetness. Adding honey or milk to it does it no justice so I suggest drinking it as is. The Indian tea is black tea with cardamon and cinnamon. Like I said before I'm not a fan of spicy tea like cinnamon tea so this is no exception. It really is fragrant and the cardamon is stronger than the cinnamon.The Japanese Sencha tea is probably the best tasting green tea of theirs that I like. The Tropical Green tea has pineapple flavoring but I didn't taste any. It does has a really nice fresh pineapple sent which is really nice and sweet smelling. The sampler also came with Egyptian Chamomile and Organic Rooibos. I don't recall if these were in the regular tea sampler or not, but they're quite herbal tasting. The Rooibos is a type of tea I haven't tried before so my first impression was that it has a very medicinal herb taste. It is know for its health benefits so I guess its to be expected. Both the Chamomile and Rooibos seem more comforting to drink when they're more watered down to lessen its medicinal herby taste. I didn't try to sweeten them. The Peaches and Ginger is pretty good flavored black tea. It smells sweet too but there's barely any ginger. Drank this with honey. Verveine Lemon Verbena is a herbal tea one I never heard of or tried before. Its not as medicinal tasting as the Roobios and it has a nice scent. It seems to be known for having lemon taste, but I don't see it. Tilleul is another herbal tea that I never heard of or tried before. Its a blend from flowers and leaves from linden trees grown in Provence, France. Its the lightest tasting tea ever.
The last sampler box is the sachet tea bags. These come in a much bigger packaging with a light beige color with ornate designs. There's no directions or caffeine amount information on these bags just a brief description of the tea and small company history snippet. Its quite big for the little tea bag inside. The tea bag is nice fine silken bag and has the pyramid shape. The tea leaves nicely fills the bag when soaked in hot water. Some of the teas I've already talked about before so I will mention the new ones. The first one I tried is Caribe which is guava and strawberry flavored green and black tea. This is the first time I ever had a green and black tea mix. It has a nice sweet smell and the taste it like light black tea. Taste pretty nice with honey. The Rooibos Chai is not bad. Its spiced with clove, cinnamon and cardamom. Its not as strong as the cinnamon tea so it was actually good, but still I'm not too sure if I like rooibos tea. The Tilleul Mint is quite refreshing and soothing with the mint so i quite like it. There's a blend called Organic Bangkok which is organic green tea with coconut, lemongrass, ginger, and vanilla. I gave this to someone so I can't say if its good or not. Never had Yerba Mate before and the sampler had 100% Organic Yerba Mate tea. Its quite bitter! Almost as bitter as straight black tea, but its like green tea. Apparently this stuff is packed full of vitamins, amino acids, and antioxidants. It seems to have more benefits than Rooibos but unlike Rooisbos it has caffeine. The caffeine is not heavy like coffee so it won't give you that crash. The dragon pearl jasmine tea is pretty delicious! Its rolled up green and white tea and the jasmine is quite fragrant. Definitely highly recommend this tea! Lastly the Chamomile tea is not new, but for some reason the sachet one is much better tasting than the regular tea bag ones. Its so much smoother tasting and not as bitter.
One of the things that I have an issue with is that the tea tag and string absorbs the tea and it drips down the side of the cup and onto the table. This can make things sticky with milk and honey added with the tea. I've only noticed it with the sachet bags since the tags on those are much smaller. Not sure if this happens to all the teas since I didn't pay attention to it or if something I did that causes it. I like leaving the tea bag in the cup so perhaps the string is like a sponge that it soaks itself and the tag with tea enough to drip. Its not a huge issue since it only happened a couple of times, but it is kind of weird. Also, the cardboard boxes that holds the tea have sprouted tiny bugs on me. This has never happened before, and I only had it for about 6 months. Perhaps its some biodegrading thing going on? Not sure, but its disgusting so I would advise throwing them out. None of my other cardboard boxes have these bugs.
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