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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: Raspberry & Lemon

Ingredients: Hibiscus, rosehips, blackberry leaves, natural lemon flavouring with other natural flavourings (8%), natural raspberry flavouring with other natural flavourings (7%), rose petals (5%0, lemon peel (5%), liquorice root, natural flavouring

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: Around £2-3

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: It smells like cleaning products…and it tastes cleaning producty, too. We had to fight to taste any raspberry. The box says there’s ‘a hint of rose petals’ but we found the rose before any fruit, unless you count the horrible citric acid feeling in our throats. Ginger asked, ‘Could it be nicer cold?’ Tulsi said, ‘It’d just be cold cleaning products.’ After a while, Ginger asked, ‘Why am I still drinking this??’

Best time of year to drink this: Summer, if you must

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoons, if you must

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Flavour: Caramel Rooibos

Ingredients: Rooibos (74%), sweet cinnamon (cassia), liquorice root, caramel flavouring (3%), chicory, vanilla flavouring (2%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £3.50

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: We didn’t have high hopes for this…but it actually wasn’t bad. The smell is like toffee apples, which must come from the caramel flavouring. The taste is initially okay, although quite sweet…and then you get an unpleasant aftertaste from the artificial flavours. Thankfully, there’s enough rooibos in there to stand out. It wasn’t really for us, simply due to that after-taste, but we could imagine people liking it. It’s like drinking toffee apples, basically – not for us, but kind of alright.

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn – imagine bobbing for apples in October

Best time of day to drink this: After lunch or dinner, as a dessert alternative

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Flavour: Mu Tea

Ingredients: Mu tea blend (orange peel, liquorice root, peony root, cinnamon, ginger, peach kernels, rehmannia root, ginseng, cloves, moutan bark, coptis rhizome)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £4.50 for 20 bags

Review: We were very excited about this one, being a traditional blend in China. We were especially excited at seeing less common ingredients in that list, like peony root. The aroma was promisingly unusual – a little bitter, with a hint of spice. Sadly, the flavour was a little nondescript. There are likely different ways of blending these ingredients together. In this batch, the liquorice stood out the most, making it overly sweet – but with an edge of bitterness as it went down the throat, likely from all those roots and rhizomes. Overall, for us, it ‘tastes like it’s good for you’ and it’s a little boring. No doubt Chinese tea masters could point us in the direction of a much more impressive variety of the same blend – let us know in the comments if you’ve ever tried any!

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime

Best time of day to drink this: Morning / afternoon (it has ginseng and will wake you right up)

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Flavour: Cinnamon Spiced Cacao

Ingredients: Cacao shells (56%), cinnamon (20%), liquorice root, ginger, natural flavouring, black pepper, cloves and cardamon

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: All organic except the natural flavouring

Price Range: £5 for 15 bags

Review: The aroma is just what you’d expect – chocolatey with a hint of spice. The flavour is lovely – chocolatey, again, but not too sweet. It’s a little like Yogi Choco Chili, or Hotel Chocolat’s old Ginger & Cocoa blend (but way cheaper and…not completely off the market!). Absolutely delicious – like hot cocoa but without the calories. Soothing and warming, and you’ve finished it before you know it. A definite must have!

Best time of year to drink this: Anytime

Best time of day to drink this: Evening / bedtime

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Flavour: Frosted Fruitcake

Ingredients: Rooibos, cinnamon, apple, ginger, natural and artificial flavouring, dates, fig, orange peel, sultanas, chicory root, liquorice root, star anise, red currants, cloves, white pepper, marigold blossoms, vanilla, rose petals, rhubarb pieces

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £7.50

Cups Per Box: 40 (approx.)

Review: Yeeech! All those ingredients, and all we can smell is ‘artificial’. There’s no fruit aroma, no spice…nothing, really, but ‘flavouring’. The flavour is no better. There’s a hint of fruit (sultanas, mainly), drowned in artificial vileness. Tulsi couldn’t even think of a way to put it into words, other than ‘undrinkable’. Ginger wasn’t quite as put off by it but still didn’t see the point, when there was almost nothing there to taste. We both agreed it was dehydrating. We’re marking this one an AVOID.

