Honeybush teas are not in the same league with Rooibos teas. Honeybush is sweeter and milder and IMO Better than Rooibos teas. With honeybush you do not get that woodsy after taste that is so dominant with Rooibos teas. I know what you are thinking: Why is she going about the difference between Rooibos and Honeybush teas? Because not everyone has experienced the wonderfulness of Honeybush. And because most people lump the two together as close cousins. I am here to tell you that they are distant cousins who rarely talk! This tea is my all time favorite caffeine free tea. The Honeybush is mild and pleasant to your taste buds and then you  taste the strawberries! Oh my, it is like eating strawberries ripened on the vine with a hint of an aftertaste of crust. Now, you can have your pie and drink it too!

If you like strawberries, you owe it to yourself to pay 52 Teas a visit. 52 Teas in case you don’t know is a tea tasters sensation. Frank blends up a new blend each week. These newbie teas are in liminted quantities. Some of his more popular teas make it into his permanent collection. Strawberry Honeybush Tea is one tea that is on the permanent list and for good reason…it is so darn good that you have to reorder frequently! Luckily shipping to the USA is free. 

You can purchase the Strawberry Pie Honeybush directly from the 52teas website.

For the last few weeks I’ve been stricken with an odd quandary. At the end of my day, I found myself too tired to brew up tea. Even the herbals. There was a time – not long past – when a good tisane was what the end of the day (or night) required. That ritual fell by the wayside in favor of…well…zoning. Tonight was about to be such a night until I turned to my “It’s All About the Leaf” box (yes, there is an actual box dedicated to this site).

One of the samples I forgot about in the fray was a Mighty Leaf offering. How this escaped my notice (and memory), I have no clue. I love Mighty Leaf, and their tisanes are topnotch. They made one of the best citrus chamomile fusions I’ve ever tried, and don’t get me started on how they made yerba mate drinkable.

The nighttime cup o’ “Thud!” I was turning to this time was aptly dubbed “African Nectar. From the name, it was obviously a rooibos base. In fact, I expected it to be straight rooibos with, maybe, a few other additives. Well…there were more than a few. Along for the rooibos ride were hibiscus (a mainstay in a lot of rooibos blends), rose petals, mallow blossoms, and marigolds. Natural flavors and natural tropical flavors rounded out the medley. Why flavoring had to be mentioned twice, I dunno. Emphasis, maybe.

What I loved best about this? It came in a sachet! Perfect for the lazy, lethargic steeper that I was at 2AM. To the sight, however, the contents didn’t look like the floral menagerie I was picturing in my head. I saw one marigold and a few other pieces, but for the most part, it was just rooibos. Smelled quite tropical, though.

Brewing instructions were dead simple. On the bag, they said to brew for five minutes. That’s it. No water temperature listing, no cup size, nothing. They simply expected you to fill a cup with hot water and dunk the bag in. At two past Witching Hour, I was quite okay with this.

I didn’t time the infusion as much as watched the clear mug dark from gold to crimson – really cool effect. The cup smelled as tart and tropical as the un-dunked bag did. It’s very promising when the natural flavoring can hold up to a long steep. To the taste, there was a mild citrus tang and hibiscus bite on the front, followed by the requisite rooibos nut-sweetness in the middle, and – not surprisingly – it ended on a floral note. There was also the texture of nectar, just as the namesake promised.

In my limited experience, it’s hard to find tisanes that do exactly what they promise. This did so. I think that should be Mighty Leaf’s credo: “We do what the name says, damn it.” (Okay, maybe phrased differently.)

You can purchase Mighty Leaf African Nectar Loose Tea or Mighty Leaf African Nectar Tea Pouches directly from their website.

I tend to like tropical tastes. Much to the chagrin of my family, when I order pizza, I usually choose pineapple and ham as toppings. This just grosses people out but I like it. So how about pineapple tastes in tea?…keep that thought in mind, okay now add to it guava. This combination makes me think that you’ll either love it or hate it. As separate food and drink items, I like it so I’m game to try the combo too. Not too sure about the flower petals in it though. We’ll see.

