Right up front I gotta tell you that I’m trying to remember my experience with this tea from about 10 hours ago (in my basic to-go mug during my commute, so my focus wasn’t completely on the tea). And then I used it for my first tea in my new JOEmo and I think that I botched that. I will definitely be trying another round with this tea under more controlled circumstances. Even will all these distractions, I can confidently say that this tea deserves a minimum grade of 75.
I was expecting a floral ‘splosion. No floral ’splosion ocurred. It came across more as a tea potpourri and walked a fine line between that tea-pourri and mediciness. As I drove along and sipped I was rather disappointed that I wasn’t getting to enjoy this more and figure out the flavors.
I won’t get into it too much in this review, but holy moly the JOEmo is serious about keeping the water hot. The recommendation is to put less loose leaf in and lower the water temp if you plan to keep the tea in the thermos. I should’ve gotten the water down to 170 and I might have put too much leaf in it. I think I cooked the tea. It crossed the line into mediciney (seriously, I was getting an odd menthol-type taste). I added some less hot water halfway through and it helped mellow the flavor. I felt bad for this tea. It was still very much drinkable, but I knew that I’d affected it in a negative way since the original cup was pretty good. As it stands I prefer the berry/floralness of the Lavender version. NE
