This tea is weird. Not in a bad way, but if you go into it thinking it’ll be an ordinary herbal, prepare to be thrown for a loop. I distinctly remember my grandma bringing me back “Native Tea” from the Southwest as a souvenir when I was a little kid, and I absolutely loved it, but my mother thought it tasted like burnt grass and threw it in the bin.
Well, this tea is a less burned and more pine-heavy version of that tea I remember, so surprise! What I got hooked on as a 5 year old was cota and I still like it however many years later. The dry cota needles are so pointy that I had one splinter up into the skin of my foot when one escaped onto the floor, and they’re long and stiff which makes them hard to measure.
Once you brew them, though, dang. Southwestern Christmas in a cup. Light yellow liquor that reminds you of an unsavory liquid and the leaves are good to brew again and again until you get tired of drinking the stuff. Juniper berries are the perfect complement to the dry pine of cota. You know how gin has that dry taste to it? Yeah, so does this tea. The juniper builds on that and makes it taste slightly less like sipping on a liquidated alcoholic-but-not pine tree.
I have to say, though, I do love this tea. It’s delicious in a terribly weird fashion.
Flavors: Dry Grass, Hay, Pine
