Scheherazade Send Message

350/365

This one’s described as an aniseed, fennel & cardamom blend, but it also features liquorice and coriander. At first glance it doesn’t sound as busy as some Pukka teas I’ve tried, which is encouraging. I also spent most of Saturday at a beer festival, so it seems fitting to begin the week with a detox tea – despite the fact that it’s not usually my thing. I’m more about moderation, in general.

I’ve tried a few detox-type teas in my time, though, and this has to be one of the nicest tasting I’ve come across so far. Fennel and aniseed are the main flavours, followed by liquorice. The overall effect is very sweet, but thankfully the liquorice isn’t too cloying. Another case of Pukka getting the balance right there, which I appreciate.

There’s not much cardamom at all, and very little coriander. On the whole, it’s a little too sweet for my tastes (when do I ever say that?!), but nice all the same. I’d drink it again, but for flavour more than supposed effects.

348/365

This one sounds like your average chai – cardamom, clove, ginger & black pepper. It’s on a CTC black base, which seems to be the modus operandi for Vahdam. I’m not a fan of it myself, really, but I can see that it creates a base sturdy enough to stand up to heavy spicing. It’s also fairly nondescript, which I suppose makes sense when the spices are supposed to be the star.

This one is nicely spicy, but I could still stand stronger. I don’t think I’ve found a chai yet that quite meets my expectations in that regard. There’s a nice balance of spices here, though – I can taste the cardamom, clove, ginger and (hallelujah!) black pepper – each clear and distinct. I don’t mind the base, although admittedly I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. It’s just there – and that’s my point. It’s not a distraction from the spices, which are allowed to shine. Maybe that’s how it should be.

I like this one. It’s the first chai I’ve drank in a while where I’ve been able to taste the black pepper, and I love that. It’s also one of the more memorable teas from Vahdam’s chai sampler, and that’s saying something because there have been some memories!

348/365

I love a good vanilla mint blend, so I had to revisit this one before completing my challenge. I tried it in its previous incarnation, when it was one of the Sensations range – that was a long time ago! I kept seeing it in the supermarket, and it was calling to me, so I gave in and bought a box for old time’s sake.

It’s simple, but delicious! There’s lots of peppermint, as you might expect, and it’s cooling and refreshing in the way only peppermint can be, considering it’s actually hot. The vanilla adds a creamy sweetness, very reminiscent of toffee at times. The flavour is spot-on murray mint, which I think is the intention.

I’d say this is easily one of my favourite herbal/caffeine-free blends. I’d forgotten how much I liked this one, but I think in future I’m going to try and keep it around. It’s well balanced perfection. Considering it’s a bagged supermarket tea, it would be hard to give it higher praise!

347/365

Halloween tea! This one’s the caffeine-free version of Spiced Pumpkin Pie, and at first I wasn’t even remotely close to believing that would be possible to pull off. How wrong I was! This is so close to tasting like SPP, it’s a little scary. It doesn’t have quite as much depth, perhaps, but it’s incredibly squashy – just like SPP! There’s not a huge amount of spice, at least initially. I found that it was more noticeable in the aftertaste – mostly cinnamon, and a touch of ginger. I don’t find SPP particularly spicy, though, so it’s in keeping with that.

One thing I did notice here is that there’s quite a lot of apple. It’s sweet-ish, but not overdone, and nicely bakey. I think the apple here is supposed to be contributing the “pie” aspect – where SPP does quite well at that, this one’s a little lacking . The apple almost makes up for it, though – it reminds me of apple pie filling, in a gooey, starchy, sweet sort of way. Lots of good things combined!

There is clove in this blend, but I couldn’t taste it. The same goes for the rosehip. It has the cutest pumpkin sprinkles, which probably shouldn’t sway me – but who am I kidding?! They’re not the same as the ones in SPP, which is a nice touch. Overall, I really like this one. I prefer the original, of course, but this is a fabulous substitute. It’s nice to have a bedtime version of SPP, and I can see myself drinking it a lot over the coming months. Winner, winner!

346/365

Considering it’s a bagged supermarket tea, it does actually taste of cherry. I know I shouldn’t sound so surprised, but there it is. It’s quite nice initially, but there’s a distinct resemblance to cherry tunes or cough syrup by the end of the sip. Unfortunately, it’s a resemblance that only increases! I think it might be the liquorice – which is pretty subtle – but which adds a hit of sweetness the blend as a whole doesn’t really need.

