Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Mystery Ingredients’

Alright, so I spent some time in the hospital and, as a parting gift, I woke up this morning with a nasty (hopefully not the flu) infection. Thankfully, I have one more cup of GingerLove Tea left and there could not be a better time for it.

I received my surprise package from them (all the way from Belgium) some time ago and I am thrilled to be able to share my new taste adventure with you. They sent a gorgeously bright and cheery cup and saucer with the tea – love it, thanks – it’s all warmed up and ready to go.

The tea comes pre measured in single serving packages and I’m honestly not sure what the ingredients are… thinking secret mystery ingredients because that just makes it all the more fun for me. The powder looks and smells a lot like Tang – it’s admittedly been years since I’ve had Tang but that scent/flavor kind of seems to have stayed with me.  Poured the powder into my lovingly warmed teacup then filled it with boiling water. It foams up instantly, perfectly, and the smell of ginger fills the air above it.  Stirred twice (per instructions), then sipped.

The foam is a light orange color and it tastes like a Creamsicle to me (yes, another childhood reference, I get those a lot when I’m feeling meh sick).  Taking a bigger sip and the ginger hits me, soothing and warming on the back of my irritated throat.  Have to admit that it’s way better than the ginger tea I’ve made for myself in the past.  The ginger taste is balanced nicely with a smooth taste of orange that seems to be a combination of Mandarin and Sanguine.  This tea is a difficult one to explain because I don’t remember ever tasting anything quite like it. Definitely a burn of ginger, definitely an orange taste, but there’s something else in the flavor that I can’t make out.  The only logical conclusion that I can come to is to say that, with 100% scientific deduction, the mystery ingredient has to be magic.  Seriously though, Sting drinks this and he’s magic…

I sat down to have this tea this morning with my throat on fire and my stomach dancing some sort of hybrid Polka.  Now the fire has been doused and my stomach has settled, feeling better save the fact that I am now officially out of GingerLove… Calling Belgium….

You can purchase the Ginger Love directly from the Ginger Love website.

This has been a week fraught with multiple incidents of hamster-heart, battery-acid-in-the-veins panic. In deep need of a tea to soothe my frazzled nerves, I pawed through my stash of samples and decided Red Leaf’s Eight Herb tea might do the trick.

This herbal tea is ground fine and looks like oregano or an Italian seasoning blend. Had a nice clean smell in the packet, but I couldn’t place any of the components in my introductory sniff. But the flavors really started to pop after a good strong steep (a generous teaspoon to an 8 oz. cup, water at a good sound boil, five minutes in the cup).

I tried to guess the ingredients before I peeked at the Red Leaf website to confirm. My stressed-out palate caught the lemony taste (lemon balm) and something minty (spearmint), but I missed the rest: rosemary, linden, eucalyptus, wood betony, eleuthero, and blackberry leaf, contributing to a nice sweetness that you don’t find in many herbal combos.

Curious about the mystery ingredients, I checked out eleuthero–which is evidently an “adaptogen,” something that helps the body adapt to stress. Wood betony is a folk medicine that is purported to lower blood pressure and reduce anxiety.  Linden is believed to have a sedative effect. (Ahhhhh! Deep cleansing breath.)  I don’t know if a single cup will erase a week’s worth of scream-inducing stress, but I’m certainly enjoying the experiment.

You can purchase Red Leaf Tea Eight Herb Tea directly from their website.