Harney & Sons Assorted Tea Bag Sampler, 140 Count

The assortment is built around fourteen Harney & Sons blends: Hot Cinnamon Spice, English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Decaf Earl Grey, Decaf Ceylon, Ceylon & India, Paris, Japanese Sencha, Organic Citron Green, Organic Green with Citrus and Ginkgo, Organic Peppermint, Egyptian Chamomile, Lemon Herbal and Raspberry Herbal. That spread covers black, green and herbal styles in one box. Each of the 140 teabags is individually wrapped and labeled with its blend name.

The flat teabags Harney & Sons uses in its wrapped teabag line are paper, and the company bleaches that paper with oxygen rather than chlorine so it stays neutral tasting. Harney describes the paper as compostable. The pyramid sachets sold in its tins and sachet bags are a separate format made from an industrially compostable material derived from sugarcane.

This sampler is the wrapped teabag format rather than the pyramid sachets. Harney & Sons draws the line this way: sachets hold whole leaf tea in a mesh pouch, while teabags hold more finely cut leaf in a paper bag. The finer cut releases flavor faster, which is why this style is the one the company sells into offices and food service.

Hot Cinnamon Spice is the blend Harney & Sons is best known for and the one most customers discover the brand through. It layers three types of cinnamon with orange peel and sweet cloves over a black tea base, which gives it a bold, warming, almost dessert-like character. Harney's own product page shows it rated 4.9 out of 5 across nearly 14,000 reviews. If you only try one thing in the box, most people start here.

There is no sugar or sweetener in the blend. The sweetness people taste comes from the cinnamon, sweet cloves and orange peel, which register as sweet on the palate on their own. Many drinkers take it plain for that reason, though it also holds up to a splash of milk.

Yes. Decaf Earl Grey and Decaf Ceylon cover the decaffeinated black side, and four of the fourteen blends are herbal infusions rather than tea leaf: Egyptian Chamomile, Organic Peppermint, Lemon Herbal and Raspberry Herbal. The remaining blends are standard black and green teas that carry caffeine.

Harney & Sons recommends water at a full boil, 212 degrees Fahrenheit, for five minutes for black teas and for herbal infusions. Green teas want gentler treatment at around 175 degrees for one to three minutes, so the Japanese Sencha and the two organic greens in the box are better with water pulled off the boil. One teabag is sized for a 6 to 8 ounce cup.

These are finely cut leaf teabags built to give their flavor to a single cup, so a second steep comes out noticeably lighter. If you are filling a 12 ounce mug, two teabags give a better result than stretching one. For a pot, scale up at roughly one bag per cup of water.

That is exactly the use this 140 count is built for. Every teabag is individually wrapped and printed with its blend name, so people can take what they want without opening a shared tin, and fourteen blends cover black, green, decaf and herbal preferences at once. Harney sells this size through its food service line for breakrooms, offices and hospitality.

Yes. Brew at double strength, about two teabags per 8 ounces of hot water, steep the usual five minutes for a black blend, then pour it straight over a full glass of ice. Hot Cinnamon Spice, Paris and the citrus greens all work well cold. For a pitcher, figure roughly one bag per cup of finished tea and chill after steeping.

Egyptian Chamomile and Organic Peppermint are herbal infusions with none of the astringency of tea leaf, and Japanese Sencha and Organic Citron Green are light bodied next to the blacks. Among the black teas, Paris and Decaf Ceylon are gentler, while English Breakfast and Ceylon & India are the briskest in the assortment.

Paris is one of the Harney & Sons signature blends, a black tea flavored with bergamot, vanilla and a touch of caramel. It reads as a softer, sweeter cousin to Earl Grey. Alongside Hot Cinnamon Spice and Earl Grey it is among the brand's best known flavored blacks, and it brews the same way as the other blacks in the box, five minutes at boiling.