Catuaba

Good Lord! I this one is SO NOT for me! It smells, looks, AND Tastes like Pencil shavings! BLAH!

VERY bitter, too!

Sorry!
Terrible!

This is from the here is hoping traveling teabox.

This dry infusion looks like a fibrous root. It almost looks like the shavings I used as a child for my gerbils. The dry root like infusion has a cedar smell.

Once steeped it is deceptively rosy in color. It looks pretty. However, at first sniff it is bitter and goes into my sinus cavity much like a vapor rub. A deep sniff of this makes me wince. There are notes of chlorine and wood in the smell.

I researched information about this herb online and found out that the fruit from this tree is not edible. I am not surprised. This root is barely edible…err…drinkable.

The flavor is hard to discern. I can say that it is VERY bitter. It puckers the edges of my tongue.

While I am rating this tea 0 the entertainment factor as I sipped it with a friend is 100. We had fun drinking this, reading about its supposed benefits and having a laugh.

Thank you Tea Sipper for putting the teabox together. I may not like this tisane but I appreciated the opportunity to try it and (comically) give it a review.

I so wanted to like this one. I was pretty excited when I saw it in the Traveling Tea Box since most notes I saw on it mentioned that it smelled and tasted like cedar chips. Call me crazy but that sounds appealing!

I am praying that I either overleafed (over….barked?) this or steeped it for too long (ten minutes) because it was beyond bitter. Just… undrinkable. Literally. I took one sip and had to pour the cup down the drain. :( I’m definitely going to give this another shot because a cedar-flavored herb seems like it would be great for blending.

AHHHH I GOT A C IN HEALTH ECONOMICS SO I DON’T NEED TO RETAKE IT. I’m pretty sure I did worse than that but I guess he realized he was terrible so everyone deserves a C. (C- = retake. BLEH)

Anyway I had this last night because I wanted to see if it would make me sleepy. I cannot tell you about the “aphrodisiac uses” but I will tell you about the 1 tbsp in 12 oz of water method of gettin’ sleepy.

It works quickly! It tastes terrible though, at least to me. Very effective, but has the flavor of cedar chips.

I’m not sure if this would taste very good if you tried to sweeten it but ugh, it made me tired but the taste was not worth it. I think I’ll try mixing it with the Schisandra berries I got just to get rid of that bitterness/woodsy flavor. I mean, it is bark so obviously there’s no way to get rid of that.

But it’s definitely a cool herbal tea, especially for falling asleep. And you feel warm and fuzzy first. If chamomile fails you, catuaba is here to back you up.

So I just got home from visiting family and found a lovely package filled with tea from Infussion Tea! This one smelled the most interesting so I decided, why not? It tastes pretty much how it smells, which is like some sort of red wood. It’s not bitter or anything and the taste is rather nice, it’s similar to something that you would find in a dry rub for chicken or beef. I wanna just chew on some for some reason, and I just might.

So thank you to Infussion for sending me the samples. This is the largest pouch in the shipment. I must say after reading up this I’m very intrigued. I’m not sure if the aphrodisiac properties, antidepressant, or properties are what I’m looking for but I don’t mind trying something new. By itself I am reminded of shredded cedar chips. The taste of the straight up bark is the same. It’s not terrible or great but I would say it’s an acquired taste. However I have noticed a few things with mixing it with other teas\tisanes. Straight up I didn’t notice anything difference in mood being lifted or something else…wink wink nudge nudge. Mixing it with plain Nobleza Gaucha Mate I have found is my favorite so far. Somehow they negate each other flavor wise in a teaspoon to teaspoon ratio. Yesterday morning I mixed it with Teavana Zingiber Ginger Coconut Rooibos. Again it was pretty good. However I felt kinda spacey for most of the day and had trouble concentrating. I don’t know if that is part of the “buzzy” effects. Regardless I’m going to try this with mixed with a few combinations and see what we get.

Thanks Infussion.eu for the samples! I had this one this morning. I wanted to try this one because at small amounts, it will wake you up and make you more alert. My brain needs all the help it can get. So I steeped 3/4 of a teaspoon. Infussion says 1-3 grams is supposed to wake you up, 3-9 grams is for sensitivity increases and “aphrodisiac uses” and 10+ grams make you sleepy. I’m not exactly sure how one tea can both put me to sleep in higher doses but wake me up at lower doses. (And yes, I had to look up how many grams are in a teaspoon… one gram = 1/4 teaspoon… I think I need to drink this tea before figuring out any math at all.) But I really hope I did this right… I really don’t feel like being sleepy all day! Infussion said to steep for ten minutes at boiling. The “leaves” look like very shredded light-colored wood chips. The steep color is a very interesting orange! It looks like it should be orange flavored. But the flavor is really like wood chips and slightly bitter. It isn’t terrible at all (to me anyway) and if it wakes me up, it will be worth it. But I can’t see people who don’t like rooibos liking this tea. I think rooibos is delicious. There is also a bit of a flavor profile here that tastes like a cappuccino to me. I don’t have those often though and that’s probably just my tastebuds…just something there that reminds me of cappuccino. I wonder if this tea will wake me up more than a black tea though. I had this plain today because I wanted to review it fairly, but I’d much rather mix it with something else in the future. The Schisandra Chinensis berries that Infussion sent will probably come in handy for that, especially since I kind of requested those two together for that reason. They are both supposed to keep you awake! (And it was funny logging into steepster to see the infusion times for these and seeing that Momo had the same idea: to brew them together!) The only problem with this tea is that I’d rather grab something more fun and tastier to wake me up in the morning. But it’s an interesting change! This is getting a good rating because I can’t see a tea made out of wood chips getting any better than this.

Two and a half hours after drinking: I was yawning more than usual, so I don’t think this tea woke me up very well. So if it doesn’t wake me up, I can’t see drinking it. I guess things affect me differently.

To everyone who’s trying this tea expecting it to taste like English Breakfast, you’re sorely mistaken. Any tea that’s bitter— catuaba being one— has medicinal effects. Bitter tonics do things for the body system that other tonics don’t do. For something that’s not just not palatable, I suggest blending the tea with something else. Being a bark, catuaba needs to be decocted not simply infused. You could make a strong decoction, like you would with rhodiola, refrigerate that & simply add a smaller amount to another tea or iced drink. There is an amazing kombucha blend made by Beyond Kombucha that uses catuaba as a key ingredient. To the kombucha it adds a spicy, smoky, sort of woodsy tone that in the blend is divine.