344/365
I’m always up for trying a new sleep tea, and this one jumped into my basket last time I went to the supermarket. I had some success with Twinings’ new Sleep Superblends, but it did give me crazy dreams (as does Bird & Blend’s Dozy Girl). They’re both effective, but I’d like to find one that works without bizarrely vivid dreams as a side effect.
I suspect I’m not going to enjoy the flavour of this one particularly, since it contains liquorice (basically my nemesis). I don’t necessarily think flavour is the most important factor when it comes to sleep teas, though, so I’m willing to overlook a degree of unpleasantness/strangeness if it works. If it tastes nice, it’s a bonus! This one also contains flowering oat tops, chamomile, lavender, limeflower, valerian, and tulsi. I suspect it won’t be particularly effective for me based on past experience with similar ingredients, but I’m willing to give it a decent chance. The efficacy is something I’m going to have to comment on in a future note, though, since I don’t know yet how that’s going to work out.
In terms of flavour, it’s actually more palatable than I thought it would be. The liquorice is there in the background, but it’s not too obnoxiously sweet. It does linger a bit in the aftertaste, but I can perhaps overlook that if I try really hard. It’s certainly a very herbal tasting blend, as these things so often are, but it’s reasonably gentle and really quite soft tasting compared to some I’ve tried. Possibly it’s the oat? It comes across quite…milky and starchy aren’t quite the right words, and oaty isn’t descriptive enough, but perhaps you know what I mean? If I manage to work out what I mean, I’ll be sure to let you know.
The chamomile and lavender are present mostly in the mid-sip, adding a mildly floral sweetness. There’s a hint of earthiness, too, but on the whole it does well to disguise it’s more pungent ingredients. No one thing really dominates, which is good in some ways (there are a lot of ingredients in here that would never make it on to my favourites list), but basically means that it just tastes confused. It’s not particularly cohesive, and not particularly tasty, but it’s not bad – and not bad is much better than awful in my book.
I’m going to rate this one around 60 for taste, since I don’t mind it – I should probably have my own scoring scale for this kind of blend, since I have different expectations and I tend to be more forgiving of flavour if it works well – there are more things at stake than enjoyment, after all. I definitely wouldn’t drink this one for pleasure, but if it helps me sleep – I’m there! I’ll probably increase my rating a little if it actually does, but I guess we’ll see about that over the next few weeks. I’m not put off so far, though!
