Mandie

Sleepytime is so mild and soothing. The flavors of lemongrass and spearmint are noticeably present, but their sting is completely eradicated by the flowery chamomile. The tea is light-bodied and faintly sweet—but it could definitely take honey if that’s, your, you know, cup of tea.

I’d recommend this for its stated purpose of winding down, especially for those who find Tension Tamer too strong.

This tea looks and smells fresh and inviting. It’s pretty, actually…made of dried fruits with delicate edges, all light tan or peach or deep red. It reminds me of potpourri.

When I hold the tea in my mouth and swirl it around, I find a very nice flavor that’s very fruity and a little bit tart, like a berry compote. In fact, I think this would be a great complement to mixed-berry tea bread. However, I am yet again disappointed that the flavor is so subtle. If I just swallow the stuff without any ceremony, I get a little tingle of orange in my throat, but no complexity.

To be fair: 1) I’m addicted to black coffee, so maybe my threshold for “strong” is a little higher than most people’s; 2) this tea is evidently great when mixed with a green or black tea and served iced; and 3) my batch is more than a year old, and for a while I was storing it in the original packaging (i.e., a paper bag) rather than in an airtight container. I cannot speak to how this would influence the flavor. Does anyone know?

I’ve been saving this tea for some time, but I was rather stressed out today and decided to treat myself.

Of course, one the major selling points of a flowering tea is its appearance. This one took a long time to unfurl, but when it did it was lovely—even festive!—dull green, red, and white. I didn’t see the “arc” shape promised and pictured by Great Lakes, but it could’ve been that my narrow mug cramped the tea’s style.

In terms of taste, this tea was really comparable to Jasmine Dragon Pearl Green from Teavana (discussed in another recent review). Like Teavana’s jasmine green, Princess Amelie has a very delicate, innocuous flavor—so innocuous that even now, an hour after I put the bud in (without removing it), it’s only faintly bitter, and only upon swallowing. When I hold it in my mouth, it’s floral (…as one would hope!) and it smells sweetly aromatic, almost like perfume.

Flowering teas are relatively expensive, but they are marvelously cathartic. There is something very pure and metaphorical about watching the nondescript bud slowly and unhurriedly transform into something healthful and beautiful, a tangible reminder of mindfulness and patience.

I have a strong desire to like Yogi. In my mind they are a charming, honest little company run by Zen masters and herbalists, and they seem so sincere about their products. But then I try them and regret it deeply…

Unfortunately, Olivia and Auggy’s reviews are spot-on. It seems that Yogi tried to blend together every natural ingredient they could think of that promotes calmness and relaxation (just look at the description!) and then, discovering that the combination was nauseating, decided to try and mask the flavors with a surfeit of stevia. FAIL.

Contrary to Mary Poppins’ suggestion, you cannot in fact turn something distasteful into something delicious simply by drowning it with sweetener. Doubly so if your sweetener is stevia, which really does leave a weird, lingering taste in the mouth, sort of like aspartame on steroids. I was trying to place the uncomfortably familiar oral sensation I got from drinking “Bedtime” when I read Auggy’s review comparing it to vomiting and realized that she is absolutely right. (Though, I suppose if you’re used to stevia it may not faze you…in which case, disregard everything I wrote.)

As an added onus, “Bedtime” contains St. John’s Wort. For the uninformed (like me, until after I drank it!), this herb apparently interacts with many medications, including SSRIs, and can potentially cause some fun-sounding problems like “diaphoresis”, “mydriasis”, and “coma”. So do yourself a favor and check www.drugs.com before you even buy this tea.

…I’m relieved about the drug interactions, actually…it means I don’t have to feel guilty about not drinking any more of this!

*A quick note: It seems that “Yogi Tea” has recently rebranded itself as simply “Yogi” (probably because it manufactures cereal as well), so I’ve recategorized “Bedtime” appropriately. (You can see by comparison that they’ve redone their logo and box design, too!) There are still some older reviews of blends from “Yogi Teas”, but I’d suspect that newer reviewers will be commenting on teas from “Yogi”.

I’m going to preface this review with the caveat that I got this tea as a gift eight months ago, and only recently put it in a container. My lack of expertise prevents me from commenting on whether the age of the tea would strongly affect its flavor—I’m sure some of you would know.

This is my first Teavana tea and I was really excited to try it. I followed the directions (one teaspoon, steeped two minutes), but found the tea to be really weak. It was completely colorless and the flavor almost imperceptible. It was a whisper of a taste that left me wishing for something stronger.

After doubling the steep time, I found this tea to be quite good. The taste is still faint, but very smooth and completely inoffensive with no hint of bitterness (which is actually a bit strange for a green tea…?). As I understand it, though, Teavana is expensive; I’m not sure how the price compares to the jasmine green by Two Leaves and a Bud, but I found its flavor much more pronounced—and thus probably more responsive to resteeping.

This is delicious when iced, naturally sweet and fruity (I think—what are the “artificial flavors?”), but with a grassy edge, like sencha. The additions of black tea and lavender make it taste almost buttery at first, or like a more sophisticated, darker fruit punch.

It did come out a bit strong, but I think I might’ve oversteeped it a bit, considering I used a double dose of tea-leaves.

Hooray! I wish more people had heard of this little company…

Tealuxe has described this tea accurately. It’s tangy enough to feel warming, but it’s not too bold. It has a complex flavor—almost a fruity sweetness when drunk slowly, but a bit spicy if swallowed quickly.

