Green Tea

Anyone who reads my tea log knows I’m a fan of tulsi! I ordered some stuff from Vitacost recently and decided to throw this in the mix. I know I could just add tulsi to my green tea, but I thought this would be good to have around the office (note: I got the loose leaf tin).

The instructions say steep 3-5 minutes in boiling water, but I was skeptical so I went for a slightly lower temp.

This is really nice! Might be my favorite from Organic India thus far. After inspecting the wet leaf, I would say there is more tulsi than green tea in here. You definitely get the distinctive flavor of minty/clove from the tulsi but there also seems to be a lemony element in here. I’m not sure what the green tea is, certainly it’s nothing fancy but it does mellow out the flavor of tulsi a bit and provides a nice vegetal element. It’s a good blend, simple but effective. The only caveat is the tulsi leaves are ground up very fine and it got kind of messy in the infuser and the sink.

Tulsi always helps me to relax – and I bet this would be really good iced also, will have to try it that way someday…

A very lovely lady left a few Organic India Tulsi teabags for me in the hostel at the Providence Alaska Medical Center, and so I tried this one yesterday. I’m used to black tea mainly and appreciate green tea, but I have never tried a tulsi tea. The first thing I noticed was how delicate the scent and taste were. It took a bit of time for the tea to steep for me — more than 6 minutes, I’d say. The scent and taste are pretty light unless oversteeped, but the general taste is warm and somewhat savory, and it gets better with milk (I know I’m not the only one who puts milk in green tea). I’m much more used to stronger teas, but this really calmed me down and made me happy — happy enough to do the dishes from about ten other people in the hostel*. I do believe that I’m getting more used to green teas, too, and I was really satisfied with the green tea base in this tea.

*If you use a public kitchen, please clean up after yourself; it’s just general hospitality and the other people using it won’t be angry at you (or throw away the deep frying oil you’re not supposed to use because it’s messy and smelly).

This is one of my absolutely favorite teas (unless I brew it too strong). It has kind of a semi-sweet, earthy/grassy component to it, almost has an incredibly delicate citrus backnote? It’s really difficult to pin. Tulsi itself is supposed to be an adaptogen and have all kinds of beneficial properties (immune system, energy, etc). I adore it. Not sure when I got hooked on it but always keep a box or two handy. I should probably add I’m not a big fan of green teas (prefer black with a shot of almond milk) but this still blew me away.

This is my favorite bag green tea by far. I have at least 2 cups of this almost every day.