Pukka

Yesterday I mixed one teabag of this with a lemongrass tea bag and discovered that it makes a delicious iced drink.. this has been a public service announcement :)

I ended up going for a walk to Whole Foods today and spending money on things I didn’t really need. Well, I did get food but I didn’t need more tea that’s for sure. ;-)

It’s strange that the Whole Foods near my work does not have any Pukka teas at all, but the one closer to my house has a smaller assortment of teas and a lot of the Pukkas. I’ve been wanting to try this for a while. It’s definitely gingery and intense. I’m sure I must have had galangal before in Thai food but I couldn’t really tell you how the flavor is different than ginger. There’s licorice in here too, the tea doesn’t really need it but it provides a bit of sweetness. Also this has a bit of turmeric in it, not enough to really make the tea yellow however. This is definitely a warming and spicy tea! I wish Pukka had a variety pack so I could try some of the individual offerings without having to buy an entire box.

I don’t love it, but I think it will be good to have this one around for my achy body which still feels like that of a 90 yr. old arthritic woman. I am healing a bit more every day!

I think I’m the only one in my family who really enjoys the taste of licorice. I like it, fennel, anise … basically anything with that sweet bite. I’m also a sucker for a chai, so the combination of fennel with cardamom gives me basically exactly what I want for an easygoing pick-me-up.

This was a tea I bought specifically to help with some stomach upset. Licorice root is great for calming, and the combination of it and fennel can really help if you’re having digestive issues.

When I don’t feel like a jolt of caffeine just yet, this is what I have.

Picked this up at Winners today, sad that their tea section has gone down drastically. The name appealed to me, even though the other Pukka tea I’ve had wasn’t too great. Only after I bought it did I notice the “manuka honey flavor”, which seems counterproductive to me. Bah.

This is a very granular tea, and while I get the ginger, lemon and honey – it just tastes artificial and wrong. It’s far from horrible, it’s just far from what I wanted.

I enjoyed this – I typically don’t use teabags, but I travel with some regularity and am a pet sitter so I spend lots of nights away from home and need portable tea. This has a very light lemon scent, but is almost undetectable in the flavor. I prefer this to artificial flavors that overwhelm, but it could use a bit more. I got two steeps out of this.

Absolutely refreshing! I’m not fond of mint tea, but I found this one delicious and fresh :)

I like it for breakfast with bread + jam & butter :) Absolutely delicious!

I did not like this tea. It was very mild in flavor, watery with a hint of the same kind of vanillic licorice tangy taste that’s in the Pukka Vanilla Chai and Peppermint & Licorice teas. What really puts me off is that it smells like stale dirty bathwater.

A very, very mild chamomile. There’s an unmistakable hint of vanilla, which does not seem to go too well with chamomile – I can taste chamomile and vanilla separately instead of finding the flavours in harmony. As the tea cools a strange, somewhat fishy smell, appears… I don’t think I would like to finish the cup. Not impressed.

I can’t even taste it…. I wanted to like it so bad but I can’t taste it!

There’s green tea in here? It seemed like a purely herbal brew to me, and thus why I grabbed it today. I’ll have to go double check the ingredient list. Regardless, it’s a smooth brew likely from the licorice, and although I really oversteeped this (20 min!) it’s pleasant enough. I get the smoothness from the licorice with little of the taste, a touch of cinnamon, and a touch of coolness from the mint. Unsure if I’d buy it again though – $8 for a box of bagged tea seems a bit much.

2 bags in 12oz.

Pukka! stop putting marshmallow root in your teas! it tastes like Stevia! No, i will not relax!

Loljk…it’s not that big a deal, but this tea is just meh… after trying Detox, nothing else in their line is exciting.

This is just an average chamomile tisane….so this is what the real deal tastes like, huh?
i can handle it.

Much more herbal than i’ve been led to believe since i’m a big drinker of Celestial Seasonings Honey Vanilla Chamomile (which is packed! with flavor, by comparison)…but that’s not what i find disconcerting.

The marshmallow root in this (and i recognize it!) gives an unpleasant & artificial sweetness right at the back of the throat & towards the sides of the back of the tongue (where I believe the ‘bitter’ taste receptors are). I recognize this note because it was used in their Harmonise tea, which also made for an unpleasant bitter-sweetness that was only heightened by the presence of tart hibiscus (but that’s another story).

So in this tea, Relax, you essentially get chamomile, a hint of licorice/fennel & stevia in the aftertaste. Though i appreciate that this is an Ayurvedic blend & hope to get some kind of health benefit out of it, i don’t think i’d purchase this again.

having had great success with my first purchase from Pukka (it was Detox, a lovely herbal infusion that is primarily fennel & aniseed) i was tempted to purchase more & since this said ‘Harmonise’, well…

the experience wasn’t exactly harmonious.

tart diluted hibiscus is most pronounced in this & i get a faint aspartame-y, stevia-type aftertaste (could this be the vanilla?) that mingles with the tartness…not good. rose is somewhere i suppose, but this is primarily hibiscus. it does, however, impart a very lovely salmon pink color when infused. much prettier to look at than drink!

if you’re anything like me & can’t resist the urge to purchase this tea on account of its cute packaging (a very unique butterfly-esque Rorschach design with sunflowers, cattails and Cirque du Soleil dancers)…save yourself the money! this couldn’t even double as a nice potpourri.

yaaay i’m drinking this again. as predicted, i could not resist the impulse to mix this with Stash’s Organic Premium Green (teabag format; apparently it comes in loose leaf, which i did not know!)

