Category: Review

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kyth + kyn’s Cure

Cure by kyth + kyn
Herbal Infusion / Straight
$11.99 for Mini (makes 10 cups)

First Impressions

Cure is described by kyth + kyn has a blend to help with all your #yolo life decisions, in relation to drinking, and it made me laugh when I first heard it (and after tasting it, I really wanted to buy it). If you saw my previous review of kyth + kyn’s Glow, the packaging is fairly similar. Cure comes in a kraft paper pouch that’s resealable, has as plastic liner inside to help keep all the ingredients dry and keeps everything from getting stale.

The first ingredient that I really smelled when I opened the pouch was the ginger. I found that it was quite strong, and I could also smell something else that was almost spicy that was not the ginger, but I’m not familiar enough with the other ingredients to really know what it is… It smells good though, whatever it is!

Cure consists of: winter melon seed, pueraria, mulberry leaf, and ginger root.

Preparation

kyth + kyn suggests steeping 1 to 2 teaspoons in hot water and to steep for 3 to 5 minutes. The recommendation is to add honey or other sweetener to taste. I opted to do an initial steep in 200°F (93°C) water for 5 minutes.

First Taste

Cure steeps to a beautiful orange colour that has a strong ginger and spicy aroma that is very similar to the dry leaf. I found that the ginger flavour is pleasant, with a bit of natural sweetness surrounding it. I can taste that there are other ingredients in it, I don’t know what winter melon seed or pueraria are supposed to taste like, but I presume that one of them offers that spicy flavour that I’m getting from the tea. It’s not like a chili oil or hot pepper type of spice, but more of a spices type of spicy (think chai, but not in ingredients that I’m familiar with). The warming qualities from the ginger are nice and really warm me up!

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Cure twice, adding an extra 30 seconds for each steep, and I found that the flavours were quite nice still. The flavours stayed pretty comparable to the initial steep and I thoroughly enjoyed it each time. I’d probably really like this one if I had it when under the weather or had a stomach bug because I think it would help settle the stomach quite easily.

My Overall Impression

I loved kyth + kyn’s Cure. I found that the herbal blend did a very good job with resteeping, the ginger flavour was very enjoyable and it balanced well with the other ingredients. I wish I knew what the other ingredients tasted like or smelled like on their own so I could describe it better, but I found that the flavour was delicious and I didn’t have to add any sweetener to it to make it palatable. I do love the ginger in this blend though, and thought it was tasty.

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Woash Wellness’s Revive

Revive by Woash Wellness
Green Tea / Flavoured
$12.50 for 40g

First Impressions

I was first introduced to Woash Wellness via Instagram, prior to the launch of their teas in the autumn of 2018. I got to meet Cassy of Woash Wellness at the 2018 Vancouver Tea Festival, which was pretty neat. After following her account on Instagram and seeing all these beautiful teas, I got to sample them before buying them. I often find it a struggle to decide if I want to buy online based on a photo or a description because so much of what I love about tea and tea drinking is the aroma and the taste of it – that’s why I always try to do my best to describe the flavour profile of any tea that I’m reviewing.

Revive is one of the teas that I bought directly from Cassy of Woash Wellness. The tea blends from Woash come in this fun, dark blue pouches – they’re sealed, resealable and the labels have all the necessary information regarding steeping instructions and ingredients. Revive is described as a tea meant to help the morning-after a fun night out, if you know what I mean… The first thing I noticed about Revive is the strong smell of ginger. Ginger is a very overpowering ingredient at the best of times, and it’s definitely very strong here. I can also smell the lemon and a hint of the green tea base.

Revive consists of: sencha green tea, ginger, milk thistle, lemon peel, ginkgo, and calendula. All of the ingredients are very much visible, and I didn’t even have to shake up the pouch – I don’t think a lot of settling has happened with this blend for me.

Preparation

Woash Wellness recommends steeping Revive at 175°F (80°C) for 3 to 4 minutes. Because of the green tea base, I followed the steeping instructions and opted to keep my initial steep of Revive at 3 minutes.

