Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Asian Ginseng’

Celestial Seasoning’s Honey Lemon Ginseng is fantabulous! Aroma is a soft lemon; it does not smell too sour nor too sweet. Whenever I see the combination of honey and lemon, I think of it as the perfect concoction for cold and flus. Now add ginseng to the mix and you definitely give a boost to your immune system. I am partial to ginseng so of course I had to choose this tea. There is an old Chinese proverb that says if you ask 2 men to walk around the world non-stop, the one who looks untired and refreshed at the end of the journey would have a piece of ginseng hidden under his tongue. This once again referring to ginseng’s many health benefits.

A tip for preparing teas: try ripping open the teabags, pouring contents directly into the teapot and steeping from there. This little step will add more flavour to your cup of tea. You can use a strainer to keep leaves and dregs from entering into your cup of tea. I did just that with this tea, pouring 5 grams into my ceramic teapot and steeping with 600 ml of boiling water for 3 minutes.

The taste is not too lemony and although I could not smell the ginseng in the aroma, I could definitely taste it. It has that familiar characteristic I get from many hui gan teas but without the bitterness. I am referring to the sort of “coated” mouthfeel you get like when you drink milk. Having that “coated” mouthfeel makes it less of a thirst quencher. As a matter of fact, it leaves a dry feeling in your mouth, but then again thirst quenching hot teas are a little hard to come by. There is an initial refreshing quality right when you put it in your mouth, then comes the “coatedness” and dry mouthfeel at the middle and back of the tongue and lastly a hint of sweetness and cool sensation felt from the honey and pressing the front of the tongue to the front centre of the roof of the mouth. It seems that when I drank the tea using loose leaf steeping methodology, the taste of the three components were manifested more in layers – one taste, then the next and so on, whereas when I drank it from the teabag, the taste was more blended, that is, no single element came to the forefront, every sip had nuances of all three elements. The elements are certainly easier to identify using the loose leaf methodology. I tend to rip open the teabag and steep the leaves loose whenever I have teabags, but not many people do this as it is messy (because most contain dust or fannings) and more inconvenient. But you should give it a try; the teabag keeps the character, quality, goodness, and flavour of the leaves all contained; cutting it open makes for a better cup.

A notable tea that I will not soon forget. Now I just need to find it in my supermarket!

You can purchase the Honey Lemon Ginseng Green Tea directly from the Celestial Seasonings website.

Sure, Green Tea Honey Ginseng is just another flavour from Celestial Seasonings, you say? Not really. Who can forget the first time having a cup of Celestial Seasoning tea. You may even recall exactly where you were and what you did when you sampled your first Celestial sip. My first time, I was in Chautauqua, NY, sipping a cup of Sleepy Time before heading off to bed and recall having such a restful night. The beauty of having so many choices of Celestial teas is that you can pick one for posting with your different memories.

Still after all these years, there is no change to the tea bag, the basic cardboard box with the clear crinkle plastic wrap packaging and the inside stiff waxed paper bag sealed with more wax. Celestial Seasonings continues its commitments to fair trade practises and consumer and environmental consciousness. There is the usual philosophical quote printed on the box. Don’t forget to look for it. This box quotes from the writings of Confucius. So why change a good thing? Is any one really crazy about the double tea bag they call a “pillow”. If you only want one cup, you have to split it away from its twin. It does have some usefulness as you will see below. It’s all part of what we expect from this tea company. How many boxes do we have at the back of the shelf? Plenty! Is this just another tea? Nope!

Somehow this tea company manages to maintain its high standard, offering a fragrant and tasty cup of tea that quenches your thirst and provides complimentary flavours to maintain your interest. I found myself reaching for this tea over and over again. It’s definitely a tea that would be appealing to many. It doesn’t seem to get strong. The ingredients are straightforward – “authentic” green tea, Bai Mu Tan white tea for “smooth taste”, Eleuthero (an adaptogen to combact stress, colds and other immune system deficiencies and mental fatigue), natural lemon and honey flavours, licorice, lemon verbena, chickory, ginger, orange blossoms, honey and Asian ginseng. Yes, it does contain caffeine.

The honey flavours are there (shown dripping all over the cover of the box) and are well balanced with the lemon and ginseng. You can expect a clean, smooth brew with natural sweetness! The colour of the liquor is lemon-yellow but is not clear, so it won’t matter because so many people use a mug and will leave the tea bag in the mug while drinking. By the way, have you noticed that the tea bag tips up, leaving just enough sticking up that your finger tips can reach in and pull the tea bag out without burning your fingers? That little pillow is part of the boheme experience.

The instructions are to make the tea with hot water but not at the boiling point, to preserve the mild and delicate flavours of the tea leaf. Steep 2 minutes. The beauty is that if you steep longer, the sweetness of the licorice seems to offset any bitterness drawn from the teas or the ginseng. I felt a definite lift of energy after drinking this tea. I wanted a nice cream scone or an oatmeal cookie with this tea but would be happy to have this tea at anytime with any food. I would definitely serve the Green Tea Honey Ginseng as an iced tea, possibly make a pitcher using sunrays rather than boiled water to naturally draw out the natural flavours. Haven’t this tea been processed enough? Can we save some energy here? And don’t forget to recycle!

You can purchase the Honey Lemon Ginseng Green Tea directly from the Celestial Seasonings website.

It’s rare for me to have bagged teas but this is Celestial Seasonings so I’m open to it. When I was small, this is the only tea that we had in the house so it makes me feel a bit nostalgic. It says it’s a blend of green tea, Bai Mu Dan and ginseng root, with honey and lemon. It smells like a Chinese green tea, can’t smell anything else. Opened a bag and I can see small white bits that I’m guessing are ginseng, the rest just looks like green tea but I trust that there must be white tea in there as well. The ingredients list says it also contains licorice, chicory, ginger and orange blossoms, but I seriously can only smell the green tea.

Steeped for two minutes in hot (not boiling) water and now I can smell the lemon verbana and the spices. Brews up a light green with a hint of orange, not a clean brew but it’s not bad. It’s actually quite tasty, though slightly bitter, need to reduce the water temperature I think. Next time I’m going to try the cooler water and see if it steeps up better. Then I’m going to chill it and see if that will pull the flavors out better.

It’s okay, I mean it is what it is and it’s not terrible for what it is.

You can purchase the Honey Lemon Ginseng Green Tea directly from the Celestial Seasonings website.