Secret Garden

I made a cup of this for my youngest daughter too, her ballet recital this year was an interpretation of the Secret Garden, so she was excited to try a tea called “Secret Garden.”

This is actually much better than I anticipated it being. The rose is strong, but I like the combination of rose and peppermint, it is quite agreeable.

This actually reminds me quite a bit of one of my own tisanes called Meadow Nocturne. Mine had a few different ingredients: honeybush instead of rooibos, and I also added a little bit of hibiscus and rosehips to enhance the body of the cup a bit. I also added a light amount of vanilla flavoring to the tisane. So this is lighter, a little earthier, and a little less sweet than mine, but, they are very similar otherwise.

And I am finding that I really like this. This is one that I could see keeping on hand for when I needed some help to relax and fall asleep, because I enjoy the flavor. It doesn’t taste overly medicinal, it just tastes delightfully floral and sweet and quite lovely.

I have been on the hunt for a rose, lavender and peppermint herbal blend for a while, so when I got home from my meet with Mercuryhime and saw that she’d put a whole ounce in my goodie bag I nearly squealed with joy. Secret Garden, are you the tea I’ve been looking for?

This is not a pure rose/lavender/mint blend—there’s chamomile and rooibos in there as well. The chamomile I don’t mind at all since it’s good for getting sleepy, and there’s so little rooibos it’s not enough to trigger a headache. So far so good! I made up a cup of this last night and actually fell asleep before I could finish it so I guess that is definitely a good sign.

This is a really floral blend. I mean it has 3 floral elements! The rose is quite strong but there is not a ton of lavender, just a soft backing note. The chamomile is more in play than the lavender I think. The mint is almost as strong as the rose, which being a peppermint fan I love! And then finally there’s my old enemy Mr. Rooibos, which thankfully is doing little more than making the cup kind of red. There are some woodsy notes that I associate more with honeybush and no gross medicinal taste (or headaches, yay!).

All in all, a success! I would eventually like a blend that is just mint, rose and lavender… though probably it would be easier and cheaper to blend it myself. Thanks Mercuryhime!

I make my own herbal blend of lavender, chamomile, peppermint, and red rooibos. It’s a lot like this blend minus the rose petals, but it’s so much different. I feel like there is almost too much rose in this one. If you like rose then by all means go for this, but if you don’t I wouldn’t go near it.

One thing I do with my personal blend is keep all the ingredients in separate containers so that way I can put in a decent ratio as compared to this tea where everything is thrown together. I feel like if I would buy rose petals and put into my own blend at a different ratio that it would be so much better.

Alas, I know it doesn’t make sense to send all the ingredients separately, but I feel that it’s just better that way. I will stick to my own blending instead of buying this. I may buy rose petals and add as necessary though to mimic this blend eventually.

When I opened up my steepster box I was a little underwhelmed with this tea. It smelled like perfume. Sadly it taste like it too. I wanted to give this a chance but it was to floral for me.

If anyone wants to trade for this let me know.

I had this last night before bed. I am generally not a fan of rose teas but for some reason I really liked this one. It was a nice soothing cup after a stressful day. It is somewhat perfumy-y and if you do not like strong perfum-y smelling teas this would not be for you. I am just adding chamomile based teas to my stash and this is a nice option.