L'Herbier de France

This is really interesting.

Reminds me a little of poultry seasoning, a little of thanksgiving. There’s savory in my tea.

Super glad to try, but definitely don’t want loads of it.

Thanks so much for sharing, MissB!

(2 tea bags, 14 oz, 5 min, 195F.)

Creamy chamomile and herbs. It’s okay but I’m definitely not their target audience as these are not flavors I particularly enjoy. Still it’s always nice to try new things so thank you MissB for the share.

Tasty medicinal herbal thing with honey.

Perfect because I’m not feeling super hot right now. I think it might be the oolong from the Salted Caramel tea I had earlier. :/ Oolongs sometimes don’t agree with me.

Anyways, I like this. I’m glad I found the last lonely tea bag. And now I’ve drunk it. :)

Another tea from MissB! Turns out that I had put aside some herbals to check the ingredients for Bear With Me and CrowKettle… and totally forgot about them. Ahh well. They’re mostly small amounts that I can finish no problem.

I wonder what this tea description means by “elimination”. If I drink it this morning will I need to pee lots? I hope not, as I’m heading out for the day…

The tea didn’t really smell like anything, when I made it last night. It had lots of fuzz and floaties like chamomile, but there’s no chamomile in it. It’s not sweet at all. It tastes like… tree water. Really delicate deciduous tree water. With a little grass. Yep.

It’s pretty good cold as well. But not really anything super memorable or outstanding.

And I’m still wondering what exactly the effects are…

Thanks for sharing, MissB!

Sipdown (119)!

Thank MissB but, uhh, no thanks…

Took one whiff off the dry leaf and sneezed so loudly that Tre came out of his room to see what had happened and if I was ok. This smells so insanely spicy and peppery, and I just instantly knew that would going to translate into the taste and I’d hate it.

And how right I was; it was a flurry of very strong spices: Ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, and thyme. The one thing in this that could have been redeeming, the clove, was sadly the one thing I couldn’t taste at all. And not for lack of ‘looking’ for it. Maybe that’s because I steeped it for a way shorter period of time that suggested; but I was fearful that a minute longer than the three I gave this and I wouldn’t recover from the fireball of spices.

Nope; not for me guys! It’d be wrong to rate it though – I’m so very biased with this one. And, this is the last teabag/sachet from this company that MissB sent me; sadly all of the teas from this company were flops for me. But I bet a spice lover would get a real good kick out of this one…

Sipdown (126)!

Thanks MissB!

Sadly I think I missed something with this tea because it mostly tasted like chamomile to me with maybe a pinch of herbaceous notes and a pinch of something mildly creamy? It wasn’t bad or anything, but I found it kind of bland and unexciting. I definitely didn’t taste juniper, that’s for sure, and that’s what I was most excited about/looking forward to with this blend so I was disappointed by that a bit.

Can anyone tell me if Ondine means anything or is French for anything in particular? I absolutely adore the sound of this one’s name; there’s something very beautiful/graceful about it but all I’m finding with a quick Google search is a movie by the same name. Is that what this is named after?

EDIT: Ok, did a more thorough search and I guess Ondine is a mythological character/character in a play or something? This is straight from Wikipedia, but…

Ondine, the eponymous heroine of Giradoux’s play, tells her future husband Hans, whom she had just met that “I shall be the shoes of your feet … I shall be the breath of your lungs”. Ondine makes a pact with her uncle the King of the Ondines that if Hans ever deceives her he will die. After their honeymoon, Hans is reunited with his first love Princess Bertha and Ondine leaves Hans only to be captured by a fisherman six months later. On meeting Ondine again on the day of his wedding to Bertha, Hans tells her that “all the things my body once did by itself, it does now only by special order … A single moment of inattention and I forget to breathe”. Hans and Ondine kiss, after which he dies.

I kinda like that; I’m definitely really feeling this name. It’s a shame the tea was disappointing…

Loving the herbal options here in France, which have surprised me at every turn, in every health food store (what’s called “Bio” here, or organic). I had no idea what any of the ingredients were in English, but the fact that it’s also called “Minceur” (thinner) made me think of Stephen King, and had to get it.

Odd flavor combination here that’s hard to describe. I smell a hay-like Thai curry in the leaves, with the flavor more medicinal than anything. It’s not bad or anything, it’s just… very medicinal.

Having a bit of translation issues with one item on this ingredient list (tilleul is lime, aubier is normally wood or trees, depending… but together they translate to linden leaves/sapwood, whereas I think they mean lime leaves. Anyone willing to help welcome.. I’ve asked a French friend for help with this).

Having a hard time describing this tea. Left it to steep 20 minutes, and it’s mostly clove coming through with the savory at the midpoint. No ginger other than a sweet bite. Very unusual flavor combination. I like it, yet I want to try it steeped less.