Good Earth

This is by far my favorite tea! It was the first I bought when trying to get into tea. The smells of the spices are intense, and fantastic! When brewed hot for over 3 minutes, the spices and the sugar come out in unison, and make the end result taste like a spiced sweet tea!

If you like cinnamon flavored teas, this is one of my favorites. Strong cinnamon smell and flavor but not so much that I find it overpowering. It requires no additional sweeteners to enhance its flavor, which is a big plus with any tea for me.

I particularly enjoy a cup of this tea in the evening before bed or when sitting around the camp fire.

One of my go-to teas that I can pick up for about 3 bucks from Walmart.

Backlog

I forgot to take tea to work on Monday, so I had to make due with what was in the break room. I found that someone had been adding new teas (other than Lipton) to the tea basket in the break room. I figured that this would be better than that…..WRONG. It was unnaturally sweet & tart. I threw the cup out & had eventually gone to the gas station down from my job for a cuppa coffee (which ultimately was better than the tea).

I received this Good Earth Sweet & Spicy herbal tea as a Christmas gift for Christmas 2016. Teabags were sealed, but I could smell an intense sweet cinnamon aroma through the foil wrapper. :-) Each teabag has a quote on the tag, which makes for a more interesting tea experience right out of the gate. My first cup was sampled without knowing all the ingredients.

Ingredients:

Rooibos, chicory root, natural flavor, rosehip, cinnamon, lemongrass, peppermint, chamomile, ginger root, anise seed, orange oil, orange peel.

“For the concert of life, no one receives a program.” —Dutch Proverb

Once opened, the aroma permeated my nose and the kitchen immediately! Seriously, what an Amazing Cinnamon Aroma!! There is no way I could discern all the ingredients, but in the dry bag I did smell the cinnamon right away, followed by peppermint. What was that third main ingredient? YES!! Chicory, that’s it! In the wet leaves I mainly smelled cinnamon & chicory, with a lesser peppermint presence. Cup aroma was quite refreshing with a real sweetness, and a strong burst of cinnamon, mixing very well with the chicory root. The mint was swallowed by the other two aromas, and was barely—if at all—noticeable. My palate came alive with an intense cinnamon flavor!! WOW!! What a spicy kick! :D The chicory root was right along in flavorful tandem with the cinnamon! The mint was only slightly noticeable at the back of my tongue after swishing the tea and inhaling oxygen. After swallowing, the cinnamon & chicory rose up & clung to the back of my tongue and throat for several minutes!

“Every now and then, bite off more than you can chew.” —Kobi Yamada

I had a second cup on January 24—my Godchild Chloe’s 15th Birthday!! :D Roughly 8 oz of water, at 195 degrees, for 3.5 minutes. After reading the ingredients, the dry bag aromas changed somewhat, but these aromas were true to what I smelled. Intense cinnamon & chicory root, and YES, definitely the rosehips came through—neck & neck with the chicory, while the mint & lemongrass honestly seemed shy, thus taking a back seat. Similar sensory observations in the wet leaf aromas were noted, which were less intense all around compared to the dry leaf. Cup aromas are lively cinnamon & chicory root, as well as rosehips, while the mint was drowned out by the other three scents. Cup color was also hued a pleasant red—reddish brown. The tea’s flavor profile exhibited similar intensities (as in cup #1) on my palate and at the back of my tongue/throat. The rosehips definitely played on my palate as well, lightly taming the vigor of the cinnamon & chicory, and added a sweet smoothing aspect to the tea experience.

Good Earth Sweet & Spicy herbal tea, is definitely very flavorful & delicious!! A definite Christmas tea in the future. It is so flavorful, I could drink it anytime! Quite possibly the best herbal tea I’ve tasted—I really do like spicy teas. :-) I’m sure Chloe would appreciate this tea as well. :-)

Cupped: Tuesday, January 10 & 24, 2017. Reviewed: Sunday, January 29, 2017.

I think this was a share from tea buddy K S a while back. Drank a celebratory cup after restoring the living room to (sort of) order, tree down, tringlings and trapplings up for another year.

Cherry with chai is an interesting concept.

My general beef with chai is that folks cardamom it to death, and it ends up tasting like somebody just dumped the contents of their spice rack into a cup. In this case, Good Earth was light on the cardy, light-ish on the cherry, and generous with good old gentle cinnamon. Took it without milk, and it didn’t need any. Would try this one again.

Disappointment, This is a GREEN TEA But Not a MATCHA, Flavor is Distracted by STEVIA Sweetner.

This is like an orange caught on fire and someone dumped a cinnamon-licorice mint julep on it to put it out. The friend who gave this to me is a horrible monster.

THAT SAID…
I am sending a sample of this to mtchyg because I am essentially his sassy and difficult little sister. “HERE TRY THIS HORRIBLE THING” is frequently my approach to our friendship.

