Soothing Caramel Bedtime

Ok. Lost my post 2 times now. Starting to go crazy. Here’s the gist:

I wandered into the grocery store looking for Tazo’s Rest, but couldn’t find it, so I settled for this despite previous negative experiences with Yogi teas. When selecting bedtime teas, I usually go with blends that contain valerian root, which this doesn’t have. Plus, I don’t even like rooibos, but here I am, tempted by the promise of caramel.

I gave it the full 10 minutes, as the packaging says to steep for 5-10. The tea brewed up to a dark ambery brown, like black tea, and reeked of chamomile. To be short, it doesn’t taste like vanilla or caramel. The main flavors I detect are chamomile, rooibos, nutmeg, and cinnamon. This is followed by that general “Yogi” herbal taste that I’ve noticed in everything I’ve tried by this particular brand.

As far as herbal effects go, I do feel a bit of a sleepy, comfortable feeling. I can’t tell if it’s the placebo effect or not, but I do feel more relaxed and ready to fall asleep. It’s not as strong as Yogi’s Bedtime (which contains valerian), but it still has an effect. Maybe I’ll steep two bags at once next time and see what happens.

This is a good bedtime tea, sweet and soothing. I can taste the other herbs, but they’re not overpowering (as in many herbal teabags, for me) – the predominant taste is caramel, with maybe a bit of barley and chamomile. No licorice flavor! Yay!

Very good for a bagged herbal tea – will likely buy more whenever I see it on sale.

Throw a bunch of… crap together and Yogi will call it “Caramel” and oh yeah, don’t forget that essential Yogi black pepper. There are so many ingredients here though. I have no idea how this is supposed to be caramel! I’m mainly tasting chamomile, which somehow is making it taste like plastic, pepper and stevia. The steep color looks like caramel, anyway! I’ve had better Yogi teas.

I will be treating myself to triple steeps of zentealife.com’s Phoenix Pearls all day tomorrow! (Or I guess today since it’s two in the morning.) I hope everyone is having the best holiday season they can! Happy Holidays!

This is a good bedtime tea. It works better than Valerian and catnip, at least for me. The L-Theanine helps me both fall asleep and stay asleep, which is key. It actually tastes pretty OK, too, for a Yogi tea. It’s like an herbaceous chai. I don’t really get a lot of caramel notes— I mostly taste cinnamon. There is stevia in it, unfortunately, but it’s not cloying at all.
TL; DR: It’s a warming, pleasantly different take on the standard chamomile-lavender-licorice-lemon balm-mint brews that you find when you’re looking for a bedtime tea. And it does what it promises to.

Random Tea Bag Sipdown!

I only managed a few sips of this before I accidentally knocked it over, but I didn’t feel it was any great loss. I didn’t particularly care for the flavor of this tea. It doesn’t really taste like caramel, but it is slightly sweet, most likely from the stevia. Most of what I tasted was cinnamon.

I got a sample of this from the Yogi website, and definitely needed something soothing after a stressful day at work. It smells great. Cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, hint of vanilla. I love cinnamon. This doesn’t actually taste very cinnamon-y, though. The flavor is overwhelmingly chamomile, with smooth vanilla on the back end. A hint of pepper as I’m reaching the bottom of the cup.

I like this as a bedtime tea. It really is soothing. It’s somewhat disturbing that it has so many ingredients, though – chamomile, rooibos, roasted chicory root, skullcap leaf, nutmeg kernel, caramel flavor, vanilla flavor, some kind of bark, stevia leaf, poppy extract, ginger root, L. Theanine Suntheanine, clove bud, black pepper, cinnamon bark, cardamom seed oil, ginger root oil… it seems a bit much.

I’m at the bottom now and still don’t know whether I would actually buy this. It’s tasty and soothing, but nothing outstanding, and the long ingredients list is off-putting.

Steeped in boiling water for 10 minutes, per package instructions.

While grocery shopping this tea caught my eye. It has a sweet/spicy taste to it. First taste is slightly spicy then it takes a turn for the sweet side leaving a vanilla/caramel aftertaste. You can definitely tell it has rooibos in it, too. It is a very nice “before bed” tea :]

Well, not heading to bed any time soon, but a coworker gave me this, so I figured I would give it a shot.

I bought this tea without looking at the ingredients, yikes! I don’t really want to try this one. However, my aunt enjoys it immensely. She says it’s delicious with a touch of sugar.

This was not what I thought it would be. It claims Caramel but I don’t get that at all. I do taste chamomile and black pepper. That’s all I taste (and smell) even though there is a ridiculous amount of ingredients listed for this blend. I’ll admit, I do appear to be yawning and feeling kind of cozy but I’ve also had a long week and probably should go to bed early.