Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: The Veda Company
Tea Description:
“Revitalize” your mind, body and spirit with refreshing and rejuvenating essences of wild mint, cinnamon and traditional Ayurvedic Indian Gooseberry. Each blend is mildly caffeinated with green tea, one of nature’s antioxidant wonders.
Learn more about the teas from TeaVeda here.
Taster’s Review:
Indian Gooseberry is not something that I’m well acquainted with, so I googled it to learn more. Based on the information that I could find, it is high in vitamin C, it is an antioxidant and does all kinds of other good for you things like enhances brain function, heart support and it’s good for your skin and hair among many other benefits.
OK, sounds good to me.
The berry is supposed to offer a very strong sour and bitter taste. Bitter and sour are not two of my favorite words when it comes to describing tea.
So maybe the Indian Gooseberry is starting to sound less good to me.
But, hey, there are other ingredients in this tea too. Not just the gooseberry. Cinnamon and wild mint. I like them. And I like green tea. So, maybe these other ingredients will help make the Indian Gooseberry more palatable.
So, I’ll try it. Hey! That’s what I do. That’s why I’m here. And that’s why you’re here. You’re here to read about what I’m drinking. And I’m about to drink this tea.
To brew it, I heated freshly filtered water to 175°F and I got out my favorite teacup. Unfortunately, it isn’t the gorgeous Revitalize teacup from the TeaVeda collection. But I like my sunflower teacup anyway!
I let the tea sachet steep for 2 minutes. The aroma has a strong fruity essence with light background notes of cinnamon and a whisper of mint.
The flavor is strong. It has a strong, berry like flavor that is indeed both bitter and sour. The cinnamon and mint do balance this strong flavor out though. I’m finding the flavor a little surprising because cinnamon and mint tend to be very strong, aggressive flavors and it surprises me that the Indian Gooseberry is a stronger flavor than the other ingredients. The gooseberry is what I taste – front and center – while the other flavors seem to temper the bitterness and tart character of the gooseberry.
That said, I find the flavor to be enjoyable. I am not a big fan of bitter and sour flavors, but, because of the presence of the mint and cinnamon, these two flavors are much more acceptable to my palate … not just acceptable, but actually enjoyable.
I don’t taste a lot of green tea here and if I’m to offer a complaint about this tea, that would be it. I would like to have a stronger green tea presence. After all, I’m drinking tea. I want to taste the tea.
I found this tea to be quite interesting, and I could notice myself feeling revitalized after I finished it. I would certainly drink this again if the opportunity presented itself.
