BlendBee is a tea shop that gives you the tools and tea staff to help blend a perfect custom brew. But beyond their customer tea blending services, they have plenty of standard blends ready to go in their shop. You Glow Bro (or You Glow Girl) is one such blend.
This rooibos blend boasts lots of complexion-aiding herbs and berries, meant to be consumed before bed and help you wake up glowing. I ordered this blend with fresh new year’s resolutions in mind, looking for a more glowing tea and skin experience. I can’t say that I noticed a different in my skin, but drinking more herbal tea is always good for the hydration and relaxation that come along with it.
This blend is driven by the bold red rooibos and sweet honey extracts. There was a bit too much honey for my tastes, but the rooibos might be too sour without it. I think I would have rather added my own honey next time, rather than have it pre-flavored. There are hints of other spices in the blend like cinnamon or licorice root, but they are hidden beneath the rooibos.
This is a great blend for when you’re on a cleanse and want to feel clearer in skin, body, and mind. The bold rooibos will be the perfect taste to help you feel the herbs working their magic and helping you glow!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Rooibos
Where to Buy: BlendBee
Description:
This earthy blend was expertly crafted to give you that youthful glow. Best to drink before bed. Wind down & let it work it’s magic.
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!
Lemon Jasmine Cleanse Tea from WayGood Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: WayGood Tea
Tea Description:
A delicate herbal infusion kissed with fragrant rose petals & jasmine flowers.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Dry, this Lemon Jasmine Cleanse Tea from WayGood Tea smells more like sage and rosemary than it does lemon or jasmine (or any other ingredient in this herbal tisane). But I don’t mind – I like sage and rosemary!
To brew this, I placed one sachet in my teacup and poured 8 ounces of near boiling (195°F) water over the sachet. Then I allowed it to steep for 6 minutes. The brewed tisane is a golden hue and smells pleasantly of sage and rosemary with hints of flower and subtle notes of lemon. Similar to the dry tea – the fragrance is primarily rosemary and sage but more of the fruit and floral notes are coming through now.
The flavor is interesting. I can’t say that I’ve ever tasted a tea or tisane quite like this. That’s not to say I’m not enjoying it. To be honest, I think I need another minute or two of writing about it before I figure out if I really do like it!
I taste sage and rosemary – not surprisingly based upon my experience with the aroma – but I also taste rose. I appreciate that even though the sage and rosemary are dominate fragrances in this tea, their flavors do not overwhelm the cup.
I’m kind of surprised that the name of this tea is “Lemon Jasmine Cleanse” but of the ingredients in this blend – jasmine, rose, lemon verbena, alfalfa, sage, rosemary & lemon peel – the lemon and jasmine are not very prominent flavors in the cup. The only thing I taste less than the lemon and jasmine here is the alfalfa.
I really can’t recall ever having tasted brewed alfalfa – I very well may have in another tea in my years as a tea reviewer, I just can’t recall having tasted it. So, I wouldn’t know what to look for in the flavor here as an identifying note for the alfalfa.
As I continue to sip, I notice more jasmine and lemon notes, but they never really offer a strong presence in this drink. Despite this, I’m finding this to be an enjoyable tisane. It’s certainly different, but in many cases, different is good! And it certainly has proven that to be the case with this. I’d be happy to sip on this again!
Lavender Earl Grey Cleanse from WayGood Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: WayGood Tea
Tea Description:
An exquisite black tea flavored with aromatic lavender flowers & bergamot.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This Lavender Earl Grey Cleanse from WayGood Tea is one of the most unusual Earl Grey teas that I’ve encountered.
Let me start with the “cleanse” part of this tea. I’m not a doctor or one who specializes in herbs. I’m not someone who recommends a ‘cleanse’ or a ‘detox’ because neither of these activities are something of which I partake. I don’t drink tea for health benefits. I don’t drink tea to cleanse, detox or lose weight. I drink tea because I like the way it tastes.
Now, if I happen to find a tea that I enjoy drinking, I certainly don’t mind at all if it happens to have the cleansing, detoxifying or weight loss benefits in addition to a great flavor. But flavor should come first. I drink tea because I like the flavor of it, if I want to drink something for health benefits, I’ll go drink some wheatgrass juice.
I don’t drink wheatgrass juice. I drink stuff I like to drink. That’s why I stick to tea.
So now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let me turn my attention to this tea. It’s one of the more unusual “twists” to the classic Earl Grey teas that I’ve yet to taste. That’s not to say that I don’t like it – to be honest, I haven’t actually decided if I do or I don’t! It’s quite different.
The rosemary adds it’s distinctive fragrance to the overall cup and when I lift the cup to my lips to take a sip, I smell the rosemary. While the rosemary and bergamot seem to complement each other aromatically, the first few sips were a little strange because I expected to smell bergamot but I smelled the rosemary with the bergamot (as well as notes of lavender and juniper berry) and the medley of aromas is just … well, it’s different. It is unexpected.
But, even though it IS different and unexpected, it’s quite pleasant! I’m not hating the flavor here at all. Quite the opposite.
That said, one big disappointment about this tea is that the black tea isn’t a particularly strong flavor. It’s more of a background note and that’s even a little more generous than the flavor here actually represents. The black tea tastes thin (almost like it’s a decaffeinated black tea). It’s a very weak tasting black tea and I’m of the opinion that black tea should have some vigor to it.
I steeped this for four minutes in 205°F – that should not have produced a weak tasting black tea unless the black tea is not a particularly strong tea to begin with … or it’s a decaffeinated tea.
The bergamot isn’t a particularly strong flavor as it melds with the flavors of lavender, rosemary and juniper berry. The orange peel enhances the notes of bergamot somewhat, but not really enough for someone who is a bergamot fan like I am.
I don’t taste much from the elderberry either. Of the seven elements of this tea, I taste the rosemary the strongest while the pine-y notes of the juniper seem to accentuate the rosemary, then I taste the lavender, followed by the bergamot (and orange), the black tea and then the elderberry. It tastes herb-y, pine-ish and floral with hints of citrus in the background.
Overall, it’s a pleasant cup of tea, but I find myself wanting to taste TEA here, and I’m not tasting a lot of it. It’s a very weak tea – but as far as a cleansing or detox type of tea, this is quite enjoyable.