Persephone

I’ve wanted to try this company for the past few years, and they finally had a stock that I wanted to order as a combo. Artemis Tea and Botanicals lives up to their name and all of the teas I tried out are heavily herbal. There’s a clear homeopathy bent to the company, but they prioritise the ingredients, and very few of their teas are actually flavored. Their artwork and packaging are gorgeous as well.

I had my sights on Ursa originally, and then this one. It’s spring time, and despite today marking a nearing of Christ’s resurrection, I figured I get this tea to honor the hellenic roots in the holiday, and the universal passage from winter into spring.

The tea really captures that weird transition from frost, permafrost, to dew, rain, dirt, and finally, blooms in the trees and in the grass. I would not recommend this tea for flavor since it’s extremely earthy and herby, but it does something interesting. The smell has a mix of earth, lilac and jasmine in the scent, and the taste is much the same. It starts off as earth, then hardens into mineral, then cools off like birch into a floral body of lilac, jasmine, and then a lightly green and creamy malt. I kinda get stonefruit mid sipped, but it’s something like a burnt apricot or peach for a split second. The mineral, salt, birch, and flowers are more dominant. I wonder if the birch note is actually the acacia.

The tea didn’t last beyond the second steep. It was muted after even five minutes losing some power. It oddly relieved a huge headache I had, and my muscles weren’t as tight, so the power of herbs or wishful thinking was effective.

I think this tea is super interesting, but I’m not sure if I’d recommend it. If I go for a blend, I usually look for something atypical anyway and it meets the mark. I am also not a huge fan of the taste, but I am a huge fan of how the taste encapsulates its namesake as a goddess returning from the underworld in the spring. The flowers are also absolutely gorgeous brewed and unbrewed. I was very happy with the package and service too, and the other blends will be just as fun to write about.