Strawberry Sunset

Thanks Missy and Dylan for sending along some of their custom blend! Figured a little chamomile couldn’t hurt tonight.

The chamomile is quite apparent (as I was warned), but I no longer have such an aversion to it as I used to. I’m convinced that the flavour I thought was chamomile was actually a combination of chamomile and peppermint (which I do still dislike), and so poor chamomile suffered because I had never tried it without peppermint.

Steeped, the cup smells like a minty, sweet-ish chamomile.

The flavour is much more layered. I can taste chamomile with a bit of lemongrass combined with a slight hint of fruitiness (not clearly strawberry). The spearmint adds a lovely minty crispness to the flavour without the icky peppermint taste, which I really appreciate. I think there’s perhaps a touch of cinnamon appearing at the end of the sip, but it’s hard to pick out. I don’t think I’m tasting figs at all.

Great blend! Both to you guys for choosing the combination, and Ovation for the expert blending that made this tea a delicious flavour explosion instead of having one flavour overwhelm everything else.

So we need a few caffeine free teas for night time. We like to share tea pretty late into the night and I’ve been having trouble sleeping. I’m not sure its tea that’s keeping me awake, but I’d rather play it safe. We had a tea from a store that was called Strawberry Sunset and we can’t get it any more. We tried to build it with Ovation teas, minus the stevia and hibiscus. I’m not a big fan of either. What we got was a chamomile base with peppermint, figs, strawberries, strawberry flavoring and spearmint flavoring.

So the fig is lost in here. I think it may have contributed to the sweetness of the tea. Otherwise it’s pretty straight forward. There is a mild mint taste with chamomile and strawberries. I actually like the mint the best. It’s not aggressive nor too subtle. I’m pretty happy with this one, other than I think a mint base would be better than the chamomile base.

I have to recommend Ovation Tea to you all. They are great. They responded to our questions via emails in a reasonable amount of time. I feel they use quality ingredients and ship out in a timely manner.

So… Strawberry Sunset (take 1) is a tisane I made using Ovation Teas custom blending, using the following options:
Tea Base – Chamomile
Herbs, Spices & Flowers – Cinnamon Chips, Lemongrass
Fruit & Nuts – Strawberries, Figs
Flavorings – Strawberry, Spearmint

Let me start off by saying THIS IS DELICIOUS, even though it isn’t as strawberry-y as I wanted. It’s very, very tasty though. The strawberry flavoring isn’t as dominant as either the mint or the chamomile flavors, but it picks up a little more as the beverage cools. The amount of lemongrass they used in this blend is perfect, just a hint of zing as a finishing note. It lingers a little bit too.

The fig flavoring is lost, which I somewhat expected, since fig is a little tame on it’s own. I think I’ll actually replace those with more strawberries the next time around (oh yes, there will be a next time, this isn’t over between us Ovation).

The brew has a very pale, almost white grape juice color. This was a little surprising to me as I was expecting the vibrant red that I had in the Strawberry Sunset that I was basing this from. It probably just means that Ovation is using a more ‘natural’ product, where the one I had before was a more artificially colored and flavored blend.

I’m finishing up the second cup, and this chamomile is totally knocking me out. So I’m going to rate this 100 and run off to bed. Yes, I’m going to give it 100 even though it can be improved slightly. I figure any lacking in flavor combination is my own darned fault, so I can really only rate the tea on the quality and flavor of the chosen ingredients, which is AMAZING.