Bigelow

I’m all out of pumpkin spice teas and the seasonal cravings have been horrible. But I remember I snagged this out of the City Hall breakroom when I was there for required leadership training… I just got back from the dentist and had to forego my morning cuppa, so I was really hankering for this cup.

Sadly, it doesn’t really hold up… not that I was expecting much from Bigelow, as I rarely enjoy their teas. It just has the same problem I tend to have with grocery store bagged chai tea, in that all the spices taste really artificial and oily, especially the clove. I’m fine with clove, but clove flavoring or oil just absolutely wallops the whole tea. It’s all I really taste. I’m definitely not getting the “natural pumpkin flavor” and the spices just taste like clove rather than a spice blend. It reminds me of the “Double Spice Chai” by Stash I tried not long ago and also didn’t care for. Meh.

At least it was just a single teabag… I definitely would not buy this if I stumbled across it.

Decaf & Herbal TTB, tea #4

I have to agree with Arby in all point related to flavours. I prepared it hot, but it still was very refreshing and citrus forward. As a backbone there is working peach and its sweetness; sadly I didn’t notice any acai in this. Again, plus points for mouthwatering tea wrapper, great for my collection.

Herbal TTB Tea

I steeped this ~15 minutes in a large glass of cold water and then added 1 tsp sugar. It’s better than many other blends I have tried that use lots of hibiscus/rosehips.

Very citrusy with distinctly sweet and herbal chamomile and lemongrass. Acidic, but not overdone. There is a nice peach in the background, but I wouldn’t mind it being more realistic (has anyone noticed how Asian peach flavours are so realistic compared to the flavourings used in USA/Europe?). There is a hint of acai if you look for it in the after taste.

Decaf & Herbal TTB, tea #2

Well this tea delivers what I have expected… red liquor with tart notes of hibiscus and cranberry and some kind of apple flavour… not fake per se, but hard to find a pleasure note in that.

Very boring and pretty much non-descript.

Decaf & Herbal TTB, tea #1

Yesterday I have received this TTB that I joined just because my curiosity, and hopefully also to share a few herbals with others, as I have just too much of those and hardly drink them.

I took this one at it sounded so good in hot day; even prepared hot.

Ehem… well it is blueberry; but that’s all that I have noticed from promised flavors, sadly there was a hibiscus tartness, and not refreshing from citrus at all. Basil? Where? Hardly any herbaceous note here; though present in the outer wrapper aroma.

A new wrapper for my collection and that counts; and I think I will try (take) all other from this Botanicals series just for this reason.

No Caffeine TTB Tea

This is very hibiscus heavy. I brewed this one fairly trong with sweetener (~30 minutes, then 45 minutes on second steep) in 350 mL cold water. Even with sweetener it is very tart. I mostly get that cinnamon fruity flavour of the hibiscus with a bit of sour lime. No honeysuckle, though. I was interesting to try. If you really like hibiscus, this might be a nice choice for you. I’m sad I could not find the honeysuckle.

Finally, a Bigelow tea that performs. Fresh and very spicy ginger countered and smoothed by equally strong honey and grounded by red rooibos. Fennel isn’t distinct but probably rounds out the taste and nausea-calming effect of ginger. If Mastress Alita had a whole box of this, I’d gladly take it off her hands. How much zinc is actually in this?

One bag makes a full-flavored 8-10 oz cup.

Tea Plant News:

This year’s tea seed germination rates were very high for the 4 varieties I started. The sprouts are the healthiest yet, probably due to a strangely cool and foggy July. A few years ago I bought 3 or 4 varieties of seed, most of which turned out to be duds, including a variety from Taiwan. I think I have only a few surviving plants from those batches. Glad this years seeds are taking off!

The surviving tea plants from years past now in nursery pots do not like our normal dry season of unrelenting sun and can get sunburned easily if in the wrong spot during peak UV hours. They’re now doing well under the shade of a California coast live oak in one corner of the backyard, all grouped together.

Certain tea plants probably with very high sugar content seem to attract aphids twice a year, more so when the land is fully parched in September and October. Leaf curl and drop ensue. I had given up trying to control the aphids and now that the plants are bigger, they seem to bounce back easier from the biannual infestations. This is good. I can’t imagine how much stronger the 3- and 4-year-old plants would be if I had them in the ground. Why have I been dragging my feet on doing so for the past few years? The plants need to grow!

The original assamica plants did great for 2 years and then didn’t take well to transplanting from large planter boxes into nursery pots when I moved last year. The original Black Sea sinensis plants were very slow to grow the first few years but are now certainly outperforming the assamica, which I wasn’t expecting given our climate. Next year, I would like to try pruning for the first time and cloning the strongest Black Sea plants. I’m glad Camellias are patient plants since my green thumb isn’t the most saturated.

Readily available, reliable, inexpensive and adequate. Foil wrapper keeps the freshness and sanitation during travel. Odd that Bigelow tells us more about the bergamot than the base tea! The only clue their website gives is lip service to 1 bud / 2 leaves, and being from “high in the mountains.” It does have a smooth finish and my 2-min infusion was not astringent, yet was full-flavored. I got no assamic maltiness, nor spice and zing of Keemun, nor cedar or mint of a Ceylon. But for some reason I’m leaning toward it being a Ceylon, possibly blended with a less famous region such as Tanzania or Myanmar. But the bergamot stars here, and it’s nicely balanced. I must admit that I buy it frequently because it’s easy to grab at the grocery store and keep in the desk drawer at work. And I like it. I can’t rate it less than 80, and feel compelled to recommend — lest I become a bigger hypocrite than I already am!

Tastes like a mix of lemon meringue pie (plus lemongrass and mild earthy ginger) with that Yakult probiotic flavor.

