Anakne / Herb Garden Girl

Sipdown (1774)!

I got this free sachet sample way back at the start of the year during the SIAL trade show, and I decided to brew it up today. Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of the herb that’s used, but what I do remember the woman at the booth describing was that this is a popular Korean herb that they produce into two different kinds of caffeine free tea replacements – one modeled more after green tea and one after pu’erh.

Though I can’t say this with 100% confidence, I feel like the one I’m having today is the pu’erh styled one. It has such an incredibly distinct spruce-like woody and earthy note to it that’s making me salivate every time I take a sip, but more than that there are just really lovely but quite dark and dense notes of things like molasses, petrichor, leather, and bitter medicinal herbs. It’s honestly incredibly unique, and I wish I had spent more time at the booth getting information because it’s one of the nicest and most unique tisanes I’ve stumbled upon in some time. I can 100% see the comparison to a nice aged sheng or shou as well, even though they’re still relatively different.