Tazo Review: What to Know Before You Buy

What Tazo actually sells

Tazo, founded in Portland, Oregon in 1994 and later owned by Starbucks before its sale to Unilever, is a tea brand built on flavoured blends with distinctive names and colourful packaging. Signature lines include Passion, a hibiscus, rose hip and orange peel herbal blend famous as an iced tea; Zen, a green tea with lemongrass and spearmint; Awake, a strong black tea blend for mornings; and Calm, a chamomile herbal blend for evenings. Bags are sold in grocery boxes, with concentrates and bottled iced teas in some markets.

Tazo's café history explains its flavour style: blends were designed to stand out in cafés, iced and lattéed, rather than to reward quiet teapot tasting. That café DNA still shapes the range, because several blends are formulated to survive ice, milk and sweetener, which plain teas often do not. The brand's current grocery range is narrower than at its café peak, but the signature blends remain widely stocked in US stores.

Passion, Zen, Awake and iced formats

Passion suits iced drinking best: brewed strong, chilled and served over ice, its hibiscus tartness gives a vivid pink cup that needs sweetener for many drinkers, while hot Passion tastes sharper and more acidic. Zen suits afternoon green drinking, with lemongrass and spearmint giving a fresh, clean cup that needs cooler water and a shorter steep than black tea. Awake suits morning milk tea, with a strong black base that holds up to milk, while Calm suits evenings, with chamomile as its base.

Concentrates and bottled Tazo drinks are factory-made versions of the café drinks, often sweetened, and they should be compared with other bottled teas, not with bagged Tazo. White Tazo teas suit light, delicate drinking, but they are the least forgiving of over-steeping, and herbal Tazo blends vary in caffeine, so ingredient lists decide evening suitability. Trying a blend both hot and iced reveals which preparation suits it, because several Tazo blends change character sharply with temperature.

Who Tazo suits best

Tazo suits flavoured-tea lovers, iced-tea makers, café-drink fans who want a home version of a Passion iced tea, and households that want bold flavours without specialist prices. It suits summer drinkers who brew pitchers, offices that want a colourful tea shelf, and gift buyers who enjoy the packaging. For drinkers who find plain tea dull, Tazo offers a flavour-led route into tea drinking that plain brands do not.

It also suits latte makers, because several blends hold up to steamed milk and sweetener better than delicate plain teas.

Who should look at other tea brands

Plain black, green and single-origin drinkers should buy from specialist merchants or classic brands, because Tazo prioritises flavour over leaf nuance. Hibiscus sceptics should avoid Passion, since its tartness dominates, and drinkers avoiding sweetened drinks should check bottled and concentrate labels carefully. Green-tea purists may prefer a specialist green merchant over Zen, which is a flavoured green rather than a plain one. This is general information, not medical advice.

Choosing Tazo tea

Start with Passion for iced tea or Awake for mornings, in a single box, and try the blend both hot and iced where suitable before judging it. Brew black Tazo with boiling water for three to five minutes, green Tazo cooler and shorter, and herbal Tazo longer, around five minutes. For iced Passion, brew double-strength, chill and sweeten to taste, rather than serving a normal brew over ice. Check ingredient lists for caffeine, especially in evening blends, and store boxes sealed and away from strong smells.

Frequently asked questions