Meyer Lemon Herbal Tea

Okay, hear me out: this tea plus pineapple-flavored sparkling water over ice.

I steeped two bags in half a cup of water, then added it to large glass mug with a big handful of ice cubes and most of the can of sparkling water. It was fa-bu-lous. The pineapple flavor from the sparking water rounds out the tart finish of the tea itself by adding a little extra sweetness.

I know a lot of tea enthusiasts aren’t crazy about the hibiscus that’s in so many tart blends. If that’s you and you have some of this tea kicking around… I’m serious: pineapple sparkling water.

I saw this one at Christmas Tree Shops and immediately thought of gmathis, because she was the first person who ever told me about Meyer Lemons. I had never heard of them.

It is hot as blazes here already, nearly 90 today, although we do get some respite late at night, but this is our busiest yardwork time of year as we must get the azaleas pruned (we have lots and they are huge) and four shrubs growing prominently out front have started to die and had to be dug up and replaced. (Thankfully Ashman is as strong as an ox.) My job was to chop the shrubs to bits so they would fit in the yard trash cans. Six cans are full, one shrub remains to be chopped and disposed of.

With all that in mind, the thought of icing this one appealed immediately so that is just what I did.

It reminds me a little of Lemon Zinger from Celestial Seasonings. The hibiscus is not powerful and the steeped beverage is lightly pink/orange. I feel like I mostly taste lemongrass so I expected Ashman not to like it but he said it was fine. He and Superanna do not like lemongrass, and I get it when people say it reminds them of lemon cleaning products like Lemond Pledge. But there is plenty of more natural lemon flavor here as well, enough to make it pass muster for Ashman.

I thought it was decent and will finish this box of bags off pretty quickly making it iced by the pitcher, I expect. It was fun to try!

I feel like this would be very welcome hot with honey when one has a sore throat.

As my husband pulled in to our little podunk, closet-sized post office yesterday, I said, “I hope we get some fun mail today!” And we did! A lovely and thoughtful card from the lovely and thoughtful ashmanra and two little sunshiny teabags of Meyer Lemon.

After scanning the ingredient list (rosehips and hibiscus figure pretty prominently), I was expecting to tear up from the tartness, which would’ve been helpful—I had been mowing in a gale and all kinds of things blew into my eyes. But instead of eye-watering sourness, it was surprisingly and refreshingly lemony. Zingy, but not painful.

As to accuracy of flavor, I don’t know that I have ever consciously tried a Meyer lemon, although I think they have more of a bass note to them than regular brassy grocery store lemons. If that’s the case, Stash did a good job of replicating it.

Thanks to tea-and-cats for this tea! It has quite a tart, fresh lemon flavor. It’s a bit heavier than some lemon teas, edging toward medicinal, but still decent. It tastes like there’s a hint of hibiscus or something similar in here, making the flavor a little deeper. I enjoyed a cup of this cold.

This is tea 3/50 I bought in a Stash Assortment. Probably the best of the bunch so far. It too is weak too after brewing in my large mug (14oz). The lemon is nice, tea is slightly tart. L likes it.

Teabox Tuesday! This is another bagged tea I grabbed to try from the Discovery Teabox, so thank you to Skysamurai for organizing and all participants for sharing! I’ve been leaning heavily on my bagged tea cupboard for sipdowns this month, so I decided to make this for my herbal tea tonight, since I cleared out my entire box of Tension Tamer rather quickly (I’ve had quite a lot of tension to tame lately…)

I really disliked Stash’s Lemon Ginger tea, which I thought tasted like Lemon Pledge cleaner, so I admit I don’t have high hopes going into this. Though, to be fair, the Lemon Ginger tea had “natural lemon flavor” and “natural ginger flavor” which I think tasted really artificial and overbearing to me, and I don’t see any flavorings listed in the ingredients to this tea, it only has lemongrass and meyer lemon oil. The oil might push it over the edge for me (peppermint oil added to tea often makes it taste too strong and artificial to me, when I prefer just peppermint leaf) so I guess I’ll just have to see if it comes out with that super strong, lemon cleaner quality…

Eh. It’s… all right. It’s a bit stronger than I’d like; it’s very sharp and tangy, and I think the strong tartness is actually drawing me back from any possible associations to furniture polish that I could possibly get from having such a strong lemon flavor in the tea. My favorite lemon teas dial back the fruitiness and the tanginess just a bit, but since I have a tongue that can take tart/tangy/sour like some sort of super power, this is all right. But for those that are hibi-hip sensitive? There is no way they could handle this without ample amounts of sweetener. I can drink this plain fine, but I’d probably recommend adding some honey, honestly.

But I do think the lemon oil is faring better for me than whatever flavoring Stash was using in their Lemon Ginger tea, which I still find abhorrent. I’m actually finding this cup pretty pleasant, even if it isn’t my favorite cup of lemon tea.

There are a lot of ingredients listed on the bag, but when I steep it I only taste one thing: lemon. Which, to be fair, was in the name of the tea. But still it was pretty one-dimensional. I have tried drinking it when I have a sore throat and it’s okay.

Overall a good lemon flavor with just the right amount of tartness without being too sour. Personally most of the time I immediately brew a green teabag in the mug after I finish brewing this one. By then the water has cooled down enough to be green tea friendly and the end result is a very balanced lemon green tea.

Very lemony! I usually don’t like hibiscus but it works here. Sour, but pleasantly so. I like it.

Smells like fresh lemons. Very good, not sour, clean lemon flavor. Not too sweet like lemonade.