Holy Basil Spa Blend

1.5 tablespoons for 375 ml of water

Lemony note. Delightful mint taste. Great flavour combination. Hot wax-burning candle aroma in the taste.

Personally, I would prefer a stronger licorice flavour.

Thanks to Indigobloom for sharing this with me!

If you could get it anymore this would be highly recommended. Unfortunately Verdant stopped making blends. Their naked tea is still awesome but I miss the fun of discovering what blend they would come up with next. I forgot to time this… which is fine since I made it cold and I have never had it go funny on me. Such a good tea.

Getting back into tea now. I took a month off to do more juicing. I’m surprised that I have not written a review of this herbal. Love it!
So refreshing and light. Has my favorite tea herbs which are peppermint and licorice. Can not go wrong with this.

Enjoying this one after ramen. I have only had tusli in one other blend which was a rooibos chai so I was expecting something akin to cinnamon, but was greeted with wonderful fresh in your face mint upon opening the pouch. Brewed, this a very nicely balanced cup, I love the touch of fennel and I think I’m beginning to figure out what tusli might taste like by tapping into my sensory memories and doing a comparison. Regardless it is lovely and refreshing and reminds me a bit of chewing gum but without the pain on the jaw and the addition of a nice centering feeling traveling down the body. Good stuff this. I don’t really like rating herbals though, its delicious for what it is but I have a hard time rating it higher than a straight tea I really enjoyed.

Oh, I adore getting Verdant’s blends in the tea of the month package. They are always so much fun to try.

This is the second one I’ve been quite frightened of, however. I haven’t had good experiences with the holy basil I’ve tried, and I’m not a huge supporter of minty teas. And this is quite minty and spicy. But, I think I’m coming around to the mint. I thoroughly enjoyed this! It was very minty, but had enough body that it wasn’t biting. It was sweet and earthy. I actually didn’t detect the licorice root, so it was pretty harmoniously blended with the other flavours. It was really remarkably refreshing, and the suggestion of mixing it with sparking water sounds mighty fine, maybe with some cucumber.

Dear Verdant Tea,
I know you are experts at what you do and have all manner of precise equipment for measuring your product in grams. However, this uncultured buffoon uses measuring spoons and has better things to do than go to your website to look up “detailed instructions,” I really think it would be better to put the more mainstream measures for average folk on the package and direct the more dedicated connoisseurs to your website for the specialized information, rather than torment poor common slobs like myself with the sort of fru fru methods meant for gourmet kitchens and mad scientist labs.
— Rant over.

“To hell with it,” I muttered and measured a tablespoon into a quart mason jar, filled said jar with water and stuck it in the fridge.

My first observation upon tasting this tea some hours later is that pouring this through a sieve is insufficient to filter out all the little bits of herb. It really needs to be strained through a coffee filter. Fortunately, I keep those around.

The resulting brew tasted wild and weedy but oddly savory as well. Kind of basil-y and mint-y. It was certainly a change from the sweet floral and fruit blends I’m used to and most unusual.

Maybe too unusual. I like basil in a number of foods but not so sure I like it in my teacup. Maybe I’m just not thinking outside the box very well…or maybe this just isn’t that great. It’s not bad….It’s just not that good. I have one more measure left and will likely have a sip down in the near future. I’ll drink it, mostly because it’s there and I don’t like to waste things. Can’t get very excited about this one though. I’m just not feeling the love.

Of course, it’s a Spa Blend, which suggests it’s therapeutic in some way. I don’t guess medicine is supposed to be tasty. But it’s probably good for you. Hey, let’s get Mikey to try it…

Love this herbal, reminds me a bit of the bagged Stash White Christmas I use as a cheap and easy comfort whenever I get a cold, but of course better, fresher (much less gingery too, which means I still need my White Christmas for those sick days!). I’m thinking more and more it’s probably worth it to stock up on Ginger Sage Winter Spa Blend and this one for the looming cold and flu season (I can feel my throat and lungs getting a bit ehhh in the cooling but still humid Memphis weather—people have been known to still get tuberculosis here!—and we’re flying next weekend and something about air travel in the cold months has historically always signaled disaster for my immune system). And for when I feel better, the site mention of making a concentrated shot of this to add to things like honeyed club soda or gin and tonics sounds appealing indeed.

Finished another bag full of this wonderful blend earlier this week. We were having some really warm days, so I even tried it iced, from a concentrated brew, with a splash of agave and sparkling water as Verdant Tea recommended. Minty, spicy, and stimulating. A really fine herbal brew that I have enjoyed over and over again. The burdock they use in this blend is unlike any I have ever tasted, and it really brings together all the flavors. Thanks again Verdant Tea for such a nice herbal blend.

I wasn’t overly fond of this one. Not sure if it was my mood or the blend, so leaving off the rating until I try again.

Holy cow this is yummy! Complex, sweet, basil, mint, chocolate, cream, cinnamon, spice, licorice, caramel there’s even honeydew melon at the finish. I normally don’t care a lot for spices in my tea, but this one is amazing.