Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Herbal tea’

Preparing to try out this herbal blend, the first thing that I notice in the smell of the dry leaves is “Hmmm, hibiscus.” After boiling some water, I steep one pyramid infuser in a cup of water for five minutes to prepare to taste the “nectar”! The steeping brew still smells a lot like hibiscus, but the raspberry and orange peel smells are noticeable as well.

The first sip of this herbal tisane is a massively juicy explosion of flavor. Tea Forte’s website had listed the ingredients as “rosehip, hibiscus, apple pieces, blackberry leaves, raspberries, orange peels, flavoring” and there is so much going on in the taste that I believe it has all those things and more. Thankfully, since this blend is called “Raspberry Nectar,” raspberry is one of the dominant flavors. The sweetness of the apple does come out quite nicely, albeit subtly. This would be a decent desert drink, especially if one is looking for something low in caffeine. On my personal enjoyment scale, I rate it a 72/100.

You can purchase Tea Forte Raspberry Nectar directly from their website.

In 1942, coffee was rationed–one pound every five weeks, thanks to German U-boat interruption of Brazilian shipping routes. Government ration stamps weren’t product-specific, so you had to read the paper every week to find out if your java was going to cost you one airplane and three flags, or two tanks and four stalks of wheat.

Enterprising alchemists attempted all kinds of ersatz (German for “substitute or replacement”) coffees using almonds, molasses, beetroot, carrots, cottonseed, rye and wheat bran. Postum, a nationally marketed coffee doppelganger, relied mostly on grain. The one ingredient that evidently approximated the bang of the bean was chicory, which is a chief ingredient in Ersatz coffee produced by Coffee Trade Company, proud to call itself “charmingly anachronistic.”

Dry coffee has a tendency to smell up the room it’s in (my parents recommended it to us to chase away the litter box smell when we moved into a house formerly inhabited by cat owners). Dry and in unbleached paper filters, Ersatz’ scent is similar, but not nearly as strong. Steeped to the strongish side, it’s comparable in color and personality to a conventional cup of diner coffee–just a little lighter and sweeter. Cream and sugar works just fine. If you’re familiar with Celestial Seasonings’ Roastaroma, this is its slightly less tea-ish stepbrother.

This blend is not going to fool a die-hard coffee drinker. But for those folks who like the roasty-toasty taste of coffee with out the heebie-jeebie caffeine buzz, it rates a “V” for very interesting! (Cue Glenn Miller exit music.)

You can purchase the Ersatz directly from the The Coffee Trade Company website.

Dry smell is vegetal.

Brewed smell is a roasted, nutty smell

Prowling through my tea cupboard and found this tea waiting to be drank and reviewed.

The glance in the tin reminds me of a green tea. I could not find brewing directions, so I just brewed up like a green tea. 2 minutes later I am enjoying  a cup of roasted goodness. It is smooth across my tongue and the taste that lingers afterward is berry like. This tea is meaty and would pair nicely with a hearty evening meal.

Overall, a nice herbal tisane that does not taste like a typical tisane at all! Good job Tula Teas.

You can purchase the Green Mulberry Leaf directly from the Tula Teas website.

Medicinal tisanes usually fall into one of two flavor profiles: lemony-minty, or barky-rooty (valerian and ginseng fall into this category). This chock-full-of-stuff blend is a welcome exception to both. The pepper, fennel, and cardamom give this a tasty, spicy chai kick, even on a second steep.

(Gentlemen, it’s a good cuppa. Now you may excuse yourselves. Time for some girl talk. You’ve been warned.)

The two ingredients that caught my eye as potential hormone-busters were St. John’s wort, which I’ve used in capsule form to calm and soothe frazzled nerves and alchemilla, which I wasn’t familiar with. A little Googling identifies it as lady’s mantle, another time-tested remedy for what ails us regularly. But nearly everything else in this blend is female-friendly as well. Juniper–a diuretic. Raspberry leaf–packed with vitamins. Got anemia, constipation, indigestion, or flatulence? Fennel’s your herb.

Depending on where you are in the aging cycle, hormone horrors may hit you days before the big event or hurtle you downhill like a roller coaster afterward. The sample cups I tried on either side did a fair job of alleviating cramps (before) and a spell of jet-engine-adrenaline (after). If you’re shopping for a non-pharmaceutical to take the edge off your ugly symptoms, this may be well worth a try.

You can purchase the Hers (Woman’s Herbal) directly from the Distinctly Tea website.

This review is on one of the coffee substitutes on the market – Ersatz Coffee. First of all, what does Ersatz mean? I can only guess that the makers of this were going by the German translation of the word which is “substitute” or “replacement” because in other languages such as Russian and English the meaning is less favourable. In Russian it means “artificial” and in English the term often implies that the substitution is of unsatisfactory or inferior quality (not as good as the real thing). It does not have this connotation in German. (Source: Wikipedia).

Steeping instructions are to steep bag in 8 ounce cup of hot water for 3-5 minutes. Ersatz Coffee is made of roasted rice, roasted peas, and roasted chicory. When I poured in the hot water, I could definitely smell the roasted rice, however after steeping it for 5 minutes and removing the bag the nose on the Ersatz was not very appetizing. It smelled of burnt rice. I took a sip and yes, definitely burnt. I could understand the coffee aspect of it; it has that boldness of coffee but is very flavourful, and myself being in the process of cutting out coffee completely, this would be good for me.

I cut open the bag and could see that some of the contents inside had turned black. It would have been nice to try this not burnt because I like nutty and roasted flavours but the burnt taste was too overwhelming. I may give it another try another day.

You can purchase the Ersatz directly from the The Coffee Trade Company website.