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I love cucumbers. I love cucumber water. I have learned that I do not love cucumber tea. This tastes exactly like white tea with cucumber. Followed package directions and everything. Just not enjoying it. It might be good during the summer, brewed for a shorter period of time, iced, and with sugar… and possibly with fewer leaves than the 2 heaping teaspoons suggested on the package.

I agree with literally every other reviewer that the dry leaves smell like pickles. I quite like pickles, so it didn’t put me off. And ok the brewed tea smells briny too. And now that I think about it the tea also tastes vaguely briny… reading the other reviews has actually made me like this tea even less! At least it’s pretty – a nice pale yellow. Great thanks to TastyBrew for sending me the sample, but I don’t think I’ll be drinking this again any time soon.

I don’t sleep well, so I am perennially on the hunt for a good bedtime tea. This tea was mentioned somewhere on the discussion boards and the name (and positive review) piqued my interest. I ordered on Saturday and it got here Monday – with free shipping! Plus it was reasonably priced, so the company has made a really positive first impression.

Now for the tea itself. Dry and brewed, it has a fairly mild smell of chamomile, spearmint, and grass. It brews up a light yellow color that reminds me of sunflowers. The taste is like chamomile with a hint of lemon, and spearmint on the back end. I want to say that I can taste the valerian, but I’m not familiar enough with that flavor to say for sure.

This is easily one of the best chamomile teas that I have ever had; I would only put Harney and Sons chamomile on the same level. I don’t know yet whether this will actually help me sleep, so I’ll update tomorrow.

boiling water, 1 tsp for 8 oz, steeped 7 mins, per package instructions

This has been sitting in my cabinet for over a year, so I didn’t have high expectations. I like it though! It’s sweet, but tangy enough that the sweetness isn’t cloying. Kind of tastes more like a thin juice than tea. I had it with garlic couscous and it went together quite nicely. This won’t make it into frequent rotation, but I’ll probably keep some around for iced tea in the summer.

This is one of only three teas I actually purchased from the Coffee & Tea Festival. I enjoyed the sample because it was delicately sweet and the coconut flavor wasn’t overwhelming.

Dry, the tea smells sweet, like apple Jolly Ranchers, with a hint of coconut. The package didn’t include steeping directions, so I used nearly boiling water and tasted it at three steeping intervals – 3 minutes, 5 minutes, and 8 minutes. At 3 minutes, it was sweet but very weak. At 5 minutes, it was stronger but still very sweet. It basically smells and tastes like a Jolly Rancher. At 8 minutes, the green tea flavor came out more. At that point I gave up timing and just drank the tea, leaving the teabag in. It gets better the longer it steeps, but there’s never really any complexity to this tea. It might be good as an iced tea (no sweetener needed) or instead of dessert. Overall, I am not impressed. I don’t know why I liked it more at the tea festival than I do now, but I wouldn’t buy it again at this price point ($10 for 18 sachets, though the content of the sachets is the same quality as loose leaf).

This doesn’t resteep well. The flavor is better – much less sweet – but it is very weak.

I got a sample of this from the Yogi website, and definitely needed something soothing after a stressful day at work. It smells great. Cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, hint of vanilla. I love cinnamon. This doesn’t actually taste very cinnamon-y, though. The flavor is overwhelmingly chamomile, with smooth vanilla on the back end. A hint of pepper as I’m reaching the bottom of the cup.

I like this as a bedtime tea. It really is soothing. It’s somewhat disturbing that it has so many ingredients, though – chamomile, rooibos, roasted chicory root, skullcap leaf, nutmeg kernel, caramel flavor, vanilla flavor, some kind of bark, stevia leaf, poppy extract, ginger root, L. Theanine Suntheanine, clove bud, black pepper, cinnamon bark, cardamom seed oil, ginger root oil… it seems a bit much.

I’m at the bottom now and still don’t know whether I would actually buy this. It’s tasty and soothing, but nothing outstanding, and the long ingredients list is off-putting.

Steeped in boiling water for 10 minutes, per package instructions.

Gaia is a small outfit, so I wanted to give this tea its best chance. Per the package instructions, I steeped for exactly 9 minutes in 12 ounces of boiling water. It turns out a lovely medium honey tone. I can’t quite describe the aroma – it’s woodsy and faintly sweet.

Having just spent 8 days eating macaroons, I can tell you with confidence that this tea’s flavor does not at all live up to that part of its name. The rooibos is good, but it is by far the dominant flavor. The tea has a bushy taste, with a smoky aftertaste that is pleasant at first but too strong by the end of the cup (I don’t actually smoke, for what help that gives in gauging the degree of smokiness). There is a hint of sweetness, almost like honeysuckle. I can also detect a touch of carob and coconut, but no cocoa or almonds at all.

The instructions suggest that this tea is best served with honey and milk. I still have another sample left. I’m willing to try this again at some point, albeit with rice milk instead of cow. Hopefully I will find it more enjoyable the second time around. The smokiness was just too much this time.

This tea brews up a lovely deep red color. It’s pleasantly, mildly sweet – I definitely wouldn’t add any sweetener – but it becomes cloying if paired with a sweet dessert. This is a very smooth tea with a caramel taste. It also resteeps nicely.

I think of this as a really classic green tea. It’s a light green color with a flowery aroma. The flavor is nutty, almost savory, with a hint of rice. It’s also a bit dry, if that makes sense.

I like to drink this when I’m working because it stays tasty even if you forget to take the teabag out, and it re-steeps well either way. It never gets bitter. It is also nice and energizing. I shared this tea with a co-worker when he was feeling very tired and he said that it picked him right up. I also like this as an iced tea – I brew hot, add honey, leave the teabags in there, and let it cool (first on the counter and then in the fridge).

This is hands-down my favorite tea. I bought a three-pack (totaling 60 bags) on sale in December and I’m down to 8 bags. The only reason I haven’t ordered more is because it distracts me from trying the other teas in my cupboard!

For the record (and the skeptics), I have no affiliation with this company and no one has paid me to write this review.

I’m generally not a huge fan of Celestial Seasonings, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that I quite like this tea. The instructions say to steep in boiling water for 4-6 minutes. At the 4 minute mark, it was a delightful blend of lemon and sweetness (almost honey-like). At the 10 minute mark, it was overwhelmingly lemony, to the point that I began to regret not taking the teabag out. But surprise! At the 15 minute mark, it reverted to a nice balance of tart and sweet. I like this for an afternoon tea if you’re looking for a little kick but don’t want caffeine.

I bought this tea to help me sleep (if you’ve seen my other notes, you may have noticed that I have trouble sleeping and turn to a variety of bedtime teas for help). I like chamomile, but this one is just too strong for my taste. I agree with Syaffolee that it has a strong musky scent. I just find it overwhelming. Steeping it for only a couple of minutes helps, but not much. I far prefer the H&S chamomile. It has a much lighter scent and flavor while still making me sleepy.

I used 1 teabag in 16 ounces of boiling water, steeped for 2-3 minutes.