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From my swap with VariaTEA! It had been on my Christmas/sample list, so she threw some in for me. Today at work while I was, covertly, on Steepster I realized I’d been bulking up on the fruity teas – so this seemed like a nice switch up, plus an excellent relaxation tea too.

I tried my best to follow the steeping instructions left to me by VariaTEA, but in my quest to find something (ANYTHING) to eat as a MEAL in this household (not just spoonfuls of peanut butter like I’ve been doing for breakfast) that didn’t require saucepans/frying pans for cooking, bowls, forks, spoons, a strainer, grated anything, and a few other things (basically none of my dishes are done) I WAY lost track of time and frankly have no idea how long this steeped (at least 7 or 8 minutes). Otherwise everything else was followed (1 1/2 tsp. for 8 oz. steeped in boiling water). As for supper, I went with crackers with melted on cheese. Not exactly gourmet but better than the mall food I’ve been living on (in the last three days the only things I’ve eaten are A&W hashbrowns, chocolate milk, baby carrots, spoonfuls of peanut butter, cookie dough morsels, boba balls, and tea).

Dry leaf for this smells heavenly. I’m lost in the creamy and strong smell of the coconut with the soothing lavender. I’m pleased that these smells carry through into the steeped smell, albeit a tad bit milder. In eating my not so fancy supper, I let this sit a few minutes – so now that I’m about to drink it it’s a little cooler.

First taste, and I’m getting a wave of coconut followed by soft gentle lavender. The coconut is reminding me of when I was like seven and I used to sneak into my mom’s baking cabinet. I’d steal greedy little handfuls of things like chocolate chips or coconut shavings. Right now, I’m reminded of the coconut shavings. The lavender is nice and gentle, but I’m finding that in the aftertaste it’s sitting in a slightly less pleasant way, practically right on that line between yummy natural lavender done in all the right ways and perfumey kind of lavender. The coconut also present in the aftertaste saves it though, and keep the lavender from tasting bad.

I’ll be honest, I had to go back and reread the ingredients: I keep randomly getting little tiny inklings of licorice in the blend – nothing strong, just very brief notes in the very forefront of the sip as the liquor just hits your tongue. And then ‘poof’, gone. Hmmm. Not bad at all, just interesting. As for the rooibos base, it’s still present (I don’t mind rooibos though, so that’s not a bad thing) in an average/mild way in the body of the sip. It’s not buried under the coconut or cornflower or lavender or which ever, but it’s also not nearly as noticeable. I think the flavour notes of the rooibos and the other ingredients are ‘playing nicely’ together.

If there’s one thing I want from this tea that I’m not getting, it would be just a touch more creaminess. I’m sure a splash of milk or cream would fix that pretty quickly, but I don’t like to have to add things to tea: I want to enjoy my tea straight and then have the option to add things to play around with it and makes things interesting: it shouldn’t be a requirement to have things added for a cup to be bearable (not that I’m saying this is unbearable – it’s actually rather delicious).

Damn! Now I want to pick more of this up but as it’s on my Christmas list I can’t do that since I might receive some from family… Thanks for the sample though, VariaTEA! This was awesome. I’m glad I have enough left for another cup, although I’ll have to wait for the perfect time to use it up since I wont be getting any of this until after Christmas (either as a gift or if not, I’m going out and buying myself some).