Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal Tea/Tisane
Where to Buy: Chiang Rai Tea House
Tea Description:
This delicious combination is loaded with anti-oxidants and is known to release stress, lower cholesterol and ease digestion. Both of these two healthy plants are grown the most natural way, so you can benefit from all the potency and enjoy the subtle flavor of this blend all day round.
Ingredients: Organic Lemongrass 60%
Organic Pandan 40%
Lemongrass-Pandan main benefits -the power is in the combination of these two plants:
> Induces a feeling of relaxation and relieves stress
> Contains a higher level of anti-oxidants than taken separately
> Fights constipation and regulates digestion
> Helps clear away toxins built up in kidneys and bladder
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Chiang Rai Tea House and their Lemongrass and Pandan Herbal Tisane is pretty special. You don’t see too many Pandan teas here in the US but I’m glad I was able to try this one. Usually I’m not really into herbal tisanes but this one was lovely. The Pandan Leaves made it somewhat savory and the lemongrass seemed to cut it and add a but of mellow lemon. This is a comforting herbal not to mention the potential healthy benefits it offers! I loved how it was brothy. Almost like I was drinking a soup rather than a tea. I could totally see myself cooking with this. I think it would be great to boil rice in.
Lemongrass and Pandan Herbal Tea from Chiang Rai Tea House
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Chiang Rai Tea House
Tea Description:
An exquisite, balanced blend of two fragrant herbs typical of South East Asia. The lemony flavor and aroma of lemongrass is a great match to the sweet, vanilla-like taste of pandan. If you haven’t tried pandan yet, this infusion is not to be missed. The lemongrass-pandan combination is known to relieve stress, ease constipation. detoxify the blood and, being caffeine-free, it’s also the perfect after-dinner beverage. As for all our teas and herbs, these two are also organic.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Pandan seems to be becoming a more popular ingredient in herbal tea – I’ve certainly seen it more recently than I ever have before. It has quite a distinctive flavour, but one that’s also hard to describe – it’s sweet in a way reminiscent of liquorice root, with an almost thick-tasting starchiness. Pretty unique.
This particular blend contains an approximately 60/40 split between lemongrass and pandan. The “leaves” are quite small (approximately 2mm shreds of lemongrass, with slightly larger twists of pandan), but this also means that they brew up relatively quickly. I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 3 minutes in boiling water. The resulting liquor is a pale golden colour, the scent generically sweet.
To taste, the pandan is definitely the most dominant flavour. It has a rather thick mouthfeel, and it’s the kind of flavour that lingers at the back of the throat. The sweetness, particularly, is rather cloying after a while. Fortunately, the lemongrass is there to freshen things up a little. It has a hay-like sweetness of its own, but also a clean, citrus edge that cuts through the pandan and helps to end the sip on a bright, refreshing note. I drank my cup hot, but I can also see this working well iced.
A pleasant, summery cup with two classically Thai components. This one is an excellent, and unusual, herbal, and definitely worth a try if you’re in the market for a caffeine-free option.
Energize Herbal Tea by Teatoxy
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Teatoxy
Tea Description:
Teatoxy Energize is a 100% organic blue detox tea blend that is absolutely unqiue and gives you the energy you need to stay fit throughout your day. Our master blenders have created Teatoxy Energize with 3 things in mind: flavour, health and energy. By combining organic Thai lemongrass, Pandan leaves, Moroccan Rose pedals with Bluechai and Lavender you get an amazingly delicious, all natural tea with a vast amount of health benefits.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I was initially attracted to this tea due to its reputed energy-giving properties, and I’ve been drinking it fairly regularly since first receiving it a few months ago. The first thing that stood out about this blend was the quality of the “leaf”. Although this blend is herbal so there’s no actual tea, leaf seems an appropriate term to describe this particular mixture. The pieces of lemongrass are some of the largest I’ve ever seen – minimum 1cm square, with whole rose buds, whole bluechai flowers, and large, curly pandan leaves. The lavender is the only small thing here, with a generous smattering of buds throughout. It’s a really beautiful blend to look at – pink, blue, green, yellow, and purple. A true feast for the eyes.
When brewing a cup, I’ve been following the recommended parameters and using 2 heaped teaspoons of leaf. It would be difficult to measure much less than a heaped teaspoon in any case! This can be left for up to 8 minutes in boiling water, but in this case I went for a more conservative 4.5. I’ve found that this gives the most pleasant flavour (more on that in a moment), and means that the tea hasn’t cooled too much before it’s even finished brewing.
The second thing that stands out about this blend is the colour of the liquor. It’s bright blue. This is due to the inclusion of the bluechai flowers, which give this tea its energising properties. As an added novelty, lemon juice will turn the liquor from blue to purple. Lemon has the added bonus of lifting the flavour a little, making it sharper rather than sweet, and more refreshing, which might be quite welcome depending on your personal taste.
As it is, the flavour of this blend is another fairly unique thing. It’s certainly not like anything I’ve ever tasted before! The main note I can detect is rose, but underlying this is a thick almost-maltiness, reminiscent of some of “sleepytime” style herbal tea blends or hot chocolate. It reminds me a bit of Lush’s Twilight shower gel, as a matter of fact. The lavender obviously plays a part in this, but I suspect the pandan may also play a part. I’ve no previous experience with pandan to draw on, however, so I can’t say this too confidently. The aftertaste has a very natural, almost “green” flavour, which puts me in mind of a summer garden in full bloom; grass, chlorophyll, and the scent of flowers. This isn’t a tea for someone who really dislikes heavily floral flavours, because there’s a lot of that here, although adding lemon juice can minimise this to some extent. It cuts through what can become a very cloying tea, and makes it sharper and more refreshing. Definitely worth a try if you’re finding a full cup of this one a bit too much.