Best time of year to drink this: It’s intended for Christmas-time…but no

Best time of day to drink this: Just don’t!

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Flavour: Mint & Fennel

Ingredients: Peppermint (41%), spearmint, ginger root, sweet cinnamon, fennel (9%), aniseed, liquorice root, cardamom (3%)

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: 100%

Price Range: £2

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: Despite the name, it smells overwhelmingly of liquorice, threatening to be intensely sweet. Thankfully, it doesn’t taste as strong. In fact, it hardly tastes of anything. It’s water, with a mild gingery kick…and that’s about it. We left the bag in for ages, but we never got any mint, and the fennel was swallowed up by other ingredients. It’s not bad, but we didn’t see the point. It certainly didn’t deliver what the name promises.

Best time of year to drink this: Summer?

Best time of day to drink this: After meals, for digestion

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Flavour: Apple & Cinnamon Twist

Ingredients: Apple pomace (36%), cinnamon (19%), sweet blackberry leaves, acidity regulator (malic acid), flavouring, hibiscus, liquorice root, roasted chicory root

Caffeine Factor: Caffeine-free

Organic Ingredients: Unknown

Price Range: £1.60

Bags Per Box: 20

Review: This definitely does apple in a way most apple teas don’t – you can really taste the apple. In fact, it’s so strong that you can’t taste the other ingredients, other than the intense sweetness of the liquorice. It’s kind of like a candy apple in tea form. It was too sweet for us, and too artificial. But we can imagine people enjoying it, especially on a chilly autumn evening when you need a calorie-free treat to soothe you after a long day.

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn

Best time of day to drink this: Evenings

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Flavour: Pu’erh Vanilla Mint

Ingredients: Organic Pu’erh tea, organic vanilla, organic peppermint, organic cinnamon, organic liquorice root

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: See above

Price Range: Around £7 for 100g

Review: This is a very hard one to review because it’s a hard one to describe.

The smell is gorgeous, bright in that way you get with spearmint, even though there’s no spearmint in the blend. Whatever peppermint they use, it’s an ultra-fresh variety that awakens all your senses.

The flavour is strong on mint, as well…but then it gets a little confusing. We were hoping for something like Twinings Buttermint, but this is completely different. We couldn’t really taste the vanilla…or the liquorice. It isn’t sweet, like we expected. It’s more like bright, fresh mint infused with that heavy, earthy taste of pu’erh tea…and then some bitterness that we couldn’t explain. The flavours didn’t quite mix, for us.

It definitely wasn’t awful, but it was a bit odd. We can imagine people liking it, but it wasn’t really our cup of tea.

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn and winter

Best time of day to drink this: Morning or afternoon

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Flavour: Pu’erh Dark Chocolate Chai

Ingredients: Organic Pu’erh tea, black tea, organic coconut flakes, organic cinnamon, organic cocoa shells, organic sarsaparilla root, organic liquorice root, organic cocoa nibs, organic roasted dandelion root, organic cloves, natural chocolate flavour

Caffeine Factor: Caffeinated

Organic Ingredients: See above

Price Range: Around £7 for 100g

Review: This is quite an unusual one! The smell is indescribable – a bit sweet (perhaps from the sarsaparilla), but it’s impossible to discern any individual ingredients.

The flavour is equally complicated. It’s heavy on the liquorice, with a strong (bitter) dandelion aftertaste. It doesn’t really taste like chai or chocolate, and wasn’t our cup of tea…but we can imagine someone out there really liking it, especially on a cold afternoon. Just don’t go into it expecting chai or a hot chocolate substitute. There’s just too much liquorice and dandelion to taste the rest.

Best time of year to drink this: Autumn and winter

Best time of day to drink this: Afternoon

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