Review: Archer Farms Dragon Well Green

15 tea bags (Target, sale price $2.98)

As I've said before in this blog, my experience with most Archer Farms products have been good ones. Another case in point is their Dragon Well Green Tea. Much like a mediocre first date, it neither impresses nor disappointments allowing for an acceptable, civilized time that may or may not be related to friends.

Sold in state-of-the-art, pyramid style tea bags both the smell and flavor of this tea tends towards the light side. Going down smooth and without much bitterness, the tea is mellow and slightly smokey. Not as full bodied or deep as a higher quality Dragon Well, the experience is good but not great. While it is certainly more complex than the average generic bagged green tea, it fails to really enforce some of the claims found on the packaging. As far as being "delicately tinged with sweetness" as the box suggests, I could distinguish no such subtlety. This tea is fairly straightforward from start to finish, tending to lack in any delicate tinges advertised or otherwise.

For convenience and price the Archer Farms Dragon Well tea is not a bad deal. It may not suit a true connoisseur but for those looking to go beyond generic bagged green tea it makes an excellent first choice.

Review: Archer Farms Organic Blueberry White

39g loose (Target, $6.99)

Through Archer Farms (a Target exclusive food brand) Target now carries a small selection of loose leaf teas. Regardless of the Starbucks-ification / White Noise-ification of America that Target encourages, for the most part Archer Farms products tend to be pretty good (and many are organic if that's what gets your goat). Coinciding with this trend, their Blueberry White tea is just that: pretty good.

Billed by the people at Archer Farms as “a refreshing combination of sweet, juicy blueberries and wholesome white tea” the initial of the tin lives up to the description. Any fan of blueberries could happily burn a few minutes just smelling this stuff.

The purplish liquor that follows keeps much of the enticement. Unfortunately when it comes down to the flavor this excitement is somewhat diminished. Extremely light, with a slight trace of hibiscus, the flavor is pleasant though it lacks much force or complexity. Granted white tea is supposed to be delicate but this tea lacks a certain fullness you would expect after such a seductive introduction. What happened to that cascade of juicy blueberries? Were they deemed too much for the masses?