So, I ordered an advent calendar from Tea Revv this year and it’s already arrived at the office! As excited as I am to dig in, I’m going to do my best to wait patiently until December hits before I dig in. That said, they did include a free sample of this tea in with the package so I couldn’t resist steeping that one up right away!
I’m honestly surprised how much I enjoy this tea given that it’s a green tea. I suppose that’s because the herbaceous notes and citrus elements are so well balanced and smooth! I really get a nice mix of the rosemary and sage, and while it does add a herbaceous quality to the tea it doesn’t really come off as savory – in fact, it’s more warming and cozy than anything else! The citrus is brilliant; very crisp and sweet without a lot of acidity, more of that dense/full of depth kind of citrus that you see in citrus oils and citrus rind – but not bitter.
I see a lot of people who’ve tried this got bergamot from the taste and I too kind of get that distinct bergamot note from both the aroma of the tea and the taste. Bergamot is not a listed ingredient, which really makes me believe that what’s happening here is one of two things. The first is that the “natural flavouring” listed in the blend is either bergamot oil or, more likely, bergamot flavouring (yes, there’s a difference). Bergamot is actually really expensive, so it’s more common for EG type blends to use either bergamot flavouring or a combination of bergamot oil and flavouring to save on costs, but bergamot flavouring doesn’t look as good on an ingredient’s list so it’s possible Tea Revv is using it but opted not to call it out.
My other theory is similar, and that’s that the bergamot note is coming from the tangerine in the blend or some type of tangerine-like flavouring. Like I mentioned above, bergamot oil is expensive so another alternative that companies sometimes do is use tangerine oil or flavouring in combination with bergamot oil and/or flavouring to reduce their cost. It a weird way, it sort of makes your brain associate that tangerine note with bergamot because you’ve been tasting it alongside the bergamot. The brain is weird like that…
I’m not saying that’s definitely what’s happening here, but that would be my guess. Regardless of what’s causing the bergamot note, I like this blend a lot and I don’t really care where it’s coming from one way or the other.