Interesting. Novel.

Bigelow teas, with the exception of Constant Comment, fall flat for me, almost like I did this morning as I nearly face-planted upon rising from a deeeep sleep. I was hoping for something that would stabilize the discombobulated wobbles and provide a bit of sunshine to the start of a cloudy and cool day. Sadly, this was not it.

Watery, spicy yet stale ginger, earthy but not grounding, weak turmeric, some tang, flat artificial musty peach. Couldn’t taste the chicory or any of the other spices like cardamom and cinnamon, but I could taste the paper teabag. That’s the worst part. Not that there’s anything wrong with teabags. Some just have a strong paper taste.

I love ginger! It’s a little to strong to drink it straight, but I love it as a dominant flavor in spiced teas, I love it in fruity blends, and I love it in food! But it’s rare for me to find a tea that highlights the ginger flavor without being a little overwhelmingly spicy and harsh. This tea is perfect in that regard. The ginger is front and center, but the honey and fennel balance out the ginger really well, adding depth and sweetness. I didn’t notice that it had rooibos in it until I looked at the ingredients today, but I don’t taste that in the blend at all. I am happy to drink this straight, and it is also great with heavy cream. It’s a nice one to tuck into my purse as a going out tea. It’s also great that all the ingredients are safe for pregnancy and helpful for heartburn, which feels a little counterintuitive because spicy flavors usually make heartburn much worse. My one complaint is that unless you can find it in a store, it is only available on from their website if you buy 6 boxes at once, which is a lot of one flavor of tea. I think individual boxes are available on Amazon and such, but at a much higher price than in stores. I would buy more Bigelow tea if their website made single boxes more available.

Vacation Tea
It’s always fun to explore someone else’s tea cabinet. Most of the teas here are herbal blends but I found this chai in the mix. I didn’t add any sweetener or milk as the tea bag didn’t have a strong scent prior to steeping. I steeped for about 5 minutes. Unsurprisingly there is an artificialness to the flavor. It’s creamy with a good amount of vanilla and I’m reminded of cookies. If I bought this, I’d keep it in my stash for big batch iced teas.

Steepster 2025 TTB Tea

This teabag was a nice evening coldbrew. The cinnamon is sweet (a bit much for me, honestly), but it counter balances the hibiscus and rose hips. The berry flavour is pretty strong, but more bumbleberry or general berry but not distinctly raspberry and blackberry.

This definitely tasted like strawberry lemonade! Unfortunately that’s a flavor I’ve never preferred, but points for accuracy! I didn’t notice the orange blossom. I just tasted the tartness and acidity. Saved this teabag from a previous TTB.

It’s a cold spring morning and I really felt like a tea latte. I choose this one because I wanted to get through all my old teabags and this one goes well with milk. I have no idea where I got this teabag or how long I have had it.

I’m drinking it was unsweetened soy milk and ~1 tsp sugar. 1 tea bag, 3? minutes (I didn’t keep track it might have been 4) steep time in 350 mL boiling water

It smells promising – like my ol’ reliable (Red Rose orange pekoe). The brew is fairly dark amber orange. Flavour wise, it tastes quite strong for a bagged tea. Malty with strong tannins but the milk counters the bitterness. Overall pretty typical of a straight black bagged tea but delicious and exactly what I wanted.

This is a decently strong plain Orange Pekoe type tea. Nothing too remarkable – some slightly bitter notes and a bit tannic. It brewed fairly strong. I enjoyed it with a dash of oat creamer. It seems fairly full-bodied but I would have liked some subtle smooth malty notes or even a bit creamy. Overall, not bad for a very old tea bag I needed to use up.

Well, thought I would try this waiting to get my oil change this morning. Turns out that it wasn’t a good idea. Its not a pleasant sour like from hibiscus heavy blends, its… spoiled sour really. It’s a shame, I usually enjoy Bigelow’s teas.

Like all good spiced teas if you add milk you need to steep it longer. Not good like a chaiwallha but not bad for a bag.

After 2 minutes I find this tea way too strong. But my parents enjoy it. Purchase from Cubs. Can’t help but wonder if the taste would be better if purchased closer to the time it’s made or if the flavoring makes it not matter. Probably.

More Carmel than salt, but a nice holiday tea.
Medium dark, tastes slightly sweet.

An experiment from the pay-it-forward table at work. Bigelow’s flavored teas often go “chemical” pretty quickly as they age, but this box is still fresh. Leads with sweet coconut, for sure, and the base serves as an undetectable holding mechanism for the flavor. A coworker took a sniff and said, “Smells like Almond Joy!” Not bad for staving off mid-morning sugar cravings. Bet it would be good with milk.

Little October office alchemy … had a bag of Perfect Peach and a bag of Bigelow’s Apple Cider, both of which were a little too weak and a little too hibiscus-heavy for me to love individually. So I got frisky and put both bags in a single cup. Greatly improved! A little like mulled fruit punch.

This is the grocery-shelf lemon tea I was craving. Found it at a King Cash Saver, one of those sneaky grocery stores with a 10% upcharge, but I was there, it was there, and it was worth the extra 30-ish cents just to grab it and go.

Bigelow has kept this in its rotation for a very long time, and it’s been reviewed fairly favorably pretty consistently since it first appeared on Steepster. It differs from the echinacea/vitamin C version I recently tried (subtract licorice, add “a dash of spice”). The addition appears to be a trade secret, but I wonder if it’s similar to the cinnamon/clove combo that’s the hallmark of their Constant Comment blend.

At any rate, I’ll confirm what 13-ish years worth of reviews largely agree on. It’s a decent tea on a light base. For whatever reason, this week, that hit the spot.