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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: Amalfi Lavender Limoncello

Ingredients: Green tea, apple, sweet blackberry leaves, beetroot, lavender, lemongrass, silver lime flowers, natural flavouring, lemon peel, marigold flower petals

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: See website for subscription options

Bags Per Box: See website for subscription options

Review: This smells really lemony! Just like sherbet. It tastes like it too – it’s that fake lemon flavour you always get from lemongrass…and absolutely nothing else. Beetroot? Where!? We dare anyone to tell us they can identify that when drinking this blend. It’s just cleaning product. It’s a fancy ingredients list in fancy packaging with a completely un-fancy taste for a high price tag. It’s an AVOID.

Best time of year to drink this: Never!

Best time of day to drink this: Never

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Flavour: Raspberry Rose Oolong

Ingredients: Oolong tea, pink rosebuds, rose petals, raspberries, pink cornflower blossoms, natural flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: See website for subscription options

Bags Per Box: See website for subscription options

Review: This smells weird – dark like black tea, but then heavy on the raspberry tartness. It’s like a Black Forest gateau, despite there being no cherry in the ingredients list. The flavour is milder than the aroma, It’s sort of nice…but a bit medicinal, like cough syrup. Again, we got such a cherry vibe! It’s okay, but not amazing enough to induce us to order more from America (we got this in a sampler box). It’s pretty bland, and there’s an unpleasantly artificial aftertaste, despite describing the flavouring as ‘natural’. The packaging is so gorgeous that we got the impression it was trying overly hard to be quirky and not putting equal thought into the quality of the tea enclosed.

Best time of year to drink this: Whenever – it’s not awful, but we wouldn’t bother

Best time of day to drink this: Not at night

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Flavour: The Black Lodge

Ingredients: Chinese Yunnan black tea, Spanish olive leaf, smoked Chinese black tea, dried banana, sweet blackberry leaf, Madagascan vanilla, flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: See website for subscription options

Bags Per Box: See website for subscription options

Review: WOW, is that an exciting looking ingredients list! …too bad it tastes vile!! The smell evoked exclamations like, ‘Oh my god…what??‘ After a while, we decided it smelled a little like ash – while the flavour was artificial grossness. You can’t taste most of the ingredients. They are just drowned out by chemicals. It’s artificial yuck and a bit of ash. Maybe it’s called The Black Lodge because the lodge burned down. It is horrible…dressed up in very pretty packaging. It’s an AVOID.

Best time of year to drink this: Never!

Best time of day to drink this: Never

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Flavour: White Peachberry Jasmine Pearls

Ingredients: White tea, green tea, jasmine, peach, strawberry, natural flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: See website for subscription options

Bags Per Box: See website for subscription options

Review: If you’ve been following us for a while, you’ll know we’re not a fan of peach in tea. We haven’t come across a workable peach blend, and this didn’t change our minds. It smells like yucky fake peach, and it tasted bitter and stringent with artificial disgustingness. It’s very hard to describe because we took several sips and could not figure out what we were tasting. One of us declared in horror, ‘What was that meant to be!?‘ Someone tried to be too creative. They took your basic jasmine green tea recipe, and thought, ‘How can we ruin it with flavours no one ever thought should mix with this?’ It’s an automatic AVOID.

Best time of year to drink this: Never!

Best time of day to drink this: Never

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Flavour: Sleepytime Echinacea Complete Care

Ingredients: Echinacea, European elderberry extract, European elderflower extract, eucalyptus, stevia leaf, chamomile, spearmint, peppermint, lemongrass, tilia flowers

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: Now, we know what you’re thinking – elderberries, no! But stick with us, because this is one of the best teas out there. It’s also significantly different from their standard Sleepytime blend.

The scent is minty, with a planty undertone. It’s earthy, restful and soothing. The flavour is more flowery, like a fruity, floral spearmint. Stevia leaf gives a hint of sweetness but in just the right dose, without overpowering the blend. In fact, even if you dislike half the ingredients that go into this one (we’re not great lovers of lemongrass or elderberries, or straight chamomile), the balance here is spot on. Every sip is a special moment in itself. It’s smooth and gorgeous and refreshing and best of all, it knocks you right out within a half hour of drinking it. You will absolutely look like that bear on the box (cap and nightgown are optional).

