Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Lemongrass’

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 and African Nectar directly from the Mighty Leaf Tea website.

Let me start with the statement that I do NOT consider myself a tea snob. My philosophy is, any tea, any time, any way. However, it was with some trepidation that I approached the Celestial Seasoning Sleepytime Vanilla Tea.

You see I grew up drinking tea via teabag. You know, Tetley, Sleepytime, etc. When I discovered loose leaf tea, I felt that I had moved on, forever putting behind the regular boring old teabag. Much to my surprise however, a shipment from Celestial Seasonings showed up on the doorstep for review, so I thought, why not? Of course I will try it, I am not a snob, they must have come a long way since I was a kid, after all, it is their 40th anniversary, so there must be something to the tea!

The scent when you open up the package was amazing – sweet and minty like peppermint candy. I could feel myself starting to drool already! I was really looking forward to this cup of tea. I extracted a teabag, and the butterflies started. They are the regular old teabags we all know – paper, attached together and perforated for “easy” separation, (I ripped 2 open trying to “easily” separate them…) but the smell… mmmmmm…

When I examined the bag’s contents, it was pretty much what I expected, not just small leaves, but pretty much dust, not much recognizable here. Preparation numero uno was boiling water, 5 minute steep. This produced a golden amber liquid, with distinctly distinguishable scents of Chamomile, Mint and Vanilla. As I went to remove the teabag, it occurred to me that there is no string attached! That is odd, and unexpected, and, well, inconvenient if you did not have a spoon around, as that water is HOT!

As for the taste, the best way that I can describe it is hot, and frankly, tasteless. I was so incredibly disappointed. The scent to this point, and even now as I reminisce about it, was incredible, the buildup to tasting almost unbearable, making the actual tasting experience a total of a letdown. I thought I was in for something different, but memories of drinking tea as a child flood back as I sip hot, tasteless, colorful and beautiful scented, water.

What to do? Well, why not go back to my roots I figured, so I added *GASP* sugar! Just a bit, maybe half a teaspoon – that could not hurt it right? Well, with just that bit of sugar, all of a sudden the tea came alive, and I could taste the Chamomile, and the sweetness of Vanilla and even the Peppermint goodness!

So, in the end, all is well that ends well, I would recommend that if you are not a sugar person, avoid this tea, as the taste of the tea by its self is remarkably unremarkable, but with that sugar, it is a good tea, delivering what you would expect. The only question left is, will Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Vanilla Tea put me to sleep tonight, or will I be tossing and turning all night, ruminating how this tea could have been so much better?

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

Chamomile Citrus is a Mighty Leaf signature blend of rosehips, orange peel, Egyptian chamomile, lemongrass, lemon myrtle, nana mint, hibiscus flowers and various other flowers and flavors that are only identified as “citrus” and/or “natural” (it always makes me wonder when there is only a vague reference to ingredients). Mighty Leaf describes it as “a refreshing infusion perfected to curl up with and savor by the sip…”.

I find that people either love Chamomile Tea or they don’t like it at all. Personally, I love a good cup of Egyptian Chamomile. I love the subtle taste it has and how it smells softly of strawberry. Chamomile grew wild in the neighborhood that I lived in as a child and I can remember crushing the flowers between my fingers to release their scent; happy memories recalled are likely the reason that I find Chamomile so relaxing and enjoyable. I also like all things citrus so based on the name and description I was really looking forward to trying this tea.

I steeped it for 5 minutes and the resulting tea was a nice light gold color. I really wanted to like this tea but I have to say that I was disappointed. I found that the simplicity of Chamomile was overwhelmed by all of the fruits, herbs, flowers, and “flavors”. All of the citrus tones from the orange peel, lemongrass, lemon myrtle, and citrus flowers seemed to result in a too sweet combination – it almost tasted sugary to me. I guess that the rosehip, mint and hibiscus were meant to balance this sweetness but I just didn’t like the taste.

The sample that I tried was in a bag from Mighty Leaf that they call their “Tea Pouch”. It’s a very nice presentation which looks like a hand stitched square of semi-opaque silk that allows you to see the tea inside. The Chamomile Citrus is visually lovely with green, orange and red tones and unbrewed it smells just as good as it looks.

You can purchase Mightly Leaf Chamomile Citrus directly from their website.