I have two large tins in my kitchen in which I stuff various samples of stuff that are too small to be put in proper tin or I don’t otherwise know what to do with. Consequently the contents of these tins are frequently forgotten about. I had a rummage through them because that Stockholm blend thing that Luthien had was inspiring me and I wanted one of those ‘big’ blends with lots of stuff in it instead of these simpler things that I normally go for for a change. I found some lemon grass, honeysuckle flowers and some red rosebuds that I didn’t even know I had! Also a sample from previously mentioned local shop that I’m not sure why I got in the first place. It doesn’t really look like something that I would expect to like all that much… Anyway, this one is a teabag that I got through a trade at some point.
It has a number of things against it. 1) It’s bagged. 2) It’s ancient. 3) It’s been stored in a plastic ziplock bag. 4) in a tin containing other stuff too and consequently reeks of rooibos.
Obviously I’m not getting my hopes up here, but I’ve only got this one bag and I might as well get rid of it.
(I just realised now there’s a typo when I added the tea. ‘Manog’ tea, indeed. snicker I’ll fix it as soon as I’m done with the post.)
It smells a little bit of mango, still. It also smells like sugar and something sort of lemon-y. And of chamomile, weirdly enough. Quite a lot of chamomile actually. I wonder if, during the trade, tea bags might have been accidentally switched around so what I’ve actually just made is a cup of chamomile tisane. Well, there’s only one way to find out.
Nope, it’s not chamomile in disguise. There’s a little bit of astringency (yay learning this!) and that’s about it. It has very little flavour of any sort of in although it does actually vaguely remind me of chamomile. The reason I can say though that it isn’t actually real chamomile in disguise is that chamomile, even really ancient chamomile of dubious quality, in my experience doesn’t really fade in flavour the way this stuff obviously have. The dominant taste of the whole cup here is hot water.
I’m a bit wary of rating it because I would like to believe that in a better stored non-ancient bag it would have been better, but I have to go with what I’ve actually got.
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Pats sympathetically I’ve yet to find a good, non artificial-tasting mango tea unfortunately.
SerendipiTea has the best mango I’ve had before, Mango Magnus, though my mango tea sampling has not been extensive. But it tastes very true-to-life mango to me. You might be more sensitive to artificial tastes than I am, however.
Thanks for the rec Auggy. I checked out the company and it seems pretty neat AND they ship to Canada (although they aren’t quoting their rates).
No problem – I hope you like it as much as I have! I’ve had 4 or 5 of their teas and the only one I didn’t like was the Lili’uokalani – mostly because peach is NOT a tropical flavor in my world and should never be in a tea with a Hawaiian name.
Pats sympathetically I’ve yet to find a good, non artificial-tasting mango tea unfortunately.
SerendipiTea has the best mango I’ve had before, Mango Magnus, though my mango tea sampling has not been extensive. But it tastes very true-to-life mango to me. You might be more sensitive to artificial tastes than I am, however.
Thanks for the rec Auggy. I checked out the company and it seems pretty neat AND they ship to Canada (although they aren’t quoting their rates).
No problem – I hope you like it as much as I have! I’ve had 4 or 5 of their teas and the only one I didn’t like was the Lili’uokalani – mostly because peach is NOT a tropical flavor in my world and should never be in a tea with a Hawaiian name.