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Flavour: Time to Unwind

Ingredients: Lemon balm (43%), chamomile (18%), lime flower (3%), natural strawberry flavouring with other natural flavourings (12%), liquorice root, beetroot, vitamin B12, natural flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: Around £3.50

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: It smells like a bunch of flavouring…with a touch of fruit. The flavour isn’t too bad…because you can’t really taste anything. It’s like water…and then a hint of…something. Maybe chamomile. Yet, despite all that, there’s then an aftertaste that really lingers. This might be the addition of B12 – and flavourings. The combination strips your mouth with fakeness. All that said, we’ve had worse and can imagine someone – maybe – enjoying this. We just…no, we won’t be buying it again. There are much better alternatives out there.

Best time of year to drink this: No idea

Best time of day to drink this: Evening / night

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Flavour: Deckchair Dreaming

Ingredients: Chamomile (30%), apple pieces, rosehip, linden blossom, hibiscus, valerian (5%), orange peel, natural flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7 for 50g

Review: Just as the blend promises, it smells mainly of chamomile and valerian, with citrusy notes. The taste is as you’d expect, too – slightly sweet chamomile, balanced out by orange peel and general tartness. The overall blend is pleasant and soothing, a lovely brew for autumn evenings. We also really like that you can see whole chamomile flowers in each bag. A highly recommended night time tea.

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn, especially

Best time of day to drink this: Evening / night

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Flavour: Vermont Maple Ginger

Ingredients: Ginger, cinnamon, natural maple flavour with other natural flavours, luo han guo (monk fruit) and vermont maple sugar

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: Purchased by Ginger on a trip to Canada, we expected this to be awful. However, on brewing it, Tulsi took a sniff and said, ‘This might…not be terrible.’  It smells strongly of maple…but with something oddly savoury mixed in there…a hint of fruit…and then cinnamon. That sounds weird, we know. The point is – we were pleasantly surprised by this blend. On the first sip, you mainly get ginger and cinnamon. Then, as it goes down, you get a hint of maple syrup, but nothing overwhelmingly sweet. It doesn’t taste fake. In fact, it’s quite a pleasant dessert tea to have after a meal, and soothing in the evening. Not our absolutely favourite flavour out there, but Celestial Seasonings have definitely proven that you can do weird sweet treat flavours like this and make them good.

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime

Best time of day to drink this: After dinner / evenings

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Flavour: Rhubarb & Custard

Ingredients: Rooibos, rhubarb pieces, calendula, vanilla pieces, flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7 for 50g

Review: It smells exactly like rhubarb and custard. In fact, you can smell the rhubarb across the room. It’s strangely fizzy, too, a little like one of those rhubarb carbonated drinks. The flavour is milder, though – you definitely get the rhubarb, and the vanilla makes it a little creamy, but thankfully it’s not super sweet. It’s really nice! A lovely, balanced dessert tea to have in the evening. We can also imagine it being delicious served chilled in the summer. All in all, a winning blend!

Best time of year to drink this: Summer

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon or evening, especially after a meal

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Flavour: Banana Bread Chai

Ingredients: Rosebuds, cinnamon, ginger, freeze-dried banana, cardamom, vanilla pieces, natural flavours

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7 for 50g

Review: It smells like…cinnamon! And tastes like…cinnamon! …and other stuff. You get that slight sweetness from the rooibos, and only a very faint hint of banana – which is a relief, because we really worried it might be disgusting. Instead, it’s a warming evening treat, ideal for the colder months in lieu of sweet treats after meals. Highly recommended!

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn / winter

Best time of day to drink this: Evenings

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Flavour: Ginger Beer

Ingredients: Rooibos, ginger, lime leaves, lemon peel, calendula petals, natural flavours

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7 for 50g

Review: An instant favourite! It smells and tastes just like it promises…but without all the sugar, fizz and calories! We couldn’t really pick up any individual ingredient – everything just blends so perfectly, with a ginger kick at the end, creating a warming, comforting drink to have in the evening – especially if you’re feeling a little warn out or run down. Tulsi started gifting this to family at Christmas, too, and everyone has fallen instantly in love with it – aa definite must-have.

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn / winter

Best time of day to drink this: Evening

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Flavour: Exceptionally Ordinary

Ingredients: Orange, hibiscus, rooibos, peppermint leaves, liquorice, lemon balm, lavender, passion flowers, milk thistle, marigold flowers

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7.99 for 50g

Review: Ooh interesting, having more orange and hibiscus than rooibos. It’s quite a medley of ingredients you usually see in different blends. Sadly…maybe there’s a reason they aren’t usually mixed together, because the flavour is mild hibiscus and hot water, with a slightly minty aftertaste. It’s like one of those ‘a touch of fruit’ water drinks but boiled. One of those rare teas that lives up to its name, it truly is ‘exceptionally ordinary’.

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime?

Best time of day to drink this: Anytime?

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Flavour: Redbush Caramel Velvet

Ingredients: Redbush, caramel flavouring (2.5%), safflowers (1%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: Around £6

Bags Per Box: 15

Review: It smells like rooibos with artificial vanilla. The flavour is also strong on the rooibos, a little creamy, and very sweet…and very fake. For that reason, it’s not for us. However, we can imagine some people liking it. The main issue is the price. It’s so expensive for something that is ultimately a very generic tea with artificial flavouring. It’s not terrible, but we don’t see why anyone would bother. It’s also a total mystery why the safflowers are in this blend or what they’re meant to add to the taste.

Best time of year to drink this: …autumn?

Best time of day to drink this: After lunch or dinner

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Flavour: Winter

Ingredients: Rooibos (63%), hisbiscus, cardamom pods, raisins (4%), orange peel (4%), cinnamon pieces (4%, apple (4%), flavouring (orange, cinnamon, cloves), clove buds (3%), cardamom seeds, ginger (2%), cornflower petals

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £11 for 125g

Review: This inspired mixed opinions. The aroma has the sweetness of rooibos and citrus, with fragrant spices, just as you’d expect for a tea designed for winter. On tasting, Ginger felt the raisins made the blend too sharp and heavy. Tulsi, despite hating raisins, ended up finishing the tin and being disappointed when it was empty. You really need to shake up these bags of loose leaf tea. We probably got too much raisin in that first cup. Maybe there was hardly any, in subsequent cups, and that’s why it was so good!

Best time of year to drink this: Winter

Best time of day to drink this: Evenings – it’s so gentle and relaxing

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Flavour: Shepherd’s Cup

Ingredients: Ironwort (sideritis scardica)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £8 for 30g

Review: The tin promises ‘hints of thyme, citrus and anise’. We struggled to find all of this. It smells like savoury seasoning – oregano or sage. It tastes like sage, too, but manages to avoid tasting like pasta. It’s closest to thyme, maybe, but milder and not as sweet. Best of all, the tin is full of clumps of the plant, like it was just harvested with no processing. Unfortunately, we can’t find it anywhere online anymore, so we’re not sure where you get it. Even the company’s website seems to have deleted it, which is a shame because we enjoyed this one. It was cleansing and refreshing. Time to grow our own ironwort!

Best time of year to drink this: It feels like a spring or summer drink

Best time of day to drink this: Anytime, but probably especially after meals

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