Story Time!
So, the mall which houses the DAVIDsTEA I work at has a lot of vacancies right now – but we recently filled one of those vacancies with a Saje! I don’t necessarily agree with all of the wellness claims/health benefits that Saje typically tends to market their products with, likely because I don’t believe in alternative medicine at all, but I still find a lot of their products really cool and I like the “aromatherapy” aspect of their brand.
So, Friday was their “Grand Opening” and I stopped in early in the morning on behalf of DAVIDsTEA to see if they would want a brewer worth of tea to sample out/give away to the people browsing the store since DT is allowed to sample out teas at special events and things like that. They very politely declined though since they sell their own tea and it would soft of be like competing against themselves. Totally makes sense – no hard feelings at all! It just wouldn’t make sense business wise.
I was, of course, curious about their tea though since I’d never seen it here on Steepster before or really heard mention of it. So on my break I went and checked everything out. My friend/coworker Kandyce’s fiance Seth is actually working at Saje so he showed me a few of the different teas, and I picked this one out – not because I believe in Detox teas at all or really any of the “wellness effects” of this blend but because I thought that of all the teas that they were selling this was the one that sounded most unique and appealing taste wise.
So, when I went up to buy it that guy at the counter was one of the people who had been in earlier in the day when I had stopped by to see if they would want a brewer of tea. Remember, they had VERY politely decline – and as he was ringing me in he said echoed again that he felt really bad they had to turn down such a nice gift, and that it was so well meaning of us. Like I said, no hard feelings; we hadn’t realized they sold their own tea and so it totally made sense from a non-compete standpoint. He told me he wanted to give me a discount though, as an apology and while I said that certainly wasn’t necessary it was definitely appreciated. Next thing I know he’s handing me my bag and telling me to have a lovely day!
“Oh, I need to pay you though!”
“Nope, no need! This one’s on us!”
And that’s the story of how I got $17.00 worth of tea for free.
ACTUAL TEA REVIEW STARTS HERE:
So, this is a pretty simple herbal blend overall: the only ingredients are lemon myrtle, peppermint, and chili powder. I guess when it comes to their tea, Saje’s whole thing is “simple is better” so all of their teas are five ingredients or less, fair trade, and organic. The latter two things there I ALWAYS support and I can definitely get behind the first if the flavour is good/solid. I don’t really like blends bogged down with unnecessary ingredients either.
First things first, validity of ‘detox’ blends aside, I like the flavour of this one A LOT better than I like the flavour of DAVIDsTEA’s Detox. To me, the former tastes a little bit like Pledge. Thankfully, the bulk of people buying it aren’t doing so for the flavour.
The flavour of this one is simple – mostly it’s peppermint. The lemon myrtle is nice too; it’s both a brightness in the top note but also a lemony undertone which pleasantly compliments the mint. It’s cooling, and very refreshing when put together. Again though, just to reiterate, very simple. It’s the sort of thing that I think I’d get very bored with over time but as an occasional tea I think that it’s straight forward enough to provide a bit of relief in between all of the other crazy concoctions I often find myself gravitating towards.
Thank you Saje for the free gift!
EDIT: Because I forgot to actually say it out right, but I didn’t taste the chili powder at all. Maybe I just didn’t get a scoop of leaf that had much/any in it – but this was all lemon myrtle and peppermint to me.
