Herbal teas are great for me because I can have them at night without worrying about being awake until 3am. I also think it’s a huge plus when the ingredients are all actual plants instead of mystery flavors and sugar. So I was pretty happy to give this sample of a honeybush tea blend a try. It only has five ingredients and they all actually grew out of the ground.
The dry leaf smells exactly like dried cranberries, to the point that I’m surprised they’re not an ingredient. The tea brews up the same color as a slice of blood orange. The brewed tea tastes entirely of juicy plum and hibiscus. I couldn’t taste the honeybush in it at all. The risk you run with hibiscus is always that it will drown out everything else. That seems to have largely happened here, though the plum does hold its own. I also got a pleasant second steep out of it, which doesn’t always happen with herbals. If I had more leaf, I would try steeping for 4 minutes instead of 5 to see if that helps tone down the hibiscus a bit.
I don’t know that I love, love, love this blend, but you might if you really like plum and hibiscus!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Harlow Tea Co
Description
This caffeine free tea is a great tea for any tea drinker, someone brand new to tea or have tried it all.
Honeybush tea is vey mild, but gives great flavor without caffeine. Floral hints from rose hips, hibiscus flower, and lady’s mantle is balanced with the fruity aroma of dried plums
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
The Cleanse from Harlow Tea Company. . . .
I am generally skeptical of any tea that claims a detoxifying effect or special health benefit, other than ginger for its actually proven anti-inflammatory properties. However, I like that the description for this tea doesn’t promise any magic results. I also like that it has dandelion root; I just enjoy the roasty, robust flavor of dandelion root. So I was willing to give this tea a try when I received a sample.
The dry leaf smells like hibiscus, dandelion, mint, and houjicha. The scent of the dry leaf is actually the most complex thing about this tea. Made according to package instructions, the immediate scent of the peach-colored brew is sweet hibiscus with a roasty undertone. The hibiscus flavor is not sickly-sweet strong but it is strong enough to mostly overwhelm the other flavors.
The only other flavors I can discern are some underlying roastiness and a lingering minty coolness after the sip. There’s no change in the flavor profile when the tea cools.
A second steep yields the same results. It’s actually remarkable to me how consistent the flavor is; typically a tea will change at least somewhat as it cools and with multiple steeps.
My guess is that the issue here is the hibiscus drowning out everything else. If you choose teas for their purported health benefits, this one seems as good as any other.
At least it has ginger in it and I didn’t personally experience any negative side effects from drinking two cups of it. But if you choose teas for flavor or complexity and are not a huge fan of hibiscus, I would look elsewhere.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type:
Where to Buy: Harlow Tea Company
Description
We all have seen those “get skinny now” teas available. I so wish such a thing worked for all of us, but it sadly does not. What does help an individual in the weight lose process is detoxing your body with the proper ingredients, combined with diet and exercise.
This tea offers some amazing ingredients on top of green tea which helps boost metabolism.
Ginger, turmeric, peppermint, and dandelion are all natural ingredients to rid your body of toxins, i.e. detox
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Ooh Peppermint! – Harlow Tea Co.
When I received the Oo’ Peppermint Tea from Harlow Tea Co I first thought, “Oh man, this is going to be another one of those teas that extremely overpowered.” For any kind of peppermint tea the creator of said tea uses the oil from the peppermint plant and you can easily overpower any creation with just a tad over the amount of oil that was intended. But Harlow Tea didn’t depend on oil but instead the peppermint plant itself! Which, in fact, makes for a delightful flavor.
But this tea is not just peppermint leaf, its base is actually oolong tea (which gives meaning to the “Oo” in Oo’ Peppermint) with the accompanying flavors of tulsi leaf, almond, and vanilla bean. And I believe that this tea is blended to perfection for its splendid flavor is smooth and comforting. And that means a lot coming from a tea drinker such as myself for I usually try to stay away from vanilla. Paired with the almond makes the two most powerful flavors, the vanilla and the peppermint leaf, agree with each other to a point where you can have a cup that is too strong or too sweet.
