Teabox Tuesday! It’s in the herbal hours of the evening and I’m getting low on teabox herbals, but I do still have this one from the Discovery Teabox, so thank you to Skysamurai for organizing and to those that participated for sharing! Brewed up my small sampler of this one in my little Japanese doubin, which holds about two cups.
The dry leaf smelled faintly tropical to me, mostly of pineapple. Hmm. Perhaps the sort of thing I should cold brew, but the water is already boiled so let’s do this.
Brewed, the cup is faintly pink, and since I am a fan of hibi-hip teas, that’s a fairly good sign for me… but the aroma I get now isn’t fruity at all (why did the dry leaf smell of pineapple to me, I wonder?) but… chamomile. Hooboy. Welp. Yup. That is mostly all I taste. Strong, thick chamomile. If I could actually taste hibi-hip, that would be an improvement for me, because I’m not a fan of chamomile. Looking at the ingredient list, there are a lot of florals in this cup, but I’m not really picking out any other distinct flavors… there is a hint of a sort of aloe taste, but the chamomile is just so strong to me it’s overwhelming anything else that might be in this cup. I’m definitely not picking up any huckleberry, which is supposed to be the flavoring added to this tea.
Maybe if I was a fan of chamomile I’d be alright with this, but as is, this isn’t my cuppa. I added a teabag with a small pinch of hibiscus and rose petals from my dry herb stash to a tea bag and let them soak for a bit in the tea, then added a spoon of lemon-infused honey, and though my tea turned considerably more red, it still tasted of chamomile. Guess I should’ve used more than a pinch, and actually made this tea a Scarlet Dragon… Perhaps that’s what is most disappointing to me. With a name like that, and with the hibiscus and rosehip pretty high in the ingredients, why is this such a chamomile bomb? Probably good news for 99.9999% of Steepsterers, but sadly, I’m in that 0.0001% that would’ve prefered a juicy tart hibi-hip drink because chamomile tastes like soap to my particular palate.
Also, my birthday present to myself arrived today! Since I decided the teapots I inherited from Grandma were too delicate to use as actual teapots and needed to go into storage, I still wanted a larger, “English style” teapot. My birthday is St. Patrick’s Day, and I just happened to see this one looking at English-style teapots… and had to have it.
https://www.englishteastore.com/shamrock-teapot-earthenware-6-cup.html
Isn’t it cute? squee I have such a weakness for cute teaware…
Flavors: Floral, Soap
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Barf. There’s something about chamomile that tastes like… bodily fluids, to me. I don’t really know how to describe it. So I’d definitely have preferred hibi-hip (at least it’s tasty when sweetened!)
In other news, that teapot is adorable – what a great birthday gift to yourself! I hope you enjoy using it :)
Cute pot
I think I forgot about englishteastore.com… probably intentionally…
They have some cute teaware. I also live in an area where some of the British bagged tea brands that I like (Twinings, Taylors of Harrogate) aren’t that easy to get ahold of, and they carry them. I’m not that big on their loose leaf (though their green cucumber melon was quite good, and with Lupicia’s Golden Honeydew gone forever now, and my other favorite melon tea which came from TeaSource also recently being discontinued, I may go back to that one for my iced melon tea needs in the future…)
I forgot that awesome cucumber melon tea you sent to me was sourced from there! At least that one is still around. I’ve sampled some of their teas over the years and I’ve mostly liked what I tried. Maybe I only tried the good ones though. haha
Barf. There’s something about chamomile that tastes like… bodily fluids, to me. I don’t really know how to describe it. So I’d definitely have preferred hibi-hip (at least it’s tasty when sweetened!)
In other news, that teapot is adorable – what a great birthday gift to yourself! I hope you enjoy using it :)
Cute pot
I think I forgot about englishteastore.com… probably intentionally…
They have some cute teaware. I also live in an area where some of the British bagged tea brands that I like (Twinings, Taylors of Harrogate) aren’t that easy to get ahold of, and they carry them. I’m not that big on their loose leaf (though their green cucumber melon was quite good, and with Lupicia’s Golden Honeydew gone forever now, and my other favorite melon tea which came from TeaSource also recently being discontinued, I may go back to that one for my iced melon tea needs in the future…)
I forgot that awesome cucumber melon tea you sent to me was sourced from there! At least that one is still around. I’ve sampled some of their teas over the years and I’ve mostly liked what I tried. Maybe I only tried the good ones though. haha