Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal Tisane
Where to Buy: Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Description:
An exciting and invigorating herbal infusion of pure peppermint leaves to revitalize and refresh. Peppermint has been shown to aid digestion.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This Pure Peppermint Herbal Tisane from Rington’s Premium English Teas is really bright and fresh tasting! I know that I’ve been down on bagged teas quite a bit lately but this particular bagged tea is quite enjoyable. The flavor is really strong and has the cool, crisp flavor that I expect from a good quality peppermint tisane.
Very minty – as you might expect it to be. It IS pure peppermint, after all! It has a zesty, slightly peppery bite to it and my mouth feels minty fresh after I drink it.
I like to keep peppermint on hand because I find it to be a soothing tea to drink after I’ve had something spicy. (I eat a lot of spicy stuff!) It helps to settle the tummy and it’s ideal when my daughter has a stomach ache.
A really nice pure peppermint.
Kenyan Gold Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Description:
Kenyan Gold 80’s is a luxury, top quality tea from the “Extra Fresh” family of teas.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I’ve tried a couple of different teas from Rington’s Premium English Teas now, and I think that this Kenyan Gold Tea might be the best one that I’ve tried thus far.
Yes, it’s a bagged tea. Yes, I know that I’ve been ‘bagging’ on bagged teas a lot lately. I guess after spending the last six plus years tasting teas and writing about what I’m tasting has shaped my opinions about bagged teas because as I’ve said before (and am likely to say again) – loose leaf tea is superior.
But this bagged tea is actually quite pleasant. The flavor of the Kenyan tea is rich and flavorful. It’s nice and smooth. There’s very little astringency to this and no bitterness. Just smooth, rich flavor that is bold and invigorating.
To achieve this flavor, I brought my kettle to a boil and put one bag into my mug and poured 8 ounces of boiling water over the bag. I let this steep for 2 1/2 minutes.
It’s a little sweet with a flavor that is somewhere between molasses and caramel. It has some fruit notes – reminiscent of raisin and plum. Hints of earth. Notes of leather. It has a pleasant, round flavor. Nice.
Earl Grey Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Description:
Aromatic light black tea bags. From our ‘Extra Fresh’ family of teas. A premium quality fair traded aromatic blend of black tea, delicately flavoured with natural bergamot flavour.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Earl Grey Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas: another bagged Earl Grey. I decided to go into this experience with an open mind and determined to find the good in this tea. I feel like lately, most of my bagged tea reviews have been ‘bagging’ on the tea bag. I want to try to keep an open mind because I have, in fact, tried decent bagged teas. Sure, loose leaf is better. Loose leaf is the way to go in about 98% of all situations, but there is the occasion when bagged teas are certainly more convenient even if they aren’t more flavorful.
So I steeped the bag in one of my favorite mugs, using 8 ounces of boiling water for 3 minutes. Now that I’m sipping this, I wish I would have gone with 2 1/2 minutes because this is a tad more astringent than I would like it to be and I think that a slightly shorter steep time might help to reduce that.
My first impression: the flavor is a bit off. The bergamot tastes strange to me, it doesn’t have that crisp tangy flavor that I expect from bergamot.
Again, I want to find the good in this tea, so I’m not tossing it yet! The black tea. It’s alright. It has a pleasant flavor. It’s rich and has a light malty note to it. It is astringent, like I’ve already mentioned. It has a dry sensation toward the tail of the sip.
On the good side: although the bergamot isn’t quite what I expected when I tasted this tea, it isn’t ‘bad’ – it’s just a bit sweeter than I expected from bergamot. It tastes like maybe the bergamot has been ‘enhanced’ by another orange flavor to soften the edge of the bergamot. The black tea has a pleasant flavor. And this tea does taste better as it cools – this would make a really nice iced tea.
I suspect that this might be alright to someone who hasn’t tasted better Earl Grey teas. That is to say, if all they’ve been drinking is other brands of bagged Earl Grey teas, they might find this one to be just as acceptable as some other bagged Earl Grey teas, perhaps even better than others. It’s certainly not the worst Earl Grey I’ve ever tried, but it’s not the best either. But if you’ve tried a really good, loose leaf Earl Grey tea, you’ll more than likely find this one lacking, I’m sorry to say.
Everyday Green Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Rington’s Premium English Teas
Tea Description:
Our modern version of green tea. The unfermented tea leaves are processed gently, encouraging the mellow tea flavours to come through to give a smoother flavour with no harshness. Ideal with or without milk!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I had my reservations about this Everyday Green Tea from Rington’s Premium English Teas. I think that by now, I’ve shown that I’m a little less than enthusiastic when it comes to bagged tea. That said, I do occasionally find not only what I’d deem ‘acceptable’ bagged tea but what I might even call tasty!
This is one such bagged tea. Sure, I’d be happier if this were a loose leaf tea. But, for a bagged tea, this is pleasant. It’s tasty.
To brew it, I heated my kettle of freshly filtered water to 175°F and put one tea bag into a mug. Then I added the heated water and let it steep for 2 minutes.
It tastes like ‘green tea.’ It’s smooth, sweet and buttery. It has vegetal notes that are a little grassy and a little like lima beans.
The tea is not bitter but there is a fair amount of astringency to this – much more so than I’m used to experiencing with a green tea. It starts out rather subtle and it develops and now that I’m halfway through the cup I’m finding this to have a dry, astringent finish.
Overall, this is alright. It isn’t something I’m likely to stock in my pantry but it’s not something I’d refuse if I were offered it, either.