Moonlight Lotus Herbal Tea

Can’t quite decide how I feel about this tea. It tastes different every time I steep it. The first time I tried it, it was very citrusy like orange dish soap with lemongrass and a bit of earthiness. Tonight, it veered more toward floral. Strong rose and chrysanthemum tones. I think the flavor is determined by the random mix of ingredients you get when scooping out the tea.

I got about 3 steeps out of this tea. The flavor largely fades after the initial infusion leaving behind just the chamomile in subsequent steepings. A decent caffeine-free herbal but nothing to write home about.

Thank you Teavivire for the free samples!

This is a very vegetal herbal (because of the lotus leaf) with flavours of lemon/citrus, licorice root, herbs, and roses/flowers mixed in. I’d describe it as a very interesting combination of young spinach, celery leaves, rose petals, dry and woody licorice root, and peppery/lemony chamomile flowers. The dried chamomile also gives it that dry meadow or straw flavour that I really enjoy. Lotus leaf tastes like vegetables (but not in a grassy way, more like a young plant bud or waxy succulent leaf) and I find it makes the blend a bit savoury. I’m not big into savoury and vegetable flavours, but I think I would have liked this tea more if it was lighter on the lotus leaf and heavier on the chamomile and orange peel. Speaking of which, I can’t taste the orange peel. It might be my sample package, though, because I don’t see any pieces of orange peel and it might just be that I happened not to get any large pieces.

I bought this exclusively because of the picture posted on Facebook, that beautiful curvy glass with fruit and clear straw colored tea with a little parasol in. But I also wanted to try lots of things I could enjoy iced in this scorching heat.

Today when it arrived I had someone coming over and didn’t have time to chill this, so I did the next best thing. I turned the a/c up so I could really enjoy it hot! I sipped some before lunch. I will try it again but I didn’t get the flavors other people got. To me it tasted like the juice when you make LeSeuer peas and add butter. It was earthy and yummy, and I thought it was something I would love to drink when I am in the mood for a green tea but maybe don’t want to upset an empty stomach.

With food I did not like it as well as by itself.

Tomorrow I want to try it iced and lightly sweetened, but after reading the benefits of lotus leaf, I will be drinking this a lot anyway even if I have to keep cranking the a/c.

Sipdown 1 of 2016. A Sample. Purchased 11/2015 – Finished 1/2016.

Happy New Year! 2015 was a pretty amazing year. I am looking forward to 2016.

This tea was surprisingly amazing. I could smell the rose and the chamomile in this tea but they were very light in taste. This was floral and sweet. It was a very calming and relaxing tea. I really like this one.

Water: 17oz

Leaves: rose petals, chamomile & more

Steep: 5m

Aroma: Floral

Color: dark yellow

Clarity: Great

Taste: The first thing i noticed about this tea is how pretty the colors are the the magenta colored rose petals with a splash of yellow due to the chrysanthemum & chamomile followed by a background of pale green. The aroma was difficult to distinguish dry leaf maybe a floral w/something extra? The wet leaf made the aroma come out even more. For the steep i went with 17oz for a whole sample tea packet. As for the taste i was surprised as the first sip was followed by a slight sweetness which faintly remained as i continued to drink which went nicely w/ the floral taste. Overall I can say i enjoyed this tea quite different from others in my collection.

As for a music pairing I’m listing to Cherry Pie by Lotus it a favorite track of mine to listen to these days for when i want to unwind. Created by my friend I highly recommend listing to it as you go for your next cup of tea.

This brings me to my last review of 2015! I hope all of you have a wonderful NYE!

Lotus – Cherry Pie
https://soundcloud.com/itslotus/cherry-pie

This is an interesting herbal I received today in my order from Teavivre. The first ingredient is missing from the list because Lotus Leaf is not in the catalog and couldn’t be added to the tea description. I find that this tea is fairly good with sugar and it is supposed to be healthy. Mostly I am drinking it tonight because it is caffeine free. It has kind of what I would describe as a somewhat sweet and an earthy flavor. By this I do not mean the earthy of ripe puerh but the earthy of chamomile. As it cools a bit I begin to taste the orange peel a little. Strangely I am really beginning to enjoy this tea.

I did my best to follow the brewing directions on the Teavivre site. I brewed 7.1g of leaf in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with boiling water for 5 min. It says you can resteep it up to two times but I doubt I want that much tea tonight.