Ricky’s relatively recent note on this made me remember I had a sample of it, and I thought that since I can’t risk any more caffeine tonight I might as well go for purple water.
The little purple buds looked like seeds to me. Tiny and oblong shaped. The smell of the dry flowers is terrific. It’s like any other lavender thing you’ve ever smelled. Yardley’s English Lavender comes to mind, but think soap, lotion, anything else — without the soapiness or lotioniness.
I steeped this and poured it into a glass cup. WHERE’S MY PURPLE WATER?!?!?!? In glass it was pretty much light grey, with a blue-violet tinge. I put the cup on white paper. Same. I poured the remaining tisane into a white cup. Same! Boo hoo. I am relegated to imagining my purple water. It’s like a cruel joke of some kind. I’m spinning in a time vortex back to junior high school where my school’s colors were purple and grey, and they gave me the grey pompom and forgot the purple. Purple fail!
But onward. The tisane smells floral, a lot less lavender-specific in its floralness… florality… whatever. It has a hint of that flowery polleny thing I didn’t like about the chrysanthemum tea. That makes me nervous.
Fortunately, the flavor is far from scary. It’s sweet. It tastes like lavender without being soapy. It has a minty sort of volatility that’s almost menthol-like, and a smooth, silky feel.
I love what lavender can do in teas when it’s part of a well-executed blend. It’s terrific in, for example, Earl Grey. On it’s own, it’s interesting, and it’s not unpleasant. But I have determined that plain lavender is not how I’ll choose to spend my tea, or even tisane, drinking time. I’m torn on how to rate this because it smelled great and didn’t taste bad to me at all. It’s just not my thing.
I was curious to see what the flowers looked like after steeping and whether they’d open up. They didn’t. But if anything they smelled even more intensely of lavender. It’s a beautiful smell.
