Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Lemongrass’

As I peered into the sample bag, I was struck at the beauty of this blend. It needs to be stored in a glass container just to admire the tapestry of colors. Think miniature potpourri.

The smell of the dry leaves reminds me of spearmint gum.

7 minute brew with boiling water

Burgundy colored brew

The first sip is sweet and minty. I really enjoyed this cup of tea. Sweet, but not too sweet. The mint is nicely balanced with the other flavors.

You can purchase the PITTA BALANCE directly from the Shanti Tea website.

The smell from the dry teabag is medicinal.

Brewed for 2 minutes, lifted out the tea bag, took a sip and immediately slipped the teabag back into my cup.

I left the teabag in my cup as I drank this herbal tea.

I could taste the ginger more predominately than the lemon peel. As I neared the bottom of my cup, my mouth was alive with ginger!

This tea would be nice drank at bedtime. It is soothing and calming, but not much on taste. This one fell flat for me. I liked it ok, but I would not choose this tea again.

You can purchase the Lemon Ginger directly from the Hampstead Tea website.

I have a confession.  I consider myself an herbal tea fan.  Yet, I hate chamomile.

And a lot of teas, especially ones designed to soothe and relax, like to focus on chamomile.   So I used to convince myself  (on those nights where I’ve had a horrible long day and want a nice, mellow cup of tea  to help me relax) that maybe the chamomile won’t be so bad this time.  So I brew, and I relax, and I sip.  And then I go and calmly dump the cup out and wonder why it’s still on my shelf of tea.  Blech. 

This cycle continued until I found Sleepytime Vanilla.  This is an herbal tea, designed to relax you.  And it has chamomile in it.  And I actually like it.  The blend of mint and vanilla with the chamomile mellows the flavor, and enhances the brew.  As you sip, you’re first hit by the mint and chamomile, pleasantly combined, then the vanilla shows up with a creamy aftertaste.    The flavors play off each other, and remove whatever it is that consistently makes me go BLEA.

These days, when I’ve had a horrible long day and want to relax, this tea is the one that finds its way into my cup.  I sip contentedly, and actually gain that relaxation I am so craving.

You can purchase Celestial Seasoning Sleepytime Vanilla directly from their website.

I grew up drinking Celestial Seasonings teas and it was (and still is) a staple in my mom’s cupboard.  But for some reason I never got around to trying this particular one even though ‘SleepyTime’ is one of the standard CS blends. As it turns out, for once CS seems to have made a herbal tea without hibiscus being involved (thankfully, as the hibiscus over-dose is what has kept me away from a lot of them in recent years). Out of the box it smells quite herbal-y with a strong odor of mint. More in-depth sniffing revealed a sweet vanilla-y odor lurking in the background.

There’s not really a whole lot of vanilla that I can taste in the tea itself and I think that’s partially due to the fact that the mint and chamomile are such strong, aromatic herbs that they drown out any subtleties in this tea.  The herbal flavours aren’t bitter and the chamomile has a nicely sweet, apple-like flavour.  I can pick up a bit of citrus from the lemongrass, but the rest of the ingredient are mostly there for show I think l – or maybe they’re just part of the amorphous herbal flavour.  As for its effects as a practical herbal tea, I didn’t really find myself getting sleepy per say, but it does have a bit of a relaxing effect on the body and mind.

I gave this tea a Steepster review of 63/100

You can purchase Celestial Seasoning Sleepytime Vanilla directly from their website.

Today I’m reviewing to herbal teas from Mighty Leaf and I’m excited because they are one of the few companies I know of who offer high quality in sachets.  Perfect to have in a pinch if I’ve forgotten my finum because they tea pouches are large enough to let the tea infuse properly. 

Opening the package and I can immediately tell that I’m going to love this tea.  The citrus smell is intoxicating.  It has Egyptian chamomile in it and the flowers are whole and appear to be really fresh.  There’s no dust in the pouch at all, just pretty bits of herbs and fruit.

Steeping it at 205 F for the full five minutes because I want to get every golden bit of the tisane infused.  The color was immediately a light yellow then finally went to a nice golden orange.  Love the way rosehip warms up the color of a brew.  Can smell all of the other herbs now and they are balancing out the citrus perfectly.

Yeah! It tastes as good as it looks and smells, I was right, this is a great blend.  I can feel my heart rate slowing, the days stress leaving me…  Would it be insane for me to let this tea pouch dry out and use it as a sachet in my lingerie drawer?  hmmm… yes, it smells that good.

Now on to the African Nectar.  Rooibos is a friend of mine, we go back a long way and she’s never let me down.  This tea pouch fine enough to contain the rooibos, helps that it’s a higher grade so the needles are longer.  Blends looks like it’s mostly rooibos, with bits of the other ingredients.  Can see the marigold in it, which is good (I have a ton of marigold at home and add it to most of my teas, just to up the health benefits of my teas).

This blend has so much of a citrus scent that I can barely smell the rooibos, expecting that will change when I stop analyzing the pouch and add water to it…

Steeping this one the same as I did the Chamomile Citrus, boiling water for five minutes.  The rooibos is darker wet so now I can see the other herbs as well as the stems.  Excellent leaf to stem ratio though, Mighty Leaf did not disappoint.  It’s infused to a nice dark, reddish brown and it smells divine.  The rose and hibiscus are now dominating the scent and the citrus smell is completely gone.

It tastes like rooibos but I think the rose is killing it, bit too flowery, almost perfumey.  Letting it cool.  The pouches are completely biodegradible and they literally look like the sachets that girls use to scent lingerie (do guys do that too?).  Tea has cooled now and it still has that rose taste, fantastic if you like flowers in your tea, not working for me though.  Still a really good quality tea though, impressive.

You can purchase the Chamomile Citrus directly from the Mighty Leaf Tea website.