Yerba Buena Tea Co.

Finishing off the last bit of a mug of this right now – I was craving something more natural and herbal tasting tonight, but with just a bit of a fruit note. It’s not really a favourite tea of mine or something I drink often, in large part because there is a DISTINCT licorice root sweetness that lingers in the finish, but the gentle elderberry and herbal echinacea notes are working okay for me tonight. The weirdest part is actually just that there’s a savory undertone to the cup – like a vegetable stock? I guess maybe from the echinacea?

Grabbed the tin of this to take with me to work today to steep up.

I realized at the office today, when making my mug, that this is actually a completely herbal tea – no yerba mate in it at all. I had incorrectly assumed there was mate in it because the company is called “Yerba Bueno” and their main thing seems to be yerba mate blends. Not this one, though…

Taste wise, it was basically licorice root with a hint of berry and a majorly savory body flavour. Not the tastiest thing, but probably not half bad to be consuming that array of ingredients.

I made this one last night with some eucalyptus blossom honey – I was reorganizing my tea drawers to fit a new tin of Kusmi tea that I picked up last night and I realized that it’d been a considerable amount of time since I’d tried most of the mate teas in my stash so I think I’m going to try to have at least one cup of most of them throughout the course of next week. They’ve just been awfully neglected…

I don’t remember much about the taste of this – I think it was relatively bland as a tea and then just masked a little bit by the added honey. However, I do remember cracking open the tin and just kind of recoiling backwards a little because the smell of the dry leaf was so distinctly foot smelling! Ewww!

Why did I make a mug despite the fact it smelled like feet? I don’t know – I guess curiosity more than anything? And stubbornness. I hate throwing out tea…

A tea from when I was feeling quite sick; I wanted something hot and soothing for my throat and I remembered that this tea has licorice root in it which is nice and coating on the throat. Plus “ImuuniTea” didn’t sound like a bad thing, so I steeped it up. It was quite soothing, and for a very brief period of time I felt pretty solid. I couldn’t really taste the tea too much; what with being sick and all…

Kind of just a generic elderberry tea sort of profile so nothing especially special in that regard – but I do like having more yerba mate options in my cupboard, so I appreciate the expansion of flavour options.

I had a cup of this the other day and it was okay, but in an effort to use up the rest of it I dumped the rest of the tin in a mason jar and cold steeped a concentrate overnight. I added some ice, sugar and coconut milk and it made it very Oregon Chai like. Still not much in the way of pumpkin or other than chai spices which is a shame because pumpkin would have matched the skies in California today!

This tea is warming and tasty. It seems more like a chai than a pumpkin spice combo. It’s very enjoyable, but not something that makes me think of pumpkin.

Pumpkin tea showdown! I drank 5 pumpkin teas side by side for comparison.

Dry, it smells mostly like cardamom with a little clove in the background. No pumpkin detected. Reminds me of David’s Tea Kashmiri Chai, which I love, but not when I’m expecting pumpkin. Very few leaves in the mix, lots of brown sugar pieces.
Once steeped the basket was mostly rehydrated flower petals and cardamom pods. The scent of the tea is much more toned down. It tastes good, but not really pumpkiny. It is slightly sweetened and mostly tastes like a chai. Mostly. Cinnamon is prominent and blends well with the cardamom. I like this tea as a chai, but I’m not getting the pumpkin impression which is why I bought this tea in the first place.
Adding creamer… I like this better now! It’s still chai like and not even hitting the pumpkin spice buttons. There is a weird association I’m getting in the finish of hard boiled egg whites. Really strange for a tea, but I can block that out if I’m sipping casually.
Cold… it’s bland. A little bit of spices coming through, but not exciting at all.

Finally sipped down an entire tin of this nighttime tisane. I bought it for an exorbitant price at the San Francisco Ferry Building. I wonder if the tenants of the stalls at the ferry building, Imperial Tea Court being one of them, will still be there after COVID. Nostalgia of my years in the city tonight.

Thick, floral, and gently herbaceous-sweet. A little tangy from the lemon balm? I don’t know what kava kava and skullcap taste like on their own. The lavender is stronger than the chamomile but the flavors are overall well balanced. Its rather generic ‘herbal tea’ taste has grown on me over the years.

What’s with the headaches lately? I need a sleep-hard tea and this is one of the better ones I’ve had. It’s well-balanced in flavor when brewed 1tsp to 10oz. Light and sweet.
None of the herbs stand out which is nice and what I look for in nighttime blends. I bought this at the San Francisco Ferry Building which is total money pit. $15 for an herbal blend. I’d buy it again if it weren’t for SF storefront/tourist inflated pricing. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was probably drunk and dopey from spending $12 on a gongfu oolong session at the Imperial Tea Court. At least I have a nice tin when it’s gone. But yeah, it’s good and makes me sleep hard.