This week, my Health points were hit with a triple whammy: day-after sore muscles from kickboxing, monthlies, and I caught the cold going around, waaaaaaaaaah. Needless to say I busted out my favorite treatments – acetaminophen, zinc and herbal tea lol.
Ordinarily I prefer loose leaf teas, but I do like that this is Bigelow Benefits – lemon echinacea is bagged for convenience on the go. Also, if the herbs are broken up, they’ll release their goodness (or placebo effect) to me faster… right?!?! The brew tasted like a Chord of flavor, Lemongrass provides the main note, then sweet mallow and finally a hint of herbaceousness from the echinacea (which lessens the severity/duration of colds).
Also included: a bit of fennel for tummy relief, Sage as a decongestant, Elderflower for crunchy mom powers, and lemon balm for mental ease. This is still drinkable medicine when brewed with my other go-to tea bag for colds, traditional medicinals “throat coat”.
I’d recommend for cold season and in travel bags, Bring on the wellness!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Bigelow Teas
Looking to Stay Well every day! Authentic Echinacea and crisp lemon with a smooth relaxing herbal end note. All of us know how important it is to put good things in our bodies to help us stay strong. That desire was the inspiration for the Bigelow Benefits line, everyday teas that fuel your body with good for you ingredients. But of course, flavor is everything to the Bigelow family, so we designed this line to taste fabulous and help support your well-being. We believe our Benefits teas, as part of your everyday routine, can help you define the life you want to live! Caffeine free.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Kind Green by Love Some Tea. . . . .
The tea leaves are long, twisty, intact, and dark green. I used the entire sample packet and steeped it for 3 minutes at 175 degrees in about 6 ounces of water.
This tea starts to smell quite buttery and floral while steeping. The water’s not turning color much, but it smells very nice. (When I saw the leaves and smelled the sweet and buttery flavor I kind of forgot this was a green tea rather than an oolong tea, so I was expecting the water to get darker than it did.)
After steeping, the tea liquid is a light whitish yellow; there’s not really much green in it at all. It tastes astringent, floral, and a bit sweet (honey-like?). It has fruity and orchardy notes and maybe a hint of umami. It really tastes much more like an oolong to me than a green tea, with its orchid-fruity taste and lack of the usual green tea flavors like jasmine/grass/seaweed/etc. Although there’s a bit of umami, there’s not a lot of vegetal flavor. The leaves looked oolongy too–super long and twisty.
As I continued drinking this tea, I found it to be a very complex, fulfilling cup. It has more than enough flavor notes to stand on its own without sugar or milk, and is interesting enough that I didn’t get tired of the flavor and found myself wishing for more when I’d finished. I normally consider myself more of a dark-tea person (and don’t drink oolongs or greens much) so that’s quite impressive.
The tea company has a focus on natural tea production and harvesting tea leaves in their natural state (grown pesticide/fertilizer free and plantation free in the forest), which means their processing tends to be a bit different than conventional processing. This may account for the super-high quality of the leaves and the fact that it has elements of oolong as well as of green tea (at least in my opinion). I’m kind of in love with this tea now so I might just have to go and buy some more from their website now. And if you enjoy complex oolong-y flavors and high-quality tea leaves in your cup, you might want to do the same. 🙂
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Love Some Tea
Description
Green Tea natural and wild, the way nature intended. Our green tea is wild picked from the mountains of Northern Thailand.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Warm Apple Pie from sTEAp Shoppe
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black and White Blend
Where to Buy: sTEAp Shoppe
Tea Description:
Warm Apple Pie is the experience of biting into that wonderful pie with the cinnamon and apples baked together wrapped in a flaky crust, without the guilt. Loose leaf Bai Mudan white tea & Assam flowery Orange Pekoe Black tea combined with Naturally Dried Apples and Organic Maple syrup crystals giving that rich apple pie taste. Local fresh pressed apple cider is infused in the dried apples to enhance the apple experience in this tea.
Bai Mudan White Tea, Assam Flowery Black Tea, Naturally Dried Apple, Fresh pressed Apple Cider, Organic Maple Syrup Crystals, Cinnamon, Allspice
Naturally Caffeinated
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
When I opened the package my eyes rolled back in my head and I emoted some primal “yummmmmm” sound. My mother made the most delicious apple crumble for Thanksgiving and this tea was spot on for that amazing aroma!
From the scent alone, my mouth was watering at the ripe juicy smell of apple! Now you may or may not know but sTEAp Shoppe uses all natural flavoring in their teas and Janet of sTEAp Shoppe works painstakingly to perfect her blends without going the easy route of artificial flavors! Her dedication to using natural ingredients is something I applaud.
First sip … Lord have mercy! This is so very very good. To me, its more of a tisane than a tea because it is something I would reach for in the evening when I need my sweet tooth appeased. The tea bases themselves are not what is front and center here but sometimes I just don’t care if I can taste the tea in a blend. I can’t say I am shocked by this either because in dry form the tea is not what is front and center either. More so oodles and oodles of apple pieces. Now of course there is tea present both in dry form and in the flavor of the tea itself but truly what stands out here is an all natural very fresh decedent flavor of apple cider, warm pie, maple, and a very delicious cobbler like flavor. Pie, cobbler, tort, whatever … its soooo good!
We have many apple orchards near my residence, luckily I have been exposed to many wonderful apples in my days, and I have to say that this tea brings back memories of growing up by an apple orchard, or the Apple Festival we have every year, or the historic park not too far from me where this dear old man runs a cider mill on weekends. Not to mention memories of that amazing apple pie my mother made for Thanksgiving recently.
This tea is on the sweeter side, the longer it sits and cools the sweeter it becomes. Yet with the all natural ingredients it offers so many health benefits it takes away the guilt of enjoying such a delicious decedent dessert, or um, I mean tea.