Now on to the details about this tea. Harlow Tea Co. is an Etsy run shop and their prices are pretty fair indeed. For this particular cup it is $4 for 1 oz, $6.49 for 2 oz, and $10 for 3 oz. They also offer samples of all of their teas for a mere 50 cents. So if you are curious I would take advantage of their fair pricing.
All in all this will be a tea that I will keep stocked in my pantry. It will be a perfect tea to accompany me in illness or in health. I can’t wait to try more teas from this company for they have already won me over. And just as a side note, to all of you that are aware of/love Twinings Buttermint I would say to try this on for size.
See you for the next cuppa!
Kara
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Harlow Tea Co
Description
Do you love peppermint, well I hope so! This tea gives a kick of peppermint that lingers long after that last sip is taken! Oolong has long, pun intended, been known as an all around pleasing tea for those who may find green tea too bitter and black tea too strong. Love both, then oolong is a perfect combination of the two!
Oo’ Peppermint offers hints of almond and is balanced with pieces of vanilla bean. You may even see some vanilla bean seeds in your tea!
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Say Aloha from Harlow Tea Co. . . . .
In theory, Spring is upon us. As the weather heats up, it is time to say goodbye to heavier winter teas and say hello or perhaps Aloha to lighter spring teas. So what is a lighter spring tea?
Well for me fruity greens come to mind. They are lighter in color and lighter in flavor. And Harlow’s Say Aloha with its strawberries and pineapple and other fruits sounds like a spring tea to me.
One misstep I think they took with this tea was using both a hojicha base and hibiscus. Both are such strong ingredients that they wrestle to take center stage, drowning out the fruity flavors in the process. Personally I think the hojicha base would have provided enough of a foundation to give this tea body and depth while allowing the other ingredients to play a bigger role.
As it is now, there is a roastiness from the green tea, a tartness from the hibiscus, and then a generic fruity sweetness from all the various fruits here. Plus, since candied fruit was used, the sweetness is strong, making for another contender in the wrestling match. These components are making war, when they should be blending harmoniously.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green Tea
Where to Buy: Harlow Tea Co.
Description
Houjicha green tea, hibiscus flower, myrtle leaf, strawberry leaf, dried strawberries, dried pineapple, dried plums, and cinnamon dried apples.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Unique Hand Blended Treat from Harlow Tea Co. . #CitrusZing
I was thumbing thru my tea stash recently and decided to dive into Citrus Zing from Harlow Tea. It’s a Black Tea and Yerba Mate blended base. It has other surprises in there as well including lemongrass, orange peel, lemon peel, stevia leaf, tulsi, eleuthero root, myrtle leaf, and tangerine peel.
This tea was pretty good. It was a unique flavor combo. I appreciate Harlow Tea blending Black Tea with Yerba Mate and not stopping there but taking it to the next level of flavor with the other ingredients.
The stevia leaf threw me off a bit. I’m not overly fond of stevia in teas but after I continued to sip on this for a while I liked it more and more and it seemed to make more sense with the overall flavor. The trio of citrus peels combated that stevia flavor nicely and worked well.
The black tea was more on the mellow side. The Yerba Mate didn’t really have that stereotypical ‘pea’ taste I connect with Yerba Mate but that is totally fine with me – it’s not like I was craving fresh peas anyway!
This was satisfying hot but I think I would like it even better cold because of the sweetness of the stevia leaf. I like my teas straight-up with no added cream or sugars so this was sweet enough. I still think if you are the type that likes to throw sweeteners in your teas I would suggest trying it straight-up first as it IS already sweet on its own.
Neat flavor combo here! Citrus Zing from Harlow Tea assisted my morning not too long ago! And it was a might fine morning at that!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: Harlow Tea Co.
Description
This is by far 1 of my top 3 favorites. It gives that powerful zing of flavor!
Tired of those not so flavorful teas, well then Citrus Zing is for you!
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
