Detox Mountain Herbs

In response to Mastress Alita’s prompt for National Absurdity Day, I unearthed this very old tea. (I think the detox label was keeping me away.) It turns out I don’t have many weird teas in my collection, but this one had ingredients I’ve never tried, including spruce, heath milkwort (whatever that is), and gentian root. As recommended, I steeped around 4 g of material in 355 ml of water for 7 minutes and then resteeped it for 10 minutes.

The dry aroma is of fennel, mint, eucalyptus, earth, and spruce, roughly in that order. It has a peppery quality that, along with the fennel and mint, reminds me of something you might drink for a cold. There’s a lot to pick apart in the taste. The dominant note is of mint, followed by spruce, eucalyptus, some floral elements, earth, pepper, rosemary, and fennel. I was expecting this tea to be bitter, but it’s actually quite mild and pleasant. It has a slight creamy, mouth-coating finish and some sweetness, maybe from the fennel. The second steep was slightly less intense, but had most of the same flavours.

This is one of the more sophisticated herbals I’ve come across. I find most tisanes to be either too sweet or too predictable, and this was neither. I’m not sure all the ingredients needed to be there, but they were nicely balanced. Too bad this company is no longer selling tea, as I’d consider buying this again.

A while back I ordered two cast iron tea pots from Zen Tea Life. Shipping was fast and reasonable. We love our Iwachu pots! They included a sample of this with my order.

Lately I have noticed caffeine affecting me before bed so I decided to get a tisane that would help me as well as taste good. It isimportant to get good sleep, especially during the holidays! I ordered three – count them, THREE – bags of this plus one other evening herbal that I haven’t tried yet.

I don’t know how well the herbs here will work for detox but it has to be better for me than a lot of things I could reach for in the evening. When a tea or tisane has mint in it, that is pretty much all I taste unless there are some other pretty powerful herbs in large amounts.

This tisane is earthy and minty and the resteep is quite good, so it is a good value as well. Youngest daughter likes it a lot and is drinking it with me. The big test was hubby. He had a traumatic experience with an herbal once (Sandy, remember Evening in Missoula? I liked it and wish I had more!) and I didn’t know if he would try this. He did try it, and he liked it, even liked it well enough to ask for more. He has a lot of job stress so I hope it will also help keep him healthy through the winter.

I can hardly wait to try the other tisane I ordered, Evening Lights. They also sent a sample of Fengqing Golden Buds that I am excited about! I have requested a matcha bowl from Zen for Christmas. Some of these teas may get added to the Christmas list! (Which is a matcha bowl and…that’s it.)