A staunch tea fan for more than twenty years, I’ve consumed several boxes of Great Value Black Tea in recent years. They served orange pekoe versions of black tea routinely at meals at my high school, and Mom drank it daily as my siblings and I were growing up.
Occasionally, shed make a pot of it for us all when we behaved well. Wonderful stuff indeed. As teas go, Great Value black tea equals the best I’ve tasted. I like its clear, deep orange-red color with virtually no bitterness.
Great Value, as with most black teas, sweetens well with stevia or agave nectar. For a store brand tea, Great Value black tea is, as one would expect, perhaps 10% cheaper than the corresponding name brands Plus, it stock piles well, for years in a cool, dry pantry. Note that orange pekoe tea is a particular preparation of black tea. So orange pekoe tea is indeed black tea. I have here an 8-ounce, 100 tea bag box of this strongly flavored black tea for review. Find my impressions of it below.
Benefits, Features, Pros, and Advantages
Great Value black tea resembles the Red Rose Original Tea (reviewed here) in terms of taste, aroma, and appearance in the cup. For most intents and purposes, this tea appears to be a less costly version of Red Rose. Yet it does not shirk on flavor or overall tea quality.
This black tea keeps for years without noticeable flavor degradation, as the box comes wrapped in virtually air-tight cellophane.
This tea works well as an appetite suppressant, although not as well as green tea in my system.
This blended tea sweetens up very well when you add stevia. Stevia sweetens without destroying the signature orange pekoe tea flavor.
Unlike the green teas I’ve tried, you can put lots of honey into this orange pekoe and pekoe cut black tea without destroying its not-so-delicate and muscular flavor. Adding a bit of half and half also compliments the flavor here.
The best-if-used-by date is roughly two years out from the date I purchased my box. But I’ve learned that it will keep for longer without losing much great flavor.
This high quality yet low-cost tea has considerable caffeine. So it will indeed jolt you awake in the morning, or rescue you from those 2:30 PM after lunch blues at work.
This is a low-priced yet excellent tasting beverage for both hot tea and iced tea situations. Each serving costs less than three cents.
The tea bags are individually wrapped in paper The bags are lined up in three rows of 33 teabags each in this 100 tea bag box.
They use real metal staples to fasten the string and tags to each tea bag. So these assemblies rarely come detached, unlike some other brands that use a metal-free bag-string-tag construction. You will almost never have to fish a tea bag out of your cup with a spoon because its string came off. Keep up with those metal staples Great Value.
This product contains no artificial colors or flavors, and is gluten-free.
Disadvantages, Cons, Limitations, and Problems
Though I like the provided individual wrapping of the tea bags, this paper wrapping is not completely air-tight, because as soon as you open the box, and assuming that the tea inside is fresh, you get a strong smell of tea. So the individual bags may not stay fresh as long as other brands of tea that utilize either foil or plastic wrappings.
Particularly when I’ve not taken any tea in recent days, I can become “wired” when I again consume it, and can feel sick when riding in a car after drinking it. It can make me feel quite nauseous when I’m gone without it for several weeks.
Being darker in color than most green teas, especially when you steep it for many minutes, this beverage can stain clothes if you accidentally spill it on yourself. If this happens, rinse it out with clear water right away if the affected clothing can be washed.
Brewing Instructions
Each tea bag makes one cup of black tea.
By The Cup
- Boil enough fresh water for the number of cups of this tea you wish to brew.
- While waiting for the water to boil, unwrap 1 Great Value tea bag for each cup you’re making.
- Put the bags into each cup.
- When water boils, immediately pour it into the cups.
- Steep for two to five minutes or until it becomes strong enough for your taste.
- Discard the tea bag(s).
- Sweeten tea as desired.
- Enjoy.
By The Pot
- Use hot water to rinse out tea-pot prior to brewing, to warm it.
- Again, determine how many cups of black tea you wish to make.
- Put the desired amount of fresh, filtered water in your kettle or pot.
- Put the kettle on your stove and activate the heat.
- While waiting for the water to boil, removing the wrappings from the desired number of tea bags.
- Remove labels from the tea bags, to avoid possible contamination of the tea with ink from the tags.
- When the water achieves a rolling boil, immediately add the tea bags into the pot of boiling water.
- Remove pot from heat and turn off the stove.
- Allow bags to steep in the pot for two to five minutes.
- Remove the bags from the pot with a straining spoon and discard.
- Pour the tea into cups, sweeten to taste, add milk, lemon, lime, or orange as desired, and enjoy.
For Iced Tea
- Unwrap four teabags.
- Remove the labels from them.
- Put these teabags into a tea-pot.
- Then, in a separate container, boil four cups (1 quart) of fresh, filtered water.
- Once the water boils, remove from heat and turn off the heat source.
- Pour this water into the teapot, over top of the tea bags.
- Steep for five minutes.
- Remove and discard the tea bags with a straining spoon.
- Add sugar, lemon, orange, and/or lime as desired to the brewed tea.
- Fill desired number of glasses with ice.
- Pour steeped tea into these glasses.
- Enjoy.
Ingredients
Orange pekoe and pekoe cut black tea.
Nutrition Facts
- Serving size: 1 tea bag (2.2 grams). Makes 8 Fl. ounces.
- Servings per container: 100.
- Calories: 0, 0% DV. Calories from fat: 0.
- Total fat: 0 grams, 0% DV.
- Cholesterol: 0 grams, 0% DV.
- Sodium: 0 milligrams, 0% DV.
- Potassium: 25 milligrams, 1% DV.
- Total carbohydrate: 0 grams, 0% DV.
- Sugars: 0 grams.
- Protein: 0 grams.
- Vitamin A: 0% DV.
- Calcium: 0% DV.
- Folic acid: 0% DV.
- Vitamin C: 0% DV.
- Iron: 0% DV.
Our Rating
In closing: This beverage is simple to prepare, easy to flavor, and quite good tasting and smelling. Plus, it’s quite cheap, especially for individually wrapped tea bags. It’s a perfect beverage and a great buy. So I’d therefore rate it at 99 out of 100.
Where To Buy Great Value Black Tea
Look for this black tea in the white box with the blue Great Value logo and picture of the tea being poured into a clear tea-cup, exclusively at Walmart grocery stores and super centers.
References
Revision History
- 2014-12-01: Added whitespace and adjusted ad positioning.
- 2014-10-20: Added updated product picture.
- 2014-09-03: Added older picture and updated content.