This is a tea bag that was included with my Christmas card from K S. Thank you, K S!

I have looked up and added the ingredients to the description for a special reason.

First, when I tasted this tea it reminded me very strongly of Harney and Sons Hot Cinnamon Spice tea, but wasn’t exactly the same. I had expected it to taste like Constant Comment. Since I couldn’t quite put a finger on what was different, I googled the ingredients. They were not listed on the pouch the bag came in.

In googling it, I found an article about how natural flavor in the ingredient list can mean something we don’t really consider to be natural. They specified this tea as an example and said the company was not forthcoming when they pressed for details about the flavors and how they are made and where they come from, and the article then listed a whole lot of companies that use “natural flavors”, with most of the biggies being in that list, including Teavana. There were only a few companies that use only all natural ingredients.

I do not refute that there is some stuff going in our foods that shouldn’t be there, and I do not take issue with this person’s concerns. We NEED to be informed about our food supply! Read the article. It is worth a read.

What I disagree with was their belief that something was “up”, shall we say, for this tea to be so sweet without sugar. Thanks to Harney and Sons HCS and Penzey’s Cinnamon Blend, I can tell you that when you put the right cinnamons together, you get a super sweet tasting final product.

I did not leave the bag in my cup. I used boiling and gave it close to four minutes steep. While the cinnamon was on top, the ginger was right there blasting away. It added a ton of sweetness in my opinion. Ginger is usually hot to me, and I avoid things that contain a lot of ginger because I don’t like the heat. I can take it and even enjoy it in small amounts. But something about the synergy of this cinnamon with all those herbs and the blast of ginger made me really, really enjoy this cuppa.

I don’t do bagged tea, but if I had to take tea bags with me somewhere, this would probably be one of them.

My current favorite supermarket chai, wonderful with a bit of milk. And the teabag smells like cookies to me right out of the wrapper.

This is a flavored rooibos herbal in a bag. The first thing I noticed when tasting is the lack of that harsh scratchy woody rooibos taste. I don’t even smell it. I like that. It tastes predominantly of cinnamon. What little (by my standards) heat I catch I think is the ginger grabbing as the cinnamon passes by. There is orange, chamomile, and anise that add sweetness without calling much attention to themselves. The lemongrass is more fill in than a real note. I thought it was a fun cup

Dad is coming home today so thanks all for the prayers and support.

Yuck! The first few sips tasted lightly of tropical fruit, but after that my tongue felt coated in licorice. Only drank about half the cup and dumped the rest. I had to eat an Altoids mint to get the thick, heavy layer of licorice out of my mouth. Licorice isn’t a tropical fruit flavor! Why is that even in there?

My sister gave me a bag of this and there were no instructions on it so I didn’t know how long to steep. It was very strong! I would probably add some extra water next time or steep it for a short time. I’ll have to try it again once I have the right directions.

As you may or may not be aware, I battle with respiratory issues. Well, during Thanksgiving my niece had a scented candle burning. It was a light cinnamon something and quite pleasant. Until I got up the next morning. I had a major flare up. Fought it with lots of drugs and anti-biotics. Was feeling pretty good until yesterday. We plugged in a couple air freshener night lights, and a few hours later I could feel it clogging up the lungs. So back on the drugs. I am telling you this so as you gather with family this holiday season that you might think twice before lighting that candle or setting out that potpourri if one of your guests has a weakened system or has asthma.

Anyway, this tea – from a bag. Smells pretty inviting. I have no idea what an actual mango smells like (I’ve led such a sheltered culinary life). This reminds me of peaches but more prickly and with some tartness. If that’s mango, then nailed it. Don’t read the list of ingredients or you’ll just go eeeewwww. OK I’ll tell you – hibiscus, rosehips, and chamomile are in there as well as stevia. (All together now – eeeewwww) The however is that it works here. What I taste is that sweet fruity tartness. It is actually pretty enjoyable. My only complaint is the bitterness in the aftertaste from the stevia. On the other hand, I think it is there to complete the tartness/sweet of the fruit flavor. I would like to try it without the stevia and see for myself if it is necessary.

Chai and I are just casual friends. I don’t dislike it. I just never crave it. I have finally come to the conclusion it is because I can’t taste the black tea base. If they left it out, I’m not sure I could tell.

That said, I emptied the cup pretty quickly. The biggest flaw is it contains stevia. It isn’t overly sweet, especially for chai, but enough so as too make adding my preferred sweetener problematic. On the positive side the flavors are all well balanced. The aroma is cinnamon, clove, and cardamon. The taste begins more cardamon, then drifts towards but doesn’t reach banana. Banana? Neat twist. Then things straighten back to a cinnamon, pepper, and ginger end. I do catch faint banana in the aftertaste. I did not catch caramel as promised. Maybe had I added milk. If you let the cup get cool, there are notes of star anise. I did not notice it while hot, but then I like the flavor. If I were a hater it might jump out more.

