Mighty Leaf Tea

In an impulsive move at a local Walgreens, while searching for a compass (long story), I hastily grabbed a variety pack of Mighty Leaf Tea. Pretty packaging, high price tag - how could I resist?

Kudos to them on the clever, if mostly obsolete, phone number: 1877 MY T LEAF. Very clever.

So they've got some clever marketing people, but beyond that, how good is the product? This is what I set out to find, trying each tea in the variety pack one by one.

First: African Nectar. Gross. Red tea has always been a little weird to me, and this one smelled like cough syrup and tasted... kinda funny. I don't recommend it unless you love red tea.
Rating: 0. I didn't even finish it. I couldn't even pawn it off on the tea-lover across the aisle.

Second: Organic Spring Jasmine. Deeee-licious! A rich, complexly floral blend of green tea goodness and exotic, summery jasmine. I'm absolutely buying a pack if I ever make it over to that Walgreens again.
Rating: 10. Best Jasmine Green Tea I can remember.

Third: American Breakfast. The name says it all: boring, and not particularly healthy. I added half and half (half milk, half cream, how can you go wrong?) but kept wishing I was drinking something else anyway.
Rating: 3. Might as well be drinking Nestea.

Fourth: Green Tea Tropical. Good. Pretty much what you would expect.
Rating: 5. Good. But not for $8.99 a box.

Fifth: Orange Dulce. The moment I plopped it my cup, my cubical neighbor asked, "Do you smell Fruit Loops?" I didn't. She has a freakishly sensitive sense of smell. But after a couple dunkings the scent finally made it all the way to my mostly-useless olfactory glands and there it was - an unmistakable hint of Fruit Loops. Here's a secret Fruit Loops doesn't want you to know: all of their fruit flavors are actually orange. For the most part. So it's not really that surprising that Orange Dulce smells like toucan-peddled cereal. The taste is surprisingly delicate, if slightly too sweet.
Rating: 6. Different, unexpected - a solid afternoon tea.

There are two left in the box that I haven't tried yet: Organic Earl Grey, and Chamomile Citrus. I'm not a fan of chamomile, but I love Earl Grey, so I'll let you know if either of these changes my overall rating of Mighty Leaf Tea.
Which so far is an 8.5.


Update:

Chamomile Citrus: Expectedly soothing, yet also surprisingly refreshing. It was a pleasant drinking experience and a nice wind-down between a long work day and an astronomy midterm.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10. If I was really into chamomile it probably would have been awesome.

Organic Earl Grey: As a cautionary note, I was too lazy to rinse out a few drops of half-and-halfy coffee at the bottom of my cup before pouring in some hot water and plunking a silky biodegradable bag of Organic Earl Grey in there. But as soon as my hyper-powered office air conditioner cools it down enough to take a sip, I'll tell you what I think anyway.
Should be any minute now.
It smells nice.
Aaaaaaand... it's a little light on the bergamot. I suppose that would be a plus to some people, and it's probably healthier that way considering large amounts of bergamot have been known to cause nerve damage... um... but it's my favorite thing about Earl Grey so I'm a little disappointed.
Rating: 6 out of 10. I've had some really good Earl Greys and this one was just good. Not Really good.

My new overall rating of Mighty Leaf Tea: 7.9 out of 10.