Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘No Doubt’

I really like grapefruit. As a small child, I always wanted my mother to get me those sweet smelling grapefruit bath products from the overpriced but immensely-fascinating-to-children bath product shoppes (whose quality could be told with the extra, pretentious “e”). And as an adult, I continue to gravitate towards grapefruit scented items and grapefruit flavored things. To me it combines the juicy satisfaction of an orange with a little extra edge, that little hint of sour. If a grapefruit were musical, it would not be top 40, but a harder rock, maybe tinged with punk. A Gwen Stefani of No Doubt as compared to the more sweet and Miley Cyrus-eqsue orange.

So, it was with great anticipation that I got this tea sample. I had some amazing luck with the Blood Orange Black from Drink the Leaf (the blood orange – another edgy citrus relative), and I was hoping to repeat it with this tea. The packet I got however, left me a little concerned. The tea was not in an air-tight packet. And when I opened it to sniff, you could very much tell; no aroma other than the glue for the sticker. I steeped my two teaspoons of tea (which did have visible chunks of peel, getting my hopes back up) in 2 cups of boiling water for 3 minutes, and the resulting brew was a light amber color.

This grapefruit? This is repressed grapefruit. This grapefruit was teased in elementary school and ignored at home. Whether the result of exposure to air or something else, drinking this tea is… well… boring. There is no grapefruit flavor to the tea. The tea itself tastes like it just remembered an important appointment somewhere else, and gee, sorry, it’s got to run. There is a slight hint of sweet behind the mild tea flavor, but I couldn’t discern if it was from the leaf or a very light citrus sweetness. A second steep with sweetener didn’t bring out any additional flavor. Either way, I have no other way to say it – I’m disappointed.

You can purchase the Pink Grapefruit directly from the SpecialTea Brew website.

Please bear with this review, it is going to be a longish one! I have been putting this off for some time now, simply because I am not really sure how to review the product in question.

A few months ago, Gina Wu, President and Founder of Tea GW mailed me 2 tea travel pillows. Here at It’s All About The Leaf, we will review anything tea related, and I was very happy to receive this product, as it is something truly different. I had never heard of such a thing! Turns out, neither had anyone else that I talked to.

I am in a tough position here. I can talk about (and will) the aesthetic of the pillows. I can talk about (and will) the quality of the pillows. However, what has kept me from doing this review until now, are the health claims.

Gina kindly included an article that she wrote for the Tea Association of the USA on the health benefits of Tea Pillows. Wu claims tea pillows have been used for millennia in Traditional Chinese Medicine. She says the health benefits include the killing of bacteria (non-beneficial I am going to assume), to aroma therapy resulting in calming, relaxing functions, to treating headaches and insomnia. My issue tho is a standard argument when it comes to health – there does not appear to be any research to back it up.

Now I am not one of those people that will believe any “research” put before me, in fact I believe that for every “fact” proven by science, it can be subsequently disproved in other research, especially when it comes to measuring health benefits. I personally believe in my Chinese herbalist. He cured my wife of really bad allergies, ragweed and hay-fever, with a rank, disgusting tasting/smelling tea concoction, and that cure has stuck for 3 years now. We are talking someone who was constantly dripping, sneezing, stuffed up from September until first hard frost. Now – nothing. So there is something to millennia old medicine, no doubt, but it needs to be rooted, I believe, in logic and reason.

So – to logic. The pillow is VERY wrapped up. I mean, cover, then sealed bag. How does the beneficial properties of the tea get out? With no direct contact to the tea leave, absorbing the essential oils, or vitamins or other compounds seems unlikely. Aroma therapy – perhaps, but I could find nothing, and I mean literally NOTHING online to do with a tea pillow except to do with selling them.

No herbalist (certified) or natural-path that I spoke with has heard of anything to do with this before. No other health claims/mentions on the inter-webs, anywhere. That does not mean that there is nothing to it, but it makes this product fall into a category of unproven for me at the moment, and I dislike the fact that a health claim can be made without any proof of any sort.

With that out of the way, on to the pillow! I was sent 2 travel pillows. One Lavender, one Tie Guan Yin (Oolong). The packaging was gorgeous. A nicely decorated box covered with Chinese symbols, and tied with a pretty tassel and coin, all calculated to make it look “authentic”.

I opened the Lavender pillow first, I had some trepidation about it, not sure if it would be a really strong scent of Lavender (which I dislike). However, it turned out to be a very subtle scent, and very nice and relaxing if I do say so! The Tie Guan Yin was my favorite tho, with a sweet, almost woodsy scent to it.

The pillows themselves are of extremely high quality. The covering is well stitched silk, smooth and comforting. The print is rich looking, not at all out of place as high-end decoration in a fancy house (which I do not have…). There is no evidence of sloppy or hurried stitching, even the zipper was a high quality zipper, and well hidden so as not to dig into your head when laying on it.

Using them was a bit tougher, as I could not stand to drive with it behind my head, had no airplane travel plans, and found them way to hard and overstuffed to sleep with. I do wish I could have tried the actual full sized pillows, and maybe then I could have better evaluated my personal experience related to the health claims.

Of course, I HAD to open it up. I found that the tea inside was contained within a bag that was sealed up – no tea bits, no matter how hard I pounded on them, would come out, and I was loath to cut it open to actually check in there – so I cannot confirm that there is actual tea involved here. Perhaps when the one I loaned out comes back I shall endeavor to open it up, and maybe make a cuppa? (too gross? What do you think?)

So the bottom line for me is, they are beautiful, they are expensive (the travel pillow is $40USD and the full sized pillow is $100USD), but you certainly get, quality wise, what you pay for. I reserve judgement on the health claims. I appreciate the chance to review the products, and they would make a great (tho expensive) gift for a tea fanatic that you are lost to get a gift for.

You can purchase the Tea Pillows directly from the Tea GW website.

“Luscious, succulent raspberries highlight this ruby red hibiscus flower infusion. Pleasantly tart and extraordinarily sweet.”

Well, that about says it all! Tea Forte has become one of my favorite go-to tea companies for robust tasting teas. So far, they have not disappointed on any of the teas I have tried, and this one is no exception.

The second I put the unique (and quite neat!) pyramid shaped tea bag into the water, a bloom of red spread throughout the water, so deeply red I had to check myself for cuts! Then the scent hit me, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was a raspberry tea I was about to indulge in.

Forget the ingredients list, this is purely raspberry, through and through. A tangy, mildly sweet taste of raspberries straight off the vine filled my mouth at the first sip, and lingered long after I licked every drop out of the cup! If you are not a raspberry fan, then this is not for you, as there is no doubt this is all raspberry, and nothing but the raspberry!

There is not much more to say, other than, again, Tea Forte delivers. I do have to say, that it is a little high in the price range for the bagged tea, so go loose if you are going to purchase it directly from Tea Forte. For my money, this is one I would actually consider stocking the cupboard with, as I can imagine that as an iced tea, it would be just as good as it is a hot tea, and a perfect refreshing drink for a hot summers day.

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