This tea has such a wonderful aroma that my boyfriend wishes it were bottled as perfume so he could smell it all the time! The taste is actually very mild, even after being steeped for a long time—faintly sweet with an aftertaste of fruit and flowers, and very little of green tea’s characteristic sharpness. It tastes almost like an herbal tea rather than a green.

Hmm…I steeped this tea for almost five minutes, but even then I didn’t really get a strong sweet taste. It tastes instead like a standard black tea with just enough sweetness to take the bitter edge off—not bad, but not as flavorful as I expected. I’m wondering if my tea bags are a little outdated?

This tea has a nice buttery, syrupy quality to it, which gives it the comforting vibe that it purports to have. To me, the mint is fairly subtle—more of a gentle aftertaste—secondary to what I think is the flavor of chamomile. The flavor is definitely not in-your-face (contrast: Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer—which, by the way, I love!)

Incidentally, I’ve yawned about twelve times while drinking the tea since beginning to write this review, so maybe it really does work…?

It’s hard to think of something to write about this tea that hasn’t already been said…but I’ll try.

It creates a light amber brew. It’s strong enough to flavor a double-cup mug. It smells like the tropics and tastes like delicious coconut curry in a cup. It’s everything that’s good about green tea plus a lot of what’s good about herbal tea. It’s even better than Harney & Sons’ “Canton Green”.

How do they do it? Must be black (or green?) magic…!

Ah, pure green tea…This is the type of beverage I like to drink when I’m trying to focus. It is a little bit astringent, but I don’t find it particularly distasteful even after steeping it for a long time. And the faint bitterness helps me focus, just like black coffee does.

This is very good! Its melange of sweet and spicy flavors is perfectly accentuated with a splash of milk. It’s not too sweet, but it’s not dull, either. No one flavor is overpowering. If I ordered this tea in an Indian restaurant, I would be more than satisfied!

By the way—is this the same/a newer version of Tazo’s “Organic Chai”? Does anyone know?

Whoa—Tazo wasn’t kidding about the name. Even after only a few minutes of steeping, this tea packs a punch! It’s sweet enough to make my mouth pucker. The zesty orange flavor might be more refreshing if it didn’t hit me in the tongue like a sledgehammer.

Maybe it would be better steeped for a very short time—does anyone have experience with this…?

I love eleuthero! I’m amazed that the same plant that makes Celestial Seasonings’ “Tension Tamer” so good is part of an “energy” green tea blend. The combination of ginger and eleuthero imparts a nice, subtle sweetness to this tea.

Tazo’s description is actually pretty accurate! The tea is sharp and light-bodied, perched just on the edge of bitter and sweet. It’s refreshing, and comfortingly “unsurprising”—perfect for your daily mug of green tea.

Like most green/white tea blends, this is a good-for-you drink with a soft, buttery taste that is definitely less astringent than Stash’s unblended green tea. The flavor is pronounced without slapping you in the face, so to speak…! xD

I was a little anxious this evening and thought I’d grab a book and a cup of this tea to try and calm myself down. Maybe it was the act of sitting and reading, or maybe it was the placebo effect, but something worked!

I’m actually very pleased with the tea. It reminds me a lot of “Tension Tamer” from Celestial Seasonings, but it’s more delicate, with less of a pungent aftertaste. It’s nice and sweet—it smells and looks like what I imagine nectar would smell and look like =).

A very “pretty” tea…it brews to look like translucent wine. Unfortunately the taste and aroma are a a bit weak, and not all that distinctive. It’s not that it tastes like water—there’s definitely a sharp, fruity tang to it—but I would never guess that it was supposed to taste like plum….

What a curious tea! I’m new to Mao Feng, so maybe I’m doing something wrong, but this tea seems very weak in that I need to steep a lot of leaves for a long time to get any sort of flavor, and even then the liquid is an almost imperceptibly pale golden color. Does anybody else have this issue?

I’ve found that when it’s finally done steeping, though, I’m really fond of this tea. It has a gentle aroma and taste, without the edgy bitterness of some greens. After swallowing, its taste seems to “expand” through my entire mouth with a rush of mellow sweetness. Very pleasant =).

The gentle fruit flavor in this tea manages to be both invigorating and soothing at the same time. Peach is a very safe, comforting flavor, and Celestial Seasonings has done well to capture the sweetness in a hot tea…!

Hmm…I’m afraid my rating may not be fair. After sipping the tea black, I decided on a whim that a little sugar might bring out the lemon flavor. In fact, that lemony flavor was so subtle that the sugar merely masked it. This is what I get for fiddling with perfectly good black tea!

With sweetener, Lemon Lift is still rather good, but the lemon is masked and dampened so as to be barely perceptible. I think I would give this tea an even higher rating left on its own; I think one would be better off actually trying to appreciating the subtlety of the flavor rather than trying to enhance it artificially.

The blueberry flavor of this tea is certainly subtle—unfortunately, I think, a bit too subtle. It’s inoffensive…but it’s barely a whisper. The flavor might be heightened with milk and/or sugar, but on its own its flavor is not really a good approximation for—for example—Tealuxe’s Blueberry White.

I’m admittedly a bit of a noob when it comes to judging rooibos teas, so any of my comments should be taken with several grains of salt. My impression of this tea is that it has a “medicinal” quality that is alternately soothing and irritating. The aftertaste, to me, is a little bit like alcohol…!

It’s an interesting flavor…not sweet at all; it paired well with a gingerbread lebkuchen…