They seem to have rebranded this one a number of times, with a new ‘Immune Boost’ variety that we haven’t yet tried. In our experience, adding vitamins to a tea just comes out tasting like…vitamins. The ‘Complete Care’ variety, however, is a definite must-have for any tea lover, especially if you struggle with insomnia.

Best time of year to drink this: Any time

Best time of day to drink this: Bedtime

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Flavour: Sleepytime

Ingredients: Chamomile, spearmint, lemongrass, tilia flowers (lime flowers), blackberry leaves, orange blossoms, hawthorn and rosebuds

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: This is one of Celestial Seasonings’ staples going way, way back – a childhood memory for Tulsi. It has endured for so many years because it is such a lovely experience to drink it – and it lives up to its name: it makes you feel very sleepy.

The aroma is minty fresh, but also lightly fruity with a hint of sweetness. It’s a nice one to sit with in bed at night, just letting the smell envelop you.

On tasting, you can’t identify any one ingredient (apart from spearmint), and that’s a good thing. We’re not big fans of lemongrass (which has a strangely artificial flavour) or anything floral (it can taste like perfume), but this one blends these ingredients together in just the right way. There’s a subtle hint of lemon, and a touch of floral that adds a bit of depth, but nothing overpowering.

Although a great one for unwinding, this one is also strangely wakeful: it clears the head, allowing you to forget the concerns of the day and drift off. It would also be excellent if you’re feeling a bit run down, and the inclusion of spearmint helps sooth the tummy, aiding digestion.

We both love it, and Tulsi drinks it a lot. It’s her essential bedtime drink when she wants to de-stress, detox and shut off for the night. It is a definite must-have tea.

Best time of year to drink this: Any time

Best time of day to drink this: Bedtime

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Flavour: Peppermint

Ingredients: Peppermint

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: You might think peppermint is peppermint…but it’s not! There are very different varieties of peppermint grown in different regions around the world. American peppermint is known for being stronger than any you’d normally find in Europe, for example. And being American, this brew is extra-strong. Even just the scent is strong – a little like marijuana but with a minty after-smell.

The flavour is also intense and substantial. It’s ‘plantier’ than some of the other mint blends we’ve tried – like a pyramid bag / loose leaf tea, but in a standard bag and low-cost. It’s one of the most refreshing mint teas we’ve tried, at a great price. We definitely recommend this one, especially after meals when you want to refresh your palate. It would also be great to clear your sinuses and perk up when feeling a bit run down.

Best time of year to drink this: Any time

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon

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Flavour: Chamomile

Ingredients: Chamomile

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: It smells like chamomile…and it tastes like chamomile.

If you haven’t tried chamomile tea before, it’s a delicate white flower known to help you relax and prepare for a good night’s sleep, if the infusion is drunk at night. It’s initially floral, but not like perfume (like some floral brews). Some chamomile blends can be quite strong, but this one is mild, soothing and ‘planty’.

Best time of year to drink this: Any time

Best time of day to drink this: Evening / bedtime

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Flavour: Honey Vanilla Chamomile

Ingredients: Chamomile, orange peel, natural honey flavour with other natural flavourings, liquorice, roasted chicory and lemongrass

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: As you might guess from the title of this review…we don’t like this one. Honey flavouring and ‘vanilla’ never really go down well with us. No matter how ‘natural’ it might be, it still comes out tasting sickly and somehow artificial.

And that’s exactly what we found with this blend. Even just the smell is like fake sweeteners. It is thoroughly unappetising. There’s hardly more than a hint of chamomile under all that flavouring, and the vanilla is non-existent.

The flavour is similar. It has an overly sickly sweet taste (no doubt a mix of flavouring an liquorice) that is utterly disgusting. You can’t taste the chamomile much, although you do get a citrusy undercurrent from the lemongrass (which always tastes artificial even though it’s a real plant)…it’s just that fake, nasty sweetness gumming up your throat.

Why would you ruin chamomile like this?? We couldn’t finish one cup between us and we will definitely not be buying more.

Best time of year to drink this: Never

Best time of day to drink this: Never

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