I love black tea with unusual combinations of spices, so I was very excited to try Arabian Kismet from Swallowtail Tea. This is a blend based around orange pekoe special Assam black tea with added sage and cardamom.
The full flavors of the black tea itself pair perfectly with the fresh and earthy sage, and the sweet and mellow cardamom. This is one of those teas that will work for any occasion. It has classic black tea for those staunch pekoe drinkers and a little bit of spice for chai lovers. But without the classic chai spices like cinnamon and ginger, this tea is much more versatile and unexpected.
Sage always makes me think of Thanksgiving, so this feels very much like a fall tea to me. The cardamom helps that image, bringing up spicy visions of the upcoming winter spice cookies. This tea smells like a classic kitchen or herb garden, but its flavor combination in a tea blend is a new and exciting change of pace for me. Great for breakfast or afternoon, or anytime you want to feel a little cozy and a little dreamy.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Swallowtail Tea
Description:
This delightful blend of Assam, sage, and cardamom might make you believe in Kismet after all.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Greek Mountain Tea from Klio Organic. . . . .
My family carries on the old school art of drying flowers to “preserve” the heartwarming memory from when they were given, and this bag of Greek Mountain Tea from Klio Organic is a full on bouquet of petite yellow love from Mount Olympus!
The thick flowering stems smell of basil, and crushed mint, but feel fuzzy like sage leaves versus the roughness of traditional camellia Sinensis tea leaves. Quite a bit smaller as well, with dozens of tiny pale flowers, light green buds and silver glistening leaves.
I brewed at 175 F and immediately the scent morphs towards the hints of sage I got earlier. There are a lot of essential oils on top, and a good amount of natural sweetness in this veridian brew that would probably be fine for most folks, especially given the light citrus aftertaste. My sweet tooth, however, preferred to add a few drops of plain stevia.
Being naturally caffeine free, this is a mind clearing tea, as it’s unique flavors make you step away from the daily grind and focus on the surprise in your mug.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Klio Organic
This variety, Sideritis Scardica, comes from the legendary Mount Olympus, in the Balkans, situated between Thessaly and Macedonia. It has been tested for antioxidants by Brunswick Labs, (www.brunswicklabs.com) the leader in bio-analtyical testing. It has a mild and very pleasant taste and aroma.
One ten ounce serving of our certified organic Mount Olympus Greek Mountain Tea has an ORAC 5.0 antioxidant score of 6,600 and 160mg of polyphenols.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Sage Wellness from Plum Deluxe
I love brewing up tea with fresh herbs from the garden or from the kitchen. With all the turkey and holiday meals in the wintertime, I feel like sage is an especially appropriate herb to be brewing this time of year, so I ordered a bag of Sage Wellness tea from Plum Deluxe.
This is a tea with a green rooibos base, which provides the perfect, gentle background for the other herbs and flavors. In the dry leaf, there are plenty of fuzzy, grey-green leaves from the sage, a pleasure to touch and smell. Rose petals and lemon peel add to the dreamy fragrance.
Beyond the rooibos and sage, this blend also features fruit pieces like strawberry and rosehips, and fruit flavoring from strawberries and peaches. The sage feels like Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing, but the strawberry feels like a summer harvest. With the two fragrant, flavorful factors of sage and strawberry, the whole blend is reminiscent of a fresh, blooming herb garden.
Not too sweet and not too savory, the fruit and herbs come together to make an atypical take on familiar flavors. With a blend so beautiful to look at and so tasty to brew, I like to pretend that I was wandering in a fantasy garden, plucking bits of sage and picking perfect strawberries to add to my perfect cup of tea.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Plum Deluxe
Description:
Nourish body + soul with the wisdom and healing of fresh herbs and fruits! Our sage + green rooibos herbal tea artfully blends lemon and orange with a pinch of strawberry and peach to make a delightfully refreshing, flavorful tonic wonderful for when you have those emotional blues or just want a cup of something calm and restorative.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Apple Sage from Simpson and Vail- A Holiday Experience
Fall flavors are usually dominated by pumpkin and cloves and cinnamon and spice, but Apple Sage from Simpson & Vail focuses on the less obvious sensations of the season. With fresh apple and savory sage, this blend should definitely be in everyone’s fall rotation. Apple pieces in the dry leaf immediately give off a fragrance that transports me to my hometown orchard: juicy, sweet-tart fruit, maybe paired with a cinnamon honey-stick from their local honeybee hive. The apple pieces are numerous, and provide a true, luscious, apple flavor.
What really makes this blend unique is the sage. I can’t say I’ve tried a tea with sage before, even if I have used the herb in other places in the kitchen. Sage is a smell I associate with Thanksgiving dinner, an herb that goes well with turkey and stuffing or with chicken pot pie. When brewed hot, this tea is both sweet and savory, almost like taking bite of everything off your holiday dinner plate.
In a way, it’s like the Willy Wonka 3-Course-Meal chewing gum! (Only without the disastrous blueberry-transformation consequences).
Sage evokes the taste of main course dishes like poultry or roasted potatoes, while the blackberry leaf adds a bit of tart berry like cranberry sauce, and finally the blend is topped off with sweet fruit flavors akin to apple pie. The black tea base is strong enough to hold its own with all these flavors and give the blend a hearty undertone to pull it all together.
I get so distracted by all the pumpkin spice and cinnamon eggnog flavors of the holidays, that I forget there’s more to the fall-winter palette. Apple Sage was an unexpected blast of Thanksgiving, apple pie, and all things fall. Definitely worth a taste at this time of year.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: black tea
Where to Buy: Simpson & Vail
Description:
The taste of sweet apple and fragrant sage blend together wonderfully. The amber colored cup offers a depth of flavor that is warming and refreshing at the same time. This tea complements foods such as hard cheese, salads, sandwiches, fruits and more.
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!
