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This is the first tropical tea in a while that didn’t hit me over the head with hibiscus, that is a huge plus in my book, because hibiscus tends to be pretty bitter. The tea in general was pretty mellow, not overly grassy and not overly tropical. I started out drinking this hot and it was slightly bitter so I set it aside, but once it cooled off I enjoyed it a lot more. I think this is one best served iced and with a little sugar to bring out the fruit flavor.

I’m still not a huge fan of tropical teas, but this one wasn’t bad.

I’ve been drinking this tea every night before bed for the last week. It really has grown on me, I didn’t particularly enjoy the first cup because it seemed like a rather odd combination of flavors at first, but it had the desired effect so I kept drinking. By desired effect what I really mean is this tea knocked me out in under 15 minutes, I didn’t even finish my cup.

I could not for the life of me figure out why I had that reaction to this tea, it normally takes me hours to fall asleep, but after a little reading I realized that valerian root and my seizure medicine don’t really play nicely together. My doctor told me that valerian is actually a pretty commonly suggested treatment for insomnia for people with epilepsy since sleep depravation is a major trigger. I really wish he would have told me that any time in the last 10 years when I’ve complained about not being able to sleep.

Anyway, this review may not apply to most people, but I just wanted to note that valerian actually interacts with a lot of medications so you’ll want to be careful about that if you’re taking any. In my case I was told not to drive or operate any heavy machinery… also avoiding sharp objects might not be a bad idea because this really knocked me out quick. If you aren’t sure if it is going to be a problem just give your doctor a call, in my opinion, it is better safe than sorry when it comes to things such as this.

Now on to the tea itself.

As I said before, this tea really grew on me. After some thought I think my initial dislike was because I don’t really like spearmint. You can really taste the spearmint and chamomile, but what I had trouble picking out was the valerian. Part of that may just be because I haven’t been exposed to valerian enough to really pick it out. The lemon verbena, lemon balm, and lavender flowers really balance this out nicely and make for a nice herbal blend.

This is another tea that I really wanted to like because it just smelled so good when I opened the package. I’m not sure what it is about Tropical Tea Company, but the tea always seems a little off to me and it is more noticeable as the tea cools. My first sip was bitter, almost enough for me to put the cup down and walk away. I knew going in this was a white tea base and paid close attention to the time and temperature so that wasn’t the problem. I kept going and got a very creamy coconut taste and more bitter. The coconut managed to not be totally off putting, which is a plus, but I never tasted the pineapple.

This is the first cup of tea I’ve dumped out because it was just that bad and no amount of sugar was going to make it drinkable.

I really wanted to like this, I adore Sencha and I absolutely love peach, but this was a bit of a let down. I think I enjoyed the smell of this one more than the taste. It started out with a strong grassy smell and taste that I always associate with Sencha, but as it cooled off I found it very weak and off tasting. This didn’t have a strong peach taste to it, but it does taste slightly sweeter than any other Sencha that I’ve had.

Part of my problem could be that I am pretty sure what little bit I had of this was pretty old. This week I’ve been clearing out any tea that I have no idea where it came from. I also didn’t have any directions with it. I ended up using 1 heaping teaspoon to 8oz of water, but if I had more of this I would have gone with only 6oz.

This really does smell like Peach-Os, which isn’t really what I want my tea to smell like. It did say on the package that it was naturally and artificially flavored, but I didn’t really taste the peach all that much. I would probably let this steep for another minute if I had another bag, it was a bit on the weak side, but the problem may have been that I used 8oz of water and I should have used 6. The bag was lacking in instructions other than steep time.

Whole foods had these in the sample basket awhile back. I’m a huge fan of pomegranate, but this tasted nothing like it. I’m definitely not a fan of this one.