Opened up the package and found a mesh-stitched teabag filled with not small fannings or dust in the teabag but whole leaves that looked of good quality and only a tiny bit of blue flower petals. Steeped the teabag in boiling water for 3 minutes as per the instructions. Aroma is very fruity and floral. A very pleasant fragrance.

I agree with Mighty Leaf that the “green tea blends harmoniously with the sweet tropical fruits of pineapple and guava” and this may be part of the problem. It would have been more distinctive had the green tea had some of the characteristic grassy or vegetal notes of other green teas. Because of this, it tasted more like a tisane than a green tea blend. The taste of pineapple also seems to be lost in a stronger base note of the sweet guava. The blend does seem to come together quite naturally with the floral notes. It is an okay beverage but tastes too much like many fruity, floral teas I’ve tasted. It doesn’t stand out but it’ll do. I could take it or leave it.

You can purchase Mighty Leaf Green Tea Tropical directly from their website.

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.

The dry smell is just like ice cream. How can this be? Let me assure you that this is the most delicious tea. I don’t know how Frank does it; he just seems to have a way with honeybush that leaves me coming back for more.

All three flavor profiles are present. The strawberry is represented by dried strawberry bits that impart the juiciness of a fresh picked ripe strawberry. The vanilla bean gives this blend the creamy aspect of ice cream. The chocolate was the most surprising to me, it is subtle, and a delicate cocoa that rounds out this threesome perfectly. Since my honeybush order arrived, I have had a hard time choosing other teas. I drink some kind of honeybush from 52 Teas most every night. Honeybush is sweeter and less woodsy in taste than rooibos and it is naturally caffeine free. Enjoy.

You can purchase the Neapolitan Honeybush directly from the 52teas website.

Some days–okay, some weeks—you just need chocolate. In copious amounts. And after multiples of those Reeses’ peanut-butter-cup-snarfing, Oreo-bingeing weeks, one finally reaches the conclusion that one must find a more healthful alternative. Tea Forte’s Hazelnut Truffle provides plenty of the cacao-based yum with much less of the calorie-borne guilt.

The individual ingredients are big, pretty, and very visible inside Tea Forte’s trademark triangular bag. Chocolate is the first and foremost aroma in dry-leaf stage, and chocolate stays the first and foremost aroma as it steeps. The light color may fool you–fully steeped, it stays golden brown instead of the shade of a Russell Stover all-dark assortment. But it’s big on nutty, chocolate flavor with a coconut chaser all the way down.

Hazelnut Truffle is sweet enough on its own; no milk or sugar necessary to make this a real treat, either for yourself or (great gift idea) for your chocolate-loving sweet-tea.

You can purchase the Hazelnut Truffle directly from the Tea Forte website.

Lapacho goes by many names – taheebo, trumpet bush, Ipe, and (my favorite) Pau D’Arco. The latter name seems to be the most common one used in herb shops I’ve frequented. Why this is, I don’t know; perhaps because it sounds less “Latin”. Personally, I prefer the lapacho moniker – sounds manlier. Moving along: The herbal infusion of lapacho is made from the inner bark of the Tabebuia impetiginosa, a tree native to the South American Andes and Amazon rainforest. The “bark tea” is linked to many purported health benefits including – but not limited to – relief of the common cold, psoriasis, ulcers, anemia, cancer, and even HIV. It should be noted that for the two last claims, the amount of bark tea needed to make any difference would far exceed toxicity levels deemed normal.

I was suckered in, some three years ago, by the health claims when I thought I suffered from a rather embarrassing “-itis” (that shall remain nameless). The infusion had a woody, faintly sweet, somewhat leaf-minty taste. Not unlike other inner-bark-borne South American tisanes. The flavor – like yerba mate – wasn’t worthy of too much note; it was what it was. However, bad or mediocre memories are quick to fade, and I wanted to give lapacho a fair chance. A sample of Distinctly Tea’s Lapacho Vanilla Chai awaited me.

