Tazo® Joy™ Full Leaf Tea

My boss bought me a tin of this for the holidays, which was very sweet of her. I tried a bag today at work. The ingredients looked interesting but nothing really holiday-ish about them. Maybe I’m imagining things, but I swear this tasted slightly peachy but the description on here doesn’t mention it and the tin is at work. It’s nice, but not especially interesting or season appropriate. Still, a nice gesture certainly.

For some reason, I could not muster up the motivation to go out today, so instead I stayed home and decided to give the sachet form of Tazo Joy a try. The last time I made some of this tea, I believe that I used a filter bag, and the result was a bit disappointing. It did not really match my positive memory of the blend from a few years back.

Today, however, I was very happy with the full-leaf sachet brewed cups. To avoid the unpleasant bitterness, I was meticulous about steep time, and I also used a bit cooler water than I had used before. The same sachet was infused in rapid succession for the two steeps, each for only about two minutes, and both were very good. The first infusion was a bit darker brown, and the second a bit more orange in color, but the flavor of both brews was very good.

From now on, I’ll make sure to follow this short-steep method. Two minutes is long enough to get a nice taste of all of the various teas in this blend, Assam, Darjeeling, Green, and Oolong! The only thing missing is pu-ehr! I feel that the darjeeling is the most dominant, but the blend is definitely enhanced by all of the teas included.

I have to say that the Tazo sachets are generously filled and should be viewed as the tea equivalent to two filterbags. The green tea sachets and this one of Joy are both perfectly adequate for two large cups of tea—today I used 11 ounce double-walled Bodum glasses.

Well… I tried this tea again. This tea is a very tricky one to brew. I followed the instructions on the back, but it said boiling water. I think next time I’ll brew it for green tea brewing instructions. Such a tricky one to steep. Honestly I don’t taste or smell anything fantastic in this one. I don’t smell joy or Christmas or anything from this. Just black tea. I don’t really get why this is a seasonal tea either.

I think I will have to revisit this one again and hopefully, once steeped differently will jump out at me. I can’t decide if this is a milk tea, milk and sugar, straight… all in all the trio of leaves just make me thing this is too much going on. I have a whole tin of sachets left, so I guess I will be giving this a try again, but right now I just don’t see what all the “joy” is about this tea.

I picked up this tea in a tin of 15 sachets last night at target. I was hoping to find a jasmine green tea of some sort, but they didn’t have any and this was only $3! It says it’s a mix of black tea, oolong, and green with peach. I definitely smell “peach flavor”, and taste a very generic, mildly bitter/astringent black tea. It’s not bad – would probably be a lot better with milk/sugar/etc. I could see the peachiness growing on me, but for now, I’ll give this one a 40/100. Not mad about it for $3 and a reusable tin.

It was another wonderful Christmas at my house, the day when we Christians celebrate the most precious gift of the birth of Jesus Christ our Savior. In addition to this miraculous gift, I also received some other cool presents this year. One of the great ones was a box of Tazo Joy tea from a dear friend of ours.

I don’t drink a lot of bagged tea anymore as I prefer the bolder and more complex flavors that more consistently occur in loose leaf tea. However, there are some bagged teas that are exceptional. I believe Tazo often falls into that category.

First of all, you know Tazo makes “classy” products because their teas are enclosed in “sachets” rather than “bags.” All kidding aside, they do use a silky woven material for their bags…uh…harrumph…sachets, instead of paper. One of my complaints with bagged tea is that you can occasionally taste the paper bag. The Tazo sachet material seems to be tasteless and odorless which allows the tea to sink or swim on its own merit (or lack thereof).

One interesting NOTE: When I was researching this tea on the Internet, I found what must have been an image of older packaging for this tea. At that time, the box said the tea was contained in “filterbags.” I guess “sachets” does sound more sophisticated. :-)

The Tazo Joy sachet contained long black full leaves, as advertised. Other tea bags that I’ve tried contained leaves/by-products that were pulverized to a dry powder. I haven’t found that method optimal for producing superior flavor. The Tazo sachet also had an enticing fruity aroma.

I steeped the sachet for five minutes in eight ounces of boiling water as recommended on the box. The resultant color was a goldish orange. The brewed smell was slightly sweet and fruity.

The taste of this tea was quite decent. The flavor was fruity, mildly sweet, smooth, and lower-end-of-medium-strength. There was absolutely no astringency. There really was no aftertaste either.

The package revealed that the fruity flavor came from peaches. My palate wasn’t sensitive enough to discern the specific fruit’s classification but I was able to identify the flavor as a resident in that family.

All in all, this is a nice tea that I will be happy to drink on those days when, for whatever reason, I don’t have time (or the inclination) to set up the Breville tea maker for a pot of loose leaf tea. Also, I would definitely choose this blend over some of the nasty tea-like substances produced by certain office tea pod machines.

Been a few Christmases since I’ve had this. Its description now reads:

A jubilant blend of black tea, oolong, jasmine green tea & hints of peach.

Memory may be failing (my family would instantly confirm that), but when this was first released, I recall it being primarily green/black without the more delicate peachy, oolong-y highlights. Still a good sip, just a different one.

I received this in my Christmas stocking. It came in a nice tin. Joy, what a promising name! I understand this is a holiday blend. I’m not sure what I expected, but this tea was quite disappointing. Nothing wrong with it really. It was just nothing to write home about. There didn’t seem anything Christmasy about it. It seemed like another average black tea. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I have yet to meet a Tazo tea that I would rate “gotta have it”. I wouldn’t make an effort to seek this one out when there are so many other black teas I prefer.

Not super impressed with this one. I think I’ve gotten to the point where Tazo just doesnt surprise or excite me. I’m not quite sure what makes this a Christmas tea release as well…it always comes off muddy for me. The green and oolong never win over in dominance and I end up disappointed. Bah.

I went by the Art Museum, and I was fairly excited about the blend because Starbucks finally had an oolong! The initial seconds are actually really good, but this tea over steeps way too easily. I get all notes and they all balance each other out until the steeping time reaches beyond a minute. I would have rated this higher if I took the bag out sooner, but of what I enjoyed, it was a pretty good oolong.