This is the tisane I was most excited for in my review box! As a child I LOVED those Jujyfruit candies, big win for nostagia. But also a health win since instead of processed candies, these are the Cure-All “Red date” fruit that’s popular in Eastern medicine, purported to help with anemia (perhaps vitamin c to help iron absorb?) and insomnia (hmm the scientist in me thinks any nice warm drink should help your body sleep, but we’ll see.)
The dry tisane smells like kettle corn and looks like baby bagel chips about the size of a dime! They feel spongy to the touch, the only other thing I’ve consumed with this texture was… ha well a candy, man my sweet tooth is getting outed in this post, BUT this is a plus for my “less added sugar” new year’s resolution.
So I left in the dry fruits in my cup to brew, trying a very eastern approach, not at all because I was traveling and my filter was to small… They were big enough pieces that it was easy to filter out while I drank, without the fear of tiny pieces getting stuck in my teeth, only to be discovered after smiling a lot at someone important (cringe).
The infusion is a wonderful cider color and it smells of caramels like a distant campfire. It tastes like streusel, a sweet buttery goodness, even though I didn’t add any sweetener… or butter (not a trend for me). Welp, one sip and I’m done for, might as well just order more now. There’s also a hint of Asian pear flavor this medium bodied drink. This would taste so, so great with shortbread cookies, pity there’s no oven in this hotel.
Insomnia verdict: I’m sleepy afterwards but I’m not sure if it’s correlation from binge watching SYFY’s Magicians in the wee hours or causation from the tea. Another experiment is called for, woohoo!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Dried fruit
Where to Buy: Teasenz
China’s most popular herbal tea made from wild jujube fruits from Ning Xia. The jujubes are dried while fresh and afterwards cut in slices with an optimal thickness for a perfect & healthy infusion.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Headache Relief from Virginia Tea Co (with help from Mary Poppins). . . .
Once upon a time, I had sad news to give, and I was up all night thinking of how to break it. The next morning came with a pretty rough headache, but also the right words to say. Good thing this headache curing tea was in to ease some of my mental turmoil!
It’s got lots of pulverized leaves, I can recognize lavender and chamomile and there’s definitely spearmint in there too, though there are lots of fragrant flowers I can’t ID.
Virginia Tea Co is a Kickstarter crowd-funded company, whose done all the herbal medicine research so we don’t have to. They also source fair trade ingredients, and that’s a relief too.
When I tasted this, it seemed bitter to me, almost tasted like aspirin. Was it my conscience affecting my taste buds or was this just not my cuppa?
A few weeks later, I served some to a friend who’d been having a lot of headaches and thought he might benefit from it. He often describes himself as having “the palate of an eight-year-old”, but he liked it!…. After adding Paula Deen amounts of simple syrup…. in about 15 minutes, he noted his head felt less tense, and later that night it hadn’t come back.
Well now we know Mary Poppins had it right, a (few) spoonful(s) of sugar helps the medicine go down! I know that some folks are sensitive to OTC pain relief options, or prefer not to use pharmaceuticals and this is a great option for them.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Virginia Tea Co.
Lavender, feverfew, chamomile, skullcap, and spearmint are blended together to help fight those awful headaches. They do this by relaxing your mind and allowing for better thoughts to enter.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!