First Taste

Revive steeps to a pale yellow-green colour. The aroma is primarily that of the ginger, which isn’t a very big surprise considering how prominent it was in the dry leaf. There’s a light sweetness to this tea, and I found some mild umami notes from the sencha. I noted that Revive does have the nice warming qualities from the ginger, which makes it very pleasant and would also serve to help settle the stomach while well if you were to drink this while hungover or with an upset stomach of other origins. I like how the ginger is balanced against the sweetness and the umami qualities of this blend so it wasn’t just ginger that hit me in the taste buds.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Revive two times, adding an extra 30 seconds for each subsequent steep. I found that the flavour was quite comparable to the initial steep for the first resteep and still had a good amount of ginger flavour. The second steep was a bit watery in comparison, so I would recommend keeping Revive to just one more steep – unless you had a little bit of fresh or dried ginger on hand to help boost the flavour a little bit.

My Overall Impression

I loved Woash Wellness’ Revive. I’ve been in quite the ‘ginger’ kick lately and I think this just really worked for me. I didn’t drink it while hungover, but I do like the effects of ginger on the stomach – it’s such a great ingredient that really does help to settle stomachs and just really works in warming you from the inside out, a fantastic quality in a tea that I’m drinking when it’s -2°C outside (that’s below freezing for my friends who use Fahrenheit…). I really enjoyed how well balanced the sencha green tea was with the ginger – I was expecting the ginger to overpower the green tea and was really happy that this was not the case. While I do wish that the lemon was more prominent, I do understand that it was competing with some very strong flavours in the blend but I like to think that the lemon did attribute to the sweetness that I found in my cup.

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Tealish’s Chocolate Mint

Chocolate Mint by Tealish
Rooibos / Flavoured
$9.50 for 50g

Tealish’s Chocolate Mint came to me as part of The Sugared Teacup’s December themed subscription box.

First Impressions

I did not know that Chocolate Mint was a rooibos blend at first, the packaging for this sample packet was lacking information regarding the ingredients as well as steeping instructions. Chocolate Mint does come in a sealed, and resealable, white foil pouch. It’s described as an herbal tea/tisane, and I found it under “Rooibos Tea” on the Tealish website when I went hunting for information. Of course, as soon as I opened the bag I could see that it was a rooibos blend.

Chocolate Mint is an excellent name for this blend, it does smell like chocolate and mint. I reminds me a lot of my dad, actually, since he loves all things chocolate mint and he always gets a lot of chocolate mint goodies around the holidays. Surprisingly, I cannot really smell the rooibos base – which is a pleasant surprise since I don’t really like rooibos… at all. Chocolate Mint consists of: rooibos, apple pieces, peppermint leaves, cacao nibs, natural flavouring, and orange peel.

Preparation

Tealish recommends steeping Chocolate Mint in boiling (100°C/212°F) water for 4 to 6 minutes. I opted to do an initial steep of Chocolate Mint for 5 minutes.

First Taste

Chocolate Mint steeps to a very bright orange colour. It has a fairly strong chocolate mint aroma to the tisane, although I can make out the rooibos base in the background although it is very mild compared to the chocolate mint goodness. Taste wise, I found that the chocolate mint flavour wasn’t strong enough to hide or overcome the rooibos base. I’m not a fan of the medicinal flavour of rooibos, and that is unfortunately present in Chocolate Mint. I can taste chocolate notes and minty notes, but it’s just not strong enough to cover up the rooibos for me. If you’re a fan of rooibos though, you might like it!

A Second Cup?

I attempted to resteep Chocolate Mint once. I found that the flavour of the rooibos was the only thing I found in my cup, I couldn’t taste the chocolate mint notes at all.

My Overall Impression

I thought that Tealish’s Chocolate Mint was just okay. I think if I was a fan of rooibos, I would scored this tisane a lot higher. I found that the aroma of mint and chocolate in the dry leaf was excellent and very close to the ‘real deal’. I was pretty underwhelmed by the initial steep because I was really hoping for the chocolate mint flavours to be a lot stronger to overcome the rooibos base in Chocolate Mint. That said, the rooibos base does stand out and if you’re a fan of rooibos you’ll probably really enjoy this tisane. Because of my lack of love for rooibos (and most rooibos blends aren’t really well-loved by me…), I’m just not a fan. If you love the flavours of chocolate and mint together and you’re a rooibos drinker, I think you’ll really like Chocolate Mint!

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