The cinnamon is more muted than I expected, and mostly appears at the beginning of the sip. I thought it would be the other way around, for some reason. There’s no hibi in this one, which is unusual for Twinings, but to be applauded. It doesn’t need it, after all. There is some roeship, but it actually works reasonably well to temper some of the initial sweetness, so I can’t gripe about that. It’s not ultimately equal to it, but it has a good go.

I quite like this one. It’s not perfect, but that’s okay. It’s a little on the sweet side, but it does taste of cherry and cinnamon (bonus!), and it’s a nice warming, fruity cup on a cold afternoon. I’ll have no problems finishing my box.

345/365

This one’s more complex than it first seems, comprising liquorice, elderflower, fennel seed, and turmeric in addition to lemon (many & various – verbena, oil, zest & myrtle) ginger, and honey flavouring. In fact, considering there’s so much emphasis on lemon, my first thought is that it’s not actually very lemony at all. It’s not particularly gingery, either, but that works for me given that I’m not a fan of ginger anyway. The lack of lemon is upsetting, though.

It’s sweeter than most lemon & ginger blends I’ve tried, the dominant flavours being liquorice and honey. There’s also a decent amount of fennel, which I like, but which makes the whole thing sweet and aniseedy. I don’t actually mind the liquorice, which is something I’ve found with a few of the other Pukka teas I’ve tried. It doesn’t taste as artificial and isn’t as throat-coatingly obvious as it can be – which is usually when I hate it most. Perhaps it’s just that the balance is right for my tastes here.

This one’s nice enough, but I wouldn’t really say it’s a lemon and ginger blend. Another thing I’ve found with Pukka is that their blends tend to be quite “busy”, and this one’s no exception. Sometimes I haven’t minded it, but it’s definitely detrimental to the overall flavour this time. Nothing really stands out, except how sweet it is, and how little it lives up to its name. A bit of a disappointment.

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!

343/365

Another from the chai sampler, and still plenty to go! This one called to me today, and I can understand why since it’s pretty cold and I rather like cinnamon! The two seem to go together. It’s another with a CTC base; I’m beginning to suspect that most of them are, but I’m okay with that on the whole. I like my chai strong, and CTC definitely helps with that. I added milk to this one, although I don’t always. Call me odd.

In practice, I didn’t get a lot of cinnamon from this one – or at least, not as much as I was perhaps expecting. What I did get was cardamom, and lots of it. There is some cinnamon, but it comes across almost flat tasting, somehow. It’s hard to describe exactly, but it almost tasted slightly stale? Like it had been open too long, and the cinnamon had faded, or gone slightly fusty? I bought these fairly recently, but obviously I don’t know how long they were stored prior to that – most of the teas I’ve had from Vahdam have been fine, though, so I don’t think it’s a storage or age issue. Maybe this one’s just not for me? It happens.

I could perhaps pep this up a little by adding some extra cinnamon, but I feel I shouldn’t really have to do that. I’ll give it more of a chance before I write it off completely, but so far (and so sadly…) this one’s not a favourite.

342/365

This one’s a blend of peppermint, spearmint, and fieldmint. I’ve not come across the latter before, so I’m kind of intrigued by that. It brews up a murky brown, like most bagged mint teas, and I have to admit that at this point I was unconvinced.

In terms of flavour, it’s more subtle than I expected – but then it’s not just peppermint. That tends to be the issue for me generally, because I find peppermint alone too dank and somehow grubby tasting. It’s just not my thing. This one is sweeter than straight peppermint, thanks obviously to the spearmint. I love spearmint! I was the child that always wanted the spearmint polos. The fieldmint is intriguing, too – it adds a mildly vegetal undertone that’s making me think of fresh cut grass, meadows, and summer.

I like this one. I’d happily drink it again, which isn’t something I say about a lot of mint teas!

341/365

I’m always up for trying an Earl Grey Crème, and so I pretty much had to pick this one up when I placed my last order with Adagio. Got to justify shipping, after all! I didn’t have the highest expectations, though – dry, it smells kind of harsh and really soapy.

Fortunately, it’s much better in practice. There’s a decent amount of creaminess, which is mostly what I want in an EGC, and it’s not too heavy on the bergamot which is always a bonus. I mean, you can tell it’s an Earl Grey, but it’s not obnoxious in the way some can be. The cream helps.

I’m not super-keen on the black base – I’m guessing it’s Ceylon Sonata. It’s not exactly astringent, but it’s not smooth, either. It just seems to distract from what is otherwise a pretty decent blend.

There are definitely better EGCs out there, but this one’s okay. It’s nice to have another in my cupboard, and I’ll have no trouble finishing up my sample pouch.