After a lazy spell of about two months, I saw that I actually have a decent number of visitors to the site and that gave me the little burst of inspiration I needed to write again. It feels wrong to do a post that includes hot teas in the middle of summer, but you’ll have to bear with me…or skip ahead to the iced tea notes at the end.

While I haven’t been too adventurous with the tea K-Cups, I thought it might be handy to review the ones I’ve tried all in one place. I hope this is helpful to my tea-drinking Keurig friends out there. You’ll see that each brand has its good and bad K-Cups.

Twinings English Breakfast: Not bad. Better quality than Celestial Seasonings English Breakfast.

Twinings African Rooibos (click to read full review)

Bigelow Earl Grey: Not as good as bagged (or certainly not loose leaf) but still enjoyable and much better than Twinings Earl Grey.

Bigelow Green Tea: Not bad. I like the ease of using a kcup since it’s easy to overbrew loose leaf or bagged green tea. I’ve also tried this iced with fairly good results.

Tazo Zen: Nice blend. Great spearmint smell (yep, it’s not your typical green tea). Too bitter at 6oz, but 8oz is good. Be patient: you can taste more flavors as temperature goes down.

Tazo Awake: Just okay. Very similar to Celestial Seasonings English Breakfast. Twinings English Breakfast is better.

Celestial Seasonings Green Tea: Pretty good. Similar to Bigelow Green Tea.

While none of these particularly wow me, some are definitely better than others.

Then there is this gem that exceeds them all:

Celestial Seasonings Mandarin Orange Spice: Delicious! I can see why it was sold out at Keurig. It has wonderful smells and the taste lives up to them. This is one I would like to have on hand on a regular basis. You can taste the orange and the cinnamon and other spices really well. Good with a smidge of honey. *Thanks to Mari for the photo.

And, last but not least, Celestial Seasonings Brew Over Ice teas:

Southern Sweet Black Tea: Quite tasty. I never tire of it.

Sweet Raspberry Black Tea: Satisfying and good if you like raspberry flavor, although not completely natural-tasting.

Half & Half Black Tea Lemonade: Something a little off with the flavor but still refreshing.

Unsweetened Black Tea: Really strong. You could probably get more than one glass out of this one. It was too strong for me to enjoy without sugar.

Sweet Lemon Black Tea: This one failed to wow me. The other flavored iced teas seem more natural and are yummier.

Sweet Peach Black Tea: Delightful. Right up there with Southern Sweet for iced tea goodness.

A note of caution: Don’t try to brew your iced tea in a glass. It will crack. These thick plastic cups work great.