Independence Coffee Co.

My husband, kids and I love this peach iced tea cheaper and tastier than anything else and we are really sad that we can not buy it any more but that is all we would drink :) please bring it back it sucks that its not available

This is sipdown no. 9 for the year. (I have to say this counting thing is sort of fun.)

I’ve been drinking this just about every day since my initial note, because every day since then there’s been a point during the day when my throat went ka-blooey. Either it seemed to have caught on fire, or more recently, it has just been sort of hoarse and achy when I’ve had to talk a lot at work.

I think I’ve turned the corner in terms of this illness, or at least I hope so. I went to get a flu shot today and my temp was up a couple of tenths of a point but not enough for them to tell me not to get the shot.

Having turned the health corner (fingers crossed) I was eager to turn the medicinal tea corner as well. This doesn’t market itself as medicinal, but that’s how I’ve been using it and it has fit the bill nicely. It’s hard to know whether it’s the mint or the chamomile that’s more soothing. The freshness of the mint definitely cools a painful throat and the softening effect of the chamomile is something of a balm.

I’ve discovered this is best drunk while hot. When it cools it gets really medicine-y tasting. Hot, as it was meant to be, it’s actually rather pleasant, despite my sometime distrust of chamomile.

If it seems like I’m only writing tasting notes when I’m sick, that’s probably because I’m only writing tasting notes when I’m sick. Because that’s when I’m mostly drinking tea these days. Though with the new year comes the resolutions, and one of them is to wean myself back off of Diet Coke and back onto tea as part of the diet improvement plan of 2014.

This was given to me as a gift from a colleague in Texas as part of a larger gift box that contained cocoa mix, steak rub, some coffee products, etc. and its gift box name is, cutely, “Tea is for Texas.” However, the company just lists it as Chamomile/Peppermint Plus. Chamomile is one of those herbal flavors that I wish I liked better than I do. Sometimes it sounds really good to me but more often than not, it’s disappointing when I drink it. There’s something going on with the flowers that hits me the wrong way most of the time. I think it’s that good chamomile has such a creamy consistency I expect it to be sweet but it often has an almost bitter note that messes my tasters up. Or maybe it’s just psychological because I associate it with being sick.

In any case, the good thing about this one is that the peppermint takes the edge off the chamomile leaving it more as an undercurrent than the main event. The aftertaste is minty rather than flowery, too. There’s still the occasional high flowery chamomile note, but it’s less problematic for me when it isn’t the only flavor.

It’s a good herbal for a sore throat. Not sure I’d seek out the flavor it I wasn’t feeling under the weather, though.