Pure Leaf - 8 Reviews

Sometimes you come across things in life that are simply not for you, but that you can appreciate that they are well made and completely understand why other people would love them. This tea is one such thing. I've never been a huge lemon fan. I always kind of thought that it was because the flavor normally tasted very fake or that it wasn't strong enough in a pure form (the exception being proper lemonade which I can destroy during appropriate times). The Tea house Collection doesn't mess around. They don't add “flavoring” to their teas. They actually brew the things in with the tea itself, like tea should be made. Lemon peel and honeysuckle are mixed in with the black tea leaves when the hot water is added to steep it. That makes all the difference and everything tastes natural. The result is a lemon tea that has a strong flavor, without being bitter. It tastes like a iced version of someone's grandmother's tea if she used higher quality ingredients. I enjoyed this, but I didn't love it. If you are a fan of lemon tea, you will love this though. If you don't I don't know what to tell you. The world makes no sense.

Welcome to a very special episode of Tales from the Teahouse. This week there is a new exotic stranger in the town of True Brew. At first the townsfolks write him off because he is formerly a citizen of another country where things are kept quite hot and they feel he has no place in such a cool place as True Brew. Things come to a head when the stranger walks up to the front of the town hall meeting and implores the townsfolk to give him a chance saying that he's not like the other people of his kind. His spice is brewed right into his tea. He knows how purity is so important to the town and that is why he wanted to live there so badly. He is tea, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom all brewed into one magnificent form. If they would just partake of him they would all find that True Brew was truly where he belongs. Some of them partake of his body and find that he is right. He should have been a mess but he was close to perfection. Spiced Chai then became not only their neighbor, but also their god. If Vulture were to review this episode it would go something like ”True Brew is seriously a messed up town and this week a whole racist/Jesus thing went down and when you think about it the racism wasn't really cleared up and it actually ended up more engrained that you originally thought. A must see!”

The version of me from a previous time would be mighty pissed off at current me now, but I just need to come out and say As a culture why do we even bother giving “cheap” iced tea the time of day? That's right I am reformed and this might be the most adult thought that has ever crossed my perpetually 15 year old mind. Long gone are my days of guzzling Brisk or downing can after can of Arizona tall boys. In my current world it's quality over quantity, and to be honest the price point isn't that drastically different. Even if it were I would happily pay a little extra for a product such as this that actually tastes like tea and my just syrupy sludge that we have convinced ourselves tastes like tea. It really doesn't and we just need to accept that and move on.

This is exactly what I want from an iced tea. It's brewed, and not made from a powder. That is step one in the right direction. Step two is that it is sweetened with real sugar, and it's not overdone. I would say this is mediumly-sweetened and that is the limit of where I want my sugar level. It allows you to still be able to taste the other ingredients and not just an overt sweetness. Perhaps most importantly taste-wise is that the added flavoring isn't a syrup or a powder. The strawberry and spearmint are brewed with the tea; you know how it is when you buy some nice fancy tea that doesn't come in teabags. I admit I end up eating some of that tea dry because of the dried fruit, but I'm a maniac what do you expect. This is nicely lightly flavored and the mint doesn't leave you feeling like you brushed your teeth just before consuming the beverage. Everything here is done right. Lipton has evolved and now so do we.

What a way to kick off a ten degree day; a nice little black tea with some citric citrus going on up in there. It's all very lightly sweetened and lightly flavored and comes together into a nice lil' package. The black tea is a light to medium brew and the Valencia just an "orangish" flavor. I'm no orange connoisseur so it's "just" orange to me. It unfortunately doesn't come in a gallon jug because I could sit here and drink it all day. Sure I got it across the street from where I work but it took me an hour to drink this. If I'm at work for eight hours and this cost me around $2.50, that's going to cost me a Jackson per day. There are better ways to spend your money.

I'm not going to push any product on this review but this isn't good. It's not bad but it does not taste good. I drank a third of the bottle and am not going to waste my time drinking the rest. Don't get me wrong, I have a long track record of liking Pure Leaf. Their unsweetened is great as is their "Just a Tad Sweet." Their more boutique flavors are great also. This...there is a reason this was at Big Lots. When you buy drinks from Big Lots, you buy them with a little asterisk attached. Sometimes they're diamonds in the rough like the Unsweetened Peace Tea and sometimes they're not. You can't be mad about it.

This has the aftertaste of pomegranate but while you're drinking it, you get a taste of something undesirable. It's hard to pinpoint but it tastes artificial. I think it just has a strange tinge to it. Strange that it tastes better a minute after you drink it but it's when you're in the moment that counts and when you are in the think of it, it's not good. No sir. Peace out, two-thirds of this bottle.

You know what happens when you use good ingredients? You get a great tea at any temperature. Temperature?! Why are you mentioning temperature? Well it's because I didn't finish this yesterday and came back today to polish it off and review it. It was better today than it was yesterday. This uses real sugar and not corn syrup so after fourteen hours, it was not a syrupy mess. When it was cold, the temperature kind of made things different than today when it's neat I could taste the blackberry and the hint of sage. It was very nice, too. It was fruity and you could tell there was something. Not specifically sage but "something" herbal.

I think I'm going to have to befriend a bodega employee to sell me back stock so that it's warm. I think I'm going to have to befriend a bodega employee so that I can go hang out at bodegas. My dad used to own a Convenient store but I was too young to work there. Alas.

Lipton released its Pure Leaf line as a higher quality, real tea iced tea a few years ago. It started off as Lipton's Pure Leaf and now it's just Pure Leaf with the name Lipton only appearing in the small print on the back. Now they have taken things in an even fancier direction by having Pure Leaf hasa sub-line called the Tea House Collection.

This is organic green tea that has had apple and ginger brewed right into it. This is the way tea should be. It's not garbage tea that has had some sort of flavoring added to it, such as syrup, like a lot of companies do. When you brew all of the organic material together it tastes real and that is what this is. I wish more companies thought this way. I would happily pay a little more for a quality product like this instead of a can of something that makes my teeth feel like they are rotting.


As with most drinks I would have preferred a stronger showing from the ginger, but it's still there in taste if not burn. The Fuji apple is fairly strong. It kind of taste like I'm eating an apple that someone has shot with a syringe full of green tea. Just imagine biting into that juicy beast. That would be great, messy but great. Save on the cleanup time and get yourself a bottle of this. I defy you to find a more naturally tasting mass produced tea.

This only has two ingredients, three if you're going to be a jerk and count "citric acid" as an ingredient. That's all that is in here. In many previous reviews I mention that is all that is needed to make the perfect sweet tea. So why is this so boring? I don't like the taste of it. It's black tea and you can taste it. Credit where credit is due. The sugar and/or the citric acid make this drink taste like mass produced junk. It's real sugar. I don't get it. So close. Something in this drink sucks. The drink doesn't suck but there is a weak link in here bringing it down. It's the inverse of the kid that gets high grades in a weighted test and screws the rest of the kids by being good. That kid is at an Ivy League college during the making of this drink and you're stuck with solid "C" students. Read a book, you idiots.