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Teabox Tuesday! It’s in the herbal hours of the evening and I’m quite low on herbals left from my teabox stash, so I’m hoping this green tea is low on the tea leaf since the ingredients certainly make it appear that it is leaning towards more of an herbal blend and I won’t be too jacked this evening. This came from the Discovery Teabox, so thank you to Skysamurai for organizing and to those that participated for sharing!

The dry leaf smelled very peppery/spicy and a bit floral. I still used 175F water but let this steep in my teapot longer than I normally would steep a green tea because I wanted to allow all the herbs to get a good flavor, so I hope the tea leaf in there hasn’t gone astringent… guess we’ll see. The steeped tea is a gingery color and smells very spicy, musty, earthy, and herbaceous. My first thought from the aroma was “Ugh, ginseng!” but, much to my relief, it doesn’t taste like that to me at all. I get a strong lemony citrus flavor from the broth, and I’m tasting a bit slight mint note with a stronger fennel/black pepper spiciness. There is a fresh woodiness present as well… like sandlewood incense? The one thing I’m not getting, despite being called “Ayurvedic Rose,” is any floral component… It smelled a bit floral before steeping, but there is no rose flavor coming through after the steep. I would expect this to be a scent marketed for a men’s bedroom, which sounds weird trying to translate that into a tea flavor, but… there you have it. It’s quite pleasant, though! Certainly one of the more unique teas I’ve tried, too.

Thanks for sharing!

Flavors: Citrus, Earth, Fennel, Herbaceous, Lemon, Mint, Musty, Pepper, Spices, Wood

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 5 min, 0 sec 6 g 17 OZ / 500 ML

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Bio

Hi! I’m Sara, a middle-aged librarian living in southern Idaho, USA. I’m a big ol’ sci-fi/fantasy/anime geek that loves fandom conventions, coloring books, simulation computer games, Japanese culture, and cats. Proud genderqueer asexual (she/they) and supporter of the LGBTQ+ community. I’m also a chronic migraineur. As a surprise to no one, I’m a helpless tea addict with a tea collecting and hoarding problem! (It still baffles me how much tea I can cram into my little condo!) I enjoy trying all sorts of teas… for me tea is a neverending journey!

Favorite Flavors:

I love sampling a wide variety of teas! For me the variety is what makes the hobby of tea sampling so fun! While I enjoy trying all different types of teas (pure teas, blends, tisanes), these are some flavors/ingredients I enjoy:
-Dessert/chocolate/vanilla/caramel/cream/toffee/maple
-Sweet/licorice root/stevia
-Vegetal/grassy
-Floral/lavender/rose
-Spices/chais
-Fruity
-Tropical/pineapple/coconut
-Bergamot (in moderation)
-Roasted/nutty
-Tart/tangy/hibiscus/rosehip

Disliked Flavors:

There are not many flavors or ingredients that I don’t like. These include:
-Bananas/banana flavoring
-Hemp/CBD teas
-Smoke-scented teas/heavy smoke flavors (migraine trigger)
-Perfumey teas/extremely heavy floral aromas (migraine trigger)
-Gingko biloba (migraine trigger)
-Chamomile (used in blends as a background note/paired with stronger flavors is okay)
-Extremely spicy/heated teas
-Medicinal flavors/Ginseng
-Metallic flavors
-Overly strong artificial flavorings

With the exception of bananas and migraine triggers, I’ll pretty much try any tea at least once!

Steeping Parameters:

I drink tea in a variety of ways! For hot brews, I mostly drink my teas brewed in the western style without additions, and for iced tea, I drink teas mostly brewed in the cold brew style without additions. Occassionally I’ll change that up. I use the https://octea.ndim.space/#/ app for water-to-tea ratios and use steep times to my preferences.

My Rating Scale:

90-100 – Top tier tea! These teas are among my personal favorites, and typically I like to keep them stocked in my cupboards at all times, if possible!

70-89 – These are teas that I personally found very enjoyable, but I may or may not feel inclined to keep them in stock.

50-69 – Teas that fall in this range I enjoyed, but found either average, lacking in some way, or I’ve had a similar tea that “did it better.”

21-49 – Teas in this range I didn’t enjoy, for one reason or another. I may or may not finish them off, depending on their ranking, and feel no inclination to restock them.

20-1 – Blech! My Tea Hall of Shame. These are the teas that most likely saw the bottom of my garbage can, because I’d feel guilty to pass them onto someone else.

Note that I only journal a tea once, not every time I drink a cup of it. If my opinion of a tea drastically changes since my original review, I will journal the tea again with an updated opinion and change my rating. Occassionally I revisit a tea I’ve reviewed before after a year or more has passed.

Inventory:

My Cupboard on Steepster reflects teas that I have sampled and logged for review, and is not used as an inventory for teas I currently own at the present moment. An accurate and up-to-date listing of my current tea inventory can be viewed here: https://tinyurl.com/xjt9ptx3 . I am open to tea trades (within the United States only!) at this time. Note that I will not trade teas that I currently have in a quantity less than 50g (samplers, 1oz packages, etc.) or any teas that are currently still sealed/unopened in my cupboard.

Contact Info:

Feel free to send me a Steepster PM, or alternatively, check the website URL section below; it goes to a contact form that will reach my personal e-mail.

Location

Idaho, United States

Website

https://teatimetuesdayreviews...

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