Ingredients for this unique melange included the aforementioned bark, coriander, cardamom, pepper, cinnamon, ginger root, vanilla beans, anise, and natural flavors. I was a little dismayed at the “flavors” mentioned. With all those strong herbs on display, I would think flavoring wouldn’t be necessary. That is, unless the amount of vanilla beans included in the blend didn’t yield enough flavor. Which is probably why – when I went in for a whiff – the vanilla was the first thing I smelled, trailed behind by a lightly-spiced ring. The rest of the “chai” elements were beaten into submission by the “VANILLA!”-ness of the blend. However, they showed up in the visual bouquet of yellows, oranges and browns.

I almost had to laugh at the general steeping instructions on the Distinctly website. Paraphrased greatly, they basically said: “Dude, just look at the bag.” Albeit, far more eloquently than that. Still, that took cojones. On the bag, brewing instructions said to use 1 heaping tsp. of boiling water per 8oz. cup, steeped for five-to-seven minutes. My general approach with herbals was just that for six minutes. Perfect, we were in agreement.

The infusion brewed to a honey-colored liquor with…probably the oddest aroma I’ve run into in awhile. The finished product smelled like a cross between hot apple cider and TheraFlu. And you know what? I love both of those. I have no clue where the apple came from, but the cidery aspect probably stemmed from the merger of coriander and cinnamon. The rest of the spices showed up on the foretaste, followed by a somewhat woody middle. Lapacho showed itself as a base in the body of the flavor. Rounding it out was a crisp, cider-like, and creamy finish. What a peculiar drink.

Summing up, I was happy this was more “something else” than chai. The concept of a decaf or herbal chai never really sat well with me. The addition of vanilla to the mix and the different take on lapacho more than gave this blend a pass. If competing in a sport, this would be bronze medal material.

You can purchase the Lapacho Vanilla Chai directly from the Distinctly Tea website.

When I was contacted and asked to try the Celestial Seasonings Fast Lane Black Tea, I readily agreed. Celestial Seasonings was the very first company to respond to our inquiries when we started IAATL, and sent our very first batch of teas for review, something for which I will be forever grateful. Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime tea is also the tea that started it all for me, back those ummhurummph years ago, when I was but a wee child of 5 or 6.

Apparently, Fast Lane Tea was, a number of years ago, a tea that Celestial Seasonings discontinued. Since then, the legend goes, fans of this tea have petitioned sufficiently to have it return, albeit for a short period of time! This tea is ONLY available online (at http://www.fastlanetea.com or from Celestial Seasonings Tea Shop in Boulder (see the website for details).

Now, to the tea. This tea is a caffeine packed punch in the gut. With a black tea base from Indonesia, we get cinnamon, eleuthero (a variety of ginseng), licorice, nutmeg, and an EXTRA shot of caffeine! This is the very first time that I have see caffeine actually listed as an ingredient!

The smell is spicy/sweet. I can detect the cinnamon and licorice for sure, not so much on the ginseng or nutmeg however. Brewed up, you get what you would expect, a dark liquor, and almost Christmas Spice-like scent to the tea.

It tastes pretty much what you would expect – not particularly strong, a very middle of the road, spicy with sweet notes of the licorice. It is not an amazing, blow me away Darjeeling/Assam/Ceylon single estate loose leaf tea flavour with complexity, but it is also not a bitter, pour it on the neighbors weeds to get rid of them tea. Pleasant and non-offensive, a little passive for my personal tastes, but certainly of higher quality than you would expect from a bagged store shelf tea!

As for kick? Well I wrote this review in 5 minutes at 3:00am, after drinking the tea at 3pm – what do you think? Seriously tho – I can sense that it does have more caffeine than I am used to in a black tea, but I don’t get the frenetic mind warp and massive crash that I get from a triple espresso either – this would be a great tea to study with – students take note!

Bottom line – while it is not a “don’t miss this tea” it is well blended and will appeal to a wide range of people – keep it in the cupboard for when you need a boost.

You can purchase the Fast Lane Black Tea directly from the Celestial Seasonings 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.