For chai, not shabby.

Sad to be drinking my last cup of this now discontinued blend! Lightly sweet with a hint of spice.

Steeped two bags in 14 oz boiling water for 3 minutes. Deliciously sweet and minty. Soothing.

This tea is delicious and, since it contains both lavender and chamomile, very helpful when it comes to sleep. I’m incredibly sad that it no longer seems to be available! It was a favorite of mine.

I get Good Earth is trying to give this the illusion of a tart cherry mixed with pomegranate, and maybe tea bag only people will accept it. For me the addition of hibiscus and its tartness is totally unnecessary. The presence of an overdose of stevia is likewise just too much. Way too sweet and way too bitter. The core flavor of pomegranate and cherry is pleasant enough. I just wish, with this one, someone at Good Earth would learn to edit.

I hate writing a bad review. I always try to weigh my personal likes and dislikes against what the tea is intended to taste. No matter how I look at it, I just can’t get positive with this one. It is almost entirely mango and pineapple in taste, which admittedly I don’t care for, but I can’t find the orange, lemongrass, or lime at all in the flavor. It has a bitter aftertaste like stevia but there is none listed in the ingredients. Maybe it is the licorice root, but I normally don’t mind it. I think it may be the chamomile that is the biggest offense – and I normally like chamomile. This just smells like pee to my nose. I have had 8 different teas from Good Earth now. Six have been extremely good. Two have been undrinkable to me personally. I guess if there is a bright side, I would rather see an epic fail than just another bag of meh.

Up until now I have been enjoying my break from ‘serious’ tea with these Good Earth fusions. Not so much with this one. Opening the envelope I smell something berry but can’t quite identify it. Once steeped the aroma is berry and vanilla. So far, so good. The however, is once I taste I am at first assaulted with a blast of stevia which suddenly jumps into high gear with hibiscus. The aftertaste turns to that bitter stevia taste that is like drinking saccharin. My wife, who is an herbal tea drinker thought the taste wasn’t bad. For me, this makes the do not ever try again list. I know I can’t like everything, but it disappoints me because I have been amused by all the previous Good Earth teas.

As a general rule, I am not a fan of chai. I couldn’t quite figure out why as I like everything that is in it. This and Sweet Chai of Mine have kind of clued me in, most chai are too over spiced for my tastes. Good Earth backs off on the intensity a couple notches and I appreciate it.

Dry this does smell a little medicinal with the cherry flavor. Once steeped the aroma turns to a warm cinnamon and cardamom with a touch of cherry. The taste is similar to the steeped aroma.

In tea, cherry never tastes like cherry in pie – which is how all cherry should taste. It is more like the cherry in a shaved ice. Since I have never found a tea that tastes like cherry pie, I can’t fault them here.

With Sweet Chai of Mine, the black pepper and ginger hit with a spicy heat at the end. In this one they are calmer and support the cinnamon allowing it to warm up the end of the sip.

I did sweeten this but only a little. It disappeared very quickly from my cup. That kind of surprised me.

Tea of the day with my oldest son. His laptop is dead. I blame Windows 10 and its stupid insistence of auto updates that you can’t disable. My youngest son says it has corrupted the boot drive, whatever that is.

Anyway, so tea – I am not a chai person. Keep that in mind. This is a bagged tea that can sometimes be found at the local grocer. It smells very medicinal when opening the envelope. Once steeping begins the aroma turns more traditional. The taste surprises me. It is far lighter than expected. I like that. It has the traditional chai spices in moderation and a touch of vanilla. The licorice root and stevia do add some sweetness, but for chai I think it should be sweeter. I added a little sweetener (half packet). This livens up the mug and brings out the maple flavor. It also brings out the black pepper and ginger in the form of a light bite with a little heat. So then I added a splash of milk. It mutes the chai spices a little and lifts the maple. For chai this isn’t bad.

I had this one yesterday. For the life of me I can’t figure out why it is so badly rated. Other than it being a tea bag, the big complaint seems to be the added stevia. While stevia does have a bit of a saccharin type bitter aftertaste, I think it fits this tea. It gives a little sweet kick at the end. It certainly isn’t as sweet as anything pre-sweetened at Starbucks. I also found this to be fairly complex for a lowly bag, and the flavors are light and airy. First I taste the combination of lemongrass and lemon myrtle. It achieves a very nice balance of citrus flavor. It isn’t candy and certainly isn’t furniture polish. Next I catch a brief brush of rose. It isn’t perfume or gross. It is actually quite pleasant. Late in the sip I notice the chamomile and blackberry leaves. Possibly along with the citric acid, they add just a slight tartness before the stevia kick finishes it off. As I said, I don’t get it (the hate). I might not want it all the time but would definitely drink this again. As for the aftertaste – it didn’t offend me, even so, to me it is just an opportunity to have a snack with my tea.