Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Adagio Teas
Tea Description:
A relaxing, naturally caffeine-free herbal tea blended from blackberry leaves, chamomile, peppermint, hibiscus, lavender flowers, and rose petals.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This is an herbal tea from Adagio’s Sunlit Blooms collection. It’s a floral blend, containing whole chamomile flowers, lavender and rose petals. It also contains peppermint, hibiscus, and blackberry leaves. Judging by the dry leaf, the main constituent is blackberry leaves, which are green and fluffy, rather like raspberry leaves. The other ingredients seem rather sparse.
I used 1.5tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 4 minutes in boiling water. The resulting liquor is yellow-green, which is doubtless testament to how little hibiscus is actually in this blend. The scent is deeply herbal – predominantly chamomile and lavender as far as I can discern.
To taste, this is a mild, lightly floral blend. Rose is clearly there, and lavender, although both are less pungent than might be expected, and don’t make the cup taste “perfumey” in the way they sometimes can. Half of me appreciates this, as teas with heavy perfume-like flavours can be rather cloying. The other half is wishing for a bit more flavour, as the overall effect is rather thin-tasting. The chamomile emerges a little towards the end of the sip, adding a honey-like sweetness that works well with the floral flavours. It’s a pleasant enough cup, if a little bland and weak. It’s like this tea is lacking in personality.
I’m really not sure what the blackberry leaves are adding to this blend, other than bulk. I appreciate that they have reputed health benefits, but I would have liked to have seen the other ingredients in greater quantity, as they impart the flavour this blend is sadly lacking. This one would make a pleasant pre-bedtime cup, if you’re after a caffeine-free blend with mild, relaxing flavours, but it’s not really one I’d purposefully seek out at other times of the day.