Since I’ve been drinking this one, I have noticed a slight improvement in my energy levels and ability to focus. I’ve taken to drinking a cup just after lunch at work, when I often start to flagg. It’s not a massive boost, but I’ve found it to be a good mild pick-me-up, without the associated problems of a caffeine slump. This is an interesting, unique, and intriguing blend. It’s definitely worth a try if you like herbals, want to try some new and unusual tea ingredients, or are looking for a natural boost. My first experience with Teatoxy was definitely a good one!
Lemongrass & Pandan Tisane from Chiang Rai Tea House
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Chiang Rai Tea House
Tea Description:
An exquisite, balanced blend of two fragrant herbs typical of South East Asia. The lemony flavor and aroma of lemongrass is a great match to the sweet, vanilla-like taste of pandan. If you haven’t tried pandan yet, this infusion is not to be missed. The lemongrass-pandan combination is known to relieve stress, ease constipation. detoxify the blood and, being caffeine-free, it’s also the perfect after-dinner beverage. As for all our teas and herbs, these two are also organic.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I don’t recall ever having tried Pandan before, so this moment with Lemongrass & Pandan Tisane from Chiang Rai Tea House represents a new experience for me.
Pandan is interesting! It has a sweet flavor that is reminiscent of rice. The description above suggests a vanilla-like taste and I get that too, but I think I taste more of a rice-like flavor than a vanilla one. I’m quite enjoying it!
I have tried a lot of lemongrass in the past, but I must say that the lemongrass that I’ve sampled from Chiang Rai Tea House is truly exceptional. I realize that there are people out there that might thing that ‘lemongrass is lemongrass’ but for those people, I’d recommend trying one of Chiang Rai Tea House’s lemongrass offerings and that might change your mind. If nothing else, you might find the curly shavings of the lemongrass more interesting and enchanting than the typical blades of lemongrass that you might be used to.
The combination of the sweet, citrus notes of the lemongrass with its subtle hints of butter complement the pandan in a very pleasant way. This is a really nice caffeine free drink – one I wouldn’t mind drinking on a regular basis!
Overall, I’m really happy that I had this opportunity to try this Lemongrass & Pandan Tisane – Pandan is delightful and so is the lemongrass! A really nice tisane.
Pandan Chiffon Green Tea from Ette Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Ette Tea
Tea Description:
Inspired and named after a local favourite dessert cake, Pandan Chiffon is a blend of roasted green tea, pandan leaves, osmanthus blossoms and cinnamon.
It is reduced in caffeine and we recommend to drink Pandan Chiffon on its own and without sugar.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Recently I had the opportunity to take part in a group order from Ette Tea, a relatively new company based in Singapore. They only have six blends currently, but they all appear to be very well thought out and the range of diverse flavours is impressive. Being able to take advantage of buying smaller sample sizes was the nail in the coffin on what probably would’ve been an inevitable order anyway.
This isn’t one of the blends I was initially more excited about; but it smells very good! Quite sweet with cake like elements and a playful touch of spice. I’m definitely getting notes from the dry smell that remind me of caramel or lightly burnt sugar. Mmm! And, because this is one of the lighter blends I ended up with a lot more of it than any of the other samples so I’m taking advantage of trying this one in a different way than a lot of the people from our group order appear to have done; cold brewing! That is my go to, after all.
I’m surprised by how sweet this is; though I don’t necessarily know why. Every other run in I’ve had with ‘chiffon’, be it tea or in real life, is sweet so I should have expected as much from this even though it doesn’t have ingredients that necessarily go hand in hand with more dessert-like teas.
There’s a lot going on but it’s harmonious; I’m picking up sweeter top notes like caramel and vanilla and a pastry-like cinnamon (like cinnamon sugar, sort of) which together are reminding me of Stroopwafel! That’s definitely not what I was expecting to get from this blend but it’s wonderful. I’m also getting some light roasty notes from the hojicha, though not as dominant as I anticipated. They’re great support though and keep this tea from tasting too sweet. There’s also a sweet, starchy taste present: in part I think that’s what making me think of the “waffle” part of the stroopwafel flavour going on, but it also reminds me loosely of sweet potato.
The osmanthus is somewhere in the middle; not as strong as the sweeter notes but not as light as the roasty/potato notes either. It doesn’t tie in the the Stroopwafel thing I’ve got going on, but what it DOES do is really, really round this tea out and give it a lot of depth. My only complaint is that this left quite a bit of sediment/fannings in the bottom of my brewing vessel. But even then it’s not a huge deal with cold brews anyway.
For my first tea from Ette Tea I’m very impressed! If all the others are half as good and interesting as this one it’ll be one of the most successful tea orders I’ve ever made. Yeah, this definitely set the bar high for the others. I don’t know if that’s for better or worse. I really want to try actual Pandan Chiffon now! I don’t know if there’s anywhere in town to get it…
I need a hookup ASAP!