i’m on a new box! that’s right….living life on the edge. and i’m noticing this one smells just a tad bit fresher, brighter, and with the licorice more pronounced in the blend. the longer it steeps, the more the aniseed comes through. at first i thought fennel was playing a bigger role than it actually is. i came to such a conclusion after purchasing Numi’s Organic Fennel Spice savory tea (which is delicious!) and which is undeniably fennel in an undoubtedly non-aniseed way. i know licorice, so no guessing game there. i also know aniseed as i have it at home, so any previous notes claiming fennel is the dominant flavor in Pukka’s Detox, i now realize was much more aniseed. so there you have it!

oh, and the bready, pretzel note i keep getting, as it turns out, is actually from the Stash Organic Green tea i mix it with! will elaborate in a tasting note on that separately.

add a dash of salt—and people—you could have soup! well, broth. this could double as a non-alcoholic aperitif or palate cleanser. or just to help with digestion. what i love about this Detox blend, is that there are no suspect herbs or drugs that might impact your system unfavorably. this is detox the natural way (or relaxation or meditation, whichever you prefer..) the aroma is certainly soothing and the taste, pleasant.

also- the licorice in this is very nice and gentle. not that i mind it at higher (thicker, sweeter) doses, but i’m so impressed at how it plays nice in this medley. the initial burst i got from the aroma was refreshing, truly. all in all, this herbal blend is invigorating but ultimately calming.

so i’m a fennel/aniseed/licorice fiend. apparently.

upon closer inspection, i get sourdough pretzel with a salty note- yes, there is a salinity to the nose! and then the impression of celery follows. all the while this is on a backdrop of aniseed/fennel. i think there’s a bit of a progression in the aroma!

still wondering where the cardamom is, but now that i think about it, it’s probably binding all these flavors together seamlessly. i can sense its presence, if that makes sense.

this is such a smooth, well-blended tisane. whoever came up with the idea for this knew what they were doing!

NB: this tasting note is for Pukka Detox mixed with a sachet of Stash’s Organic Green tea. i can’t tear these two apart!

whenever i visit the tea alcove at Fairway Market i become overwhelmingly indecisive and want all the teas! i go around to each different brand inspecting the boxes for ingredients, checking steepster on my iPhone to get a better sense of how it will taste, and i’ll even sniff some of the boxes to see if any of the aroma has escaped, but i probably look like i’m secretly plotting a heist. plus i think the stock boy there thinks i’m a little nuts. oops!

but back to Pukka.. i found this tea in the aforesaid alcove & i must say it took me quite a while to make a decision, but luckily, the good thing about Pukka is that you can smell their tea bags from inside! you actually get a preview aroma coming from the box! I think their signature ingredient is fennel, as it’s listed in nearly all their tisanes…so not complaining! i love fennel, aniseed, rye/caroway, cumin/jeera & the like. they’re comforting savory herbs that remind me very much of the Indian food i love so dearly. and don’t get me started on the little black mustard (rai) seeds!!

anyway, the smell coming from the box was lovely plus, it had the ‘great taste gold 2011’ seal of approval. my nose was in accordance with professional tasters.. definitely worth a purchase! from the box alone i got the smell of licorice (but not an overbearing, sweet kind..an herbal, subtle kind) that is expertly balanced with the aniseed & fennel (both prominent). cardamom is another spice listed among the ingredients, and since i love cardamom in my chai & some desserts, Pukka Detox could seem to do no wrong.

first impressions when i brewed up a cup: the aroma of the infusion is primarily fennel/aniseed…using 2 bags, i feel like i am drinking a delicate savory broth reminiscent of Indian spices (the kind used in their curries as opposed to chai) although this tisane contains no turmeric, so don’t panic! i don’t really get cardamom from this tho…hmm. that’s okay, still delicious. other ingredients listed (in what must be very trace amounts) are coriander seed & celery seed. i suppose i do get a somewhat ‘vague’ impression of celery, given that the liquor is a lovely celery yellow-green & the overall aroma including the fennel do remind me somewhat of celery. celery lends itself perfectly to the fennel/licorice family of flavor & all are ‘bulb vegetables’ right? as you can tell, i majored in botany/horticulture ;p

a flavor note that also comes to mind is of fennel sourdough pretzel! something pretzel-y about this one…slightly bready. interesting! and i like it!

this pairs perfectly with my favorite straight green tea, Stash’s Organic Green, which is not currently in the database (and i must fix that!).. what’s outrageous about the pairing is that the flavor of the green tea is so clean…so crystalline…and it has some kind of light nutty-vegetal flavor which never gets bitter, and something just told me to mix it with Detox. they just work…according to my palate, at least!

if you feel like something herbal (besides chamomile), don’t want any caffeine, like aniseed & are perhaps looking for something to drink following a meal, i’d certainly recommend this!

yum yum yum. aniseed sourdough pretzel. more of a savory broth than a tea, but it’s delicious! not at all sweet, pairs perfectly with a nice green.

Not my favorite, will not buy again.

I was expecting something a bit more dry with more kick. Cardamom, ginger, clove cinnamon are all warm ingredients and that’s what’s shown in the front but if you read the ingredient list you’d find green tea and spearmint which are cooling. The taste is reasonably clean and pleasant, but I was expecting something more warming from the packaging and the featured ingredients.

Here’s a new (to me) herbal tea from Pukka I haven’t tried. I don’t really know if I need to detox anything but the combination of fennel, licorice, aniseed and cardamom seemed like it would be a really good digestif.

This tisane steeps up to be a golden yellow and tastes about as I was expecting it would. Not really something I would drink for the sheer joy of it, but it isn’t too bad. Smells and tastes very strongly of fennel and licorice which drowns out the cardamom a bit. I can’t say that I love the flavor but I think this will be very handy to have around in case of a stomach ache. If you hate the flavor of licorice, be sure to skip this!