New Tazo Ice Tea Bags & A Food Gal Giveaway
With summer just around the corner, it’s time to kick back with a refreshing pitcher of iced tea.
Tazo makes that even easier now with its new line of Iced Tea Filterbags.
These aren’t mere bags, but large sachets of tea leaves, to better brew a large pitcher without diluting its flavor.
Recently, I had a chance to try samples of the three new flavors: Iced Black Tea (a strong pick-me-up), Iced Green Tea (with the lilt of spearmint, lemongrass and lemon verbena), and Iced Passion Tea (with notes of hibiscus, mango and passion fruit).
The generously sized sachet is easy to use. Just drop one in hot water and let steep for about five minutes. I sipped the iced black tea on a weekday afternoon when I needed that extra hit of caffeine. Even over ice, the flavor wasn’t watered down whatsoever.
A box of six tea sachets is $4.95. Find them at Starbucks stores or other grocery stores. The Portland, Ore. company is a division of Starbucks.
Contest: One lucky Food Gal reader will win a sample box of each of the three new Tazo Iced Tea Filterbags. You’ll also get a pretty glass pitcher (pictured above) to serve it in once your tea has cooled down enough to transfer it to that vessel.
Entries, limited to those in the continental United States, will be accepted through midnight PST June 2. Winner will be announced June 4.
How to win?
Just tell me about a favorite occasion you’ve enjoyed in which tea was prominent. Most memorable answer wins.
Here’s my own reply:
“Dining at a favorite Thai or Vietnamese restaurant because it’s a built-in excuse to have a tall, creamy glass of Thai iced tea. It’s like having dessert with your meal. And how many times are you allowed to do that, right? I’m not one for milk in hot tea, but somehow the addition of sweet condensed milk in this iced version wins me over. Whenever I see it on a menu, I just have to have it.”
Winner of Last Week’s Contest: In the previous Food Gal contest, I asked you to tell me what perks you up even more than coffee. The winner will receive a sampler of eight varieties of organic coffee from Portland Roasting Coffee.
Congrats to:
Krystal, who wrote, “What perks me up in the morning is when I’m driving to work from San Jose to Half Moon Bay and on those special days when it is not foggy and misty once I reached the coast (very rare days) I can see the sun come up just as I’ve arrived and I pull up to the beach, grab a sweater and jump out of the car to put my toes in the still chilled sand, watch the sunrise and listen to the waves crashing. The waves almost seem silent, since usually no one is on the beach besides me. As I sip my coffee and enjoy the beauty I think to myself how lucky I am to have found a job I enjoy so much in such a beautiful place. Those beautiful clear sky sunny mornings in Half Moon Bay will make any day at the office a fantastic one.”
After visiting the Pompidou Centre in Paris last fall, my family and I had tea at the rooftop café. The view was lovely, the temperature was cool, and the tea was Mariage Frères. Idly reading the tea bag tag, we saw that the company had a tea shop nearby, so we went off in search of it. It wasn’t a difficult search and was well worth the effort: the premises included the shop, a small tea museum, and a very crowded salon for drinking tea. The shop was tiny but everyone got taken care of in turn. While we waited for one of the tea clerks, we perused the list of teas available, printed in columns on both sides of a laminated sheet of paper that measured 11″ x 17″ and used a very, very tiny font. When our turn arrived, we said what teas interested us so they could be taken down from the shelf for us to sniff. It was a lovely experience! The most difficult part was deciding which ones of hundreds to try. We were not rushed and the clerks were very patient, making this tea shop a definite “must visit again!”
As we may all know, teaching is a tiring job! As an elementary school teacher, everyday I must stay alert and energetic in order to teach well. So I have concocted my own “energy” drink. Every few days, I brew a large batch of Brazilian yerba mate tea with Japanese mattcha/green tea powder. Then I refrigerate this tea in a plastic dispenser. Every morning, when I pack my lunch for work, I fill my 20-oz insulated water bottle with this tea. I drink it throughout my work day. Yes, this tea tastes somewhat bitter and very “greeny” but it is incredibly refreshing as a cold drink (hence it is important to use an insulated bottle to keep the tea cold). Not only does this tea keeps me going throughout the day (caffeine), the vitamin C in yerba mate and the antioxidant qualities in green tea keep me healthy. Even though I work with children, I rarely get sick and I haven’t called in sick at work for a very long time now. So my memorable tea experience is not just a singular moment, it is daily–at least 180 days/year!
wow! That glass of tea looks SO AMAZING! I love your photography and how shiny it is! haha. oh and I have lotsa Tazo tea too…! But they’re solely used for baking 😀
My favorite tea moment was with my grandmother who was born in the late 1800’s. She learned to make cookies with what was available and they simply called them “tea”
cakes. Every year for as long as she was able, Grandmama made “tea” cakes for me and my sister for our birthdays. She would place this one huge round “tea cake” in the middle. With a knife, she would stencil out Happy Birthday Carol, in the center. The smaller, normal cookies surrounded the huge “tea cake”. We always had a glass of cold, sweet tea with the cookies. Overall, they were good, but not sweet and that is why we always had a very cold glass of sweet tea with our cookies. I have been in love with tea ever since! Straight up Lipton brewed in the hot Texas sun; or a flavored tea at a unique sandwich shoppe, or making my own favorite flavors at work…Tea for Me, please.
Oh I think I’ve seen Tazo teas on Oprah!
It’s actually quite hard to choose a favorite tea moment because I have had so many. Maybe it’s my Russian heritage, but I grew up enjoying tea. However, one moment that has come to mind a lot recently occurred 5 years ago when I was traveling in the Middle East while in college. I absolutely fell in love with Damascus; it was gorgeous and full of history, and its people very hospitable. I was walking through the city with a friend when a shopkeeper invited us into his shop. We told him he didn’t have any souvenirs that we were looking for, but he kindly persisted in asking us in to enjoy a cup of tea and some fruit. In light of all that is going on in Syria, I have recently been reminiscing my days spent there and remembered this moment of cross-cultural human connection over a cup of tea.
I love tazo teas!
Every year, all of the females in my MD/PhD program go to this adorable tea place called Alice’s Tea Cup to get to know each other a bit better. There are all the usual tea party goodies (scones, clotted cream, cute little sandwiches, etc) and delicious tea of course! It’s always a fun time.
I’ve never had Tazo tea! And I drink iced tea by the gallon, all year long.
I will never forget going to tea with my girlfriends for the first time. It was so fun, feminine, and dainty (good thing I ate all the biscuits and lemon curd before our dainty portions arrived). We strained our own teas and shared little bites of tea sandwiches, various homemade jams, and cookies. We caught up and laughed the afternoon away.
Oh I love Tazo Passion Tea! It reminds me so much of our time living in California. I would stop by Starbucks on hot Summer days and get a big cup of it. It is always so refreshing and fruity tasting.
My family loves to go dim sum and try all the little plates of food and enjoy the chaotic but homey atmosphere of barking waitresses and patrons fighting for the last plate of something delicious. Dim sum has to go with tea, for us we enjoy the darkest tea possible. We weekly fight over the last drop of the tea in the tea pot where the taste is deep and rich and coffee like. When a waiter tries to refill the pot we kindly tell them to wait, while the my Dad and I ensure that every last drop is taken. It is moments like these that I remember that family is important, food is central and our idiosyncrasies make us special. To the waiters we may be crazy, to us this is how it is meant to be done.