1497 Tasting Notes
Hm. I love my first tasting note for this tea, didn’t love it quite so… eloquently… when I drank it last night. Perhaps just not in the mood? Dunno. I think I over-steeped it though, and thus the grassy bits of the green turned astringent and sour. I’m sure it’s user error, so leaving everything else as-is.
Flavors: Grass, Smooth
Let’s start this off with: I love chaga tea. I first discovered it in Jasper, Alberta, via a company that sold their version of a powdered chaga Mexican hot chocolate. DIVINE.
So you betcha I grabbed some wildcrafted, locally sourced (Quebec) chaga tea, with “natural chocolate flavoring”. This is that tea.
I’ll admit, the flavoring isn’t awesome. I kind of wish they’d used cacao or something else for the chocolate. Still, with sweetener – with zero exaggeration – this tastes like a super junky chocolate cupcake, with the horribly sweet frosting that you KNOW is bad for you.
Yet, this isn’t. Chaga tea is antiviral, a known cancer fighter, and even helps with colds, flu and weight loss.
Am I complaining? No.
I just wanted this less junky tasting, and more.. earthy tasting. Like the chocolate Mexican awesomeness from up above.
Still, it’s pretty tasty. If you like junky, oversweet cupcakes with way too much frosting…
Oh yea, and you can re-steep this forever (it seems). “Until the water turns clear,” is what most chaga tea websites say.
Yep, I’ll do that. :)
One more thing – steep this at lower temperatures. It both tastes better, and, kills off less of the yummy good-for-you antioxidant benefits.
Flavors: Cake, Chocolate, Earth, Frosting, Mushrooms
Preparation
Did you find this had a strong fungal/moldy/mushroom flavour to it? I am not a fan of the taste associated with mushrooms, but I wouldn’t mind trying a healthy tea that had chaga in it as long as it did taste like mushrooms.
It didn’t taste like mushrooms at all. I had my current roommate try some too, and she also felt it just tasted like chocolate (with a bit of stevia). I’m drinking it again now, and same thing. All I get is chocolate. Maybe a slight aftertaste of mushroom, but it’s really faint unless I’m focusing on trying to find the flavor.
I wish I understood what this tea was made of, or, even how to describe it.
Bought it in the Bahamas while there for 10 weeks. Recommended to me by a butcher on Exuma as a “local tea”, and I thought – awesome! They grow tea here? How cool is that?
Now, I’m not entirely sure they grow the tea on Exuma, in the Bahamas, or wherever this is produced. Honestly? I couldn’t find anything, anywhere. It’s par for the course there, so I just accepted I had this weird, tea with no ingredient list and perhaps would make me really, uh, excited. (Yep, that was on the box, as was that it’s a diuretic and stomach soother).
So. The flavor. On Exuma, I HATED this. Couldn’t drink it. So foul.
Now, that might have been the quality of the water (salty, “brackish”).. so I had to try it when I was back to my somewhat normal life. Read: where the water is palatable.
The Montreal version of this tea is… calming. Bland. No real flavor. I steeped it for quite a while – if it’s actual tea, I thought it would get bitter. It didn’t, although I do taste tannin.
Does my stomach still hurt? Well… it’s a bit upset now (after drinking it). Do I fell… uh… energized in the adult way? Sure. A bit? Maybe. Diuretic? Yea, but no more than any other tea.
So, do I recommend? A novelty, perhaps. Maybe I didn’t make it right – although there were no instructions. Maybe I don’t understand. Or maybe, like the rest of the Bahamas, I just need to take a chill pill and stop complaining. Slow down.
Okay, I can do that.
Flavors: Tannin
Preparation
Smallest amount I could grab was a 40g tin. Will have to pitch the tin, sadly… but wow this is a lovely cup.
Smells sweet, tastes sweeter, thick and rich, creamy from the coconut, with a hint of green grassy to offset the fullness. I’m surprised by this, especially after the coconut from yesterday.
Flavors: Coconut, Creamy, Grass, Sweet, Thick
Preparation
One of the stores in the City of Westminster (London) gave me a small tester of this.
It was disgusting.
I’m not sure if there was a cleaning agent still on the cup or strainer, but, all I tasted was chemicals. I couldn’t do more than one sip.
Flavors: Artificial
Preparation
This tea helped create the perfect circumstances to purge.
I wasn’t expecting it, at all. My first tea of the day, my first anything of the day, I thought ginger lime would really hit the spot. I’ve been drinking hot water and lemon every morning (powerful, simple stuff!), so it just made sense to me that this might be a good way to complement it.
Well, let’s just say it’s allowed me to really sit and see where I’m needing to love myself, slow down, and just be.
Within a few minutes of drinking this tea, I was sweating, shaking, tension behind my eyes, nausea, you name it.
So, this is powerful stuff. Or, it just launched me into a mindset that I needed to purge – both of which I’m grateful for.
Taste-wise, this is strongly lime-y, almost overwhelmingly so with some sips. Very little ginger. A lot of vegetal green, but not consistently with every sip.
Will I drink it again? Definitely. Would I recommend it? Only to those who REALLY love lime and green tea.
Flavors: Green, Lime, Tart, Vegetal
Preparation
Turmeric lovers, rejoice!
I love turmeric tea. I make it from scratch all the time, but, it’s a huge mess and stains everything. So I prefer to find pre-mixed turmeric tea, it just makes my life easier.
Out of all the turmeric teas I’ve tried (I think more than 20 now, I’d have to check for sure), this is my favorite.
It’s STRONG, for starters. No powder that I can tell in this tea, it’s more of a small rock shape, for the turmeric, anyway. Perhaps little flakes of the actual root?
Next up, it’s smooth, I’m sure because of the licorice root. Then, the lemon is a surprising astringent twist. Both whole lemons and lemon oil. I thought it would be overpowering, but it’s not at all. I had to look at the ingredients twice, asking myself, “Is that citrus? No…”
Yes, yes it is.
This is probably to die for with some coconut milk and honey, but since I’m not using honey at the moment.. wah. Someone do tell me if they try it!
Flavors: Astringent, Lemon, Spices
Preparation
Grabbed this as an alternative to ridiculously priced matcha – which is all I find in the UK at the moment. Darn traveling. ;)
I miss my matcha, and wish Red Leaf’s shipping wasn’t such a high threshold to come over here. Plus, since I’m on the road so much, it’s tricky to get anything without my being “gone” already, on to the next place. Suggestions for solutions, welcome!
Anyway, this tea. Suggested steep time of 3 minutes is perfect, as i’m finding this gets ridiculously bitter, fast. Did it as a keto / butter tea, didn’t notice anything of substance. Did it today just as a regular tea, and it was tight, astringent and bitter. Got some granularity from the matcha, which made me happy as I was worried there wasn’t any in here. Having said that, zero matcha buzz, which I consistently get with straight matcha. So…
Would I buy this again? Maybe, if I needed matcha in small doses for some reason, and couldn’t get what I wanted at a decent price.
Flavors: Astringent, Bitter, Grass