Category: Review

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DavidsTea’s Organic Mother’s Little Helper

Organic Mother’s Little Helper by DavidsTea
Herbal Infusion / Flavoured
$7.75 for 50g

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First Impressions

I received my Mother’s Little Helper as part of a DavidsTea gift set (it came with three teas and a travel mug) – the gift set that started my interest in tea. The container is nice and small. It’s a metal tin with a screw-on lid that has a clear window so I can see the tea without opening it. Of course, this exposes tea to light if you don’t put these tins in a box or cabinet. It is a very nice looking tea – there’s clearly flowers and lemongrass in there.

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Opening the tin, I can smell peppermint, it is very strong. Underneath the refreshing mint scent is lemongrass. This tea has an interesting blend of ingredients: peppermint, lemongrass hibiscus, rosehips, chamomile, valerian root, and cornflowers. It also has added peppermint flavouring. It’s a very nice calming mix, I quite like mint for that. Mother’s Little Helper is marketed as a calming tea to help people with unwinding. It definitely has the fragrance to sell that. As a calming, herbal infusion, it is naturally caffeine free.

Preparation

Steeping recommendations by DavidsTea is to steep in 96°C (205°F) water for 4-7 minutes.

First Taste

Steeped for 7 minutes, the tea is a beautiful deep pinkish red colour. The scent of peppermint and lemongrass is very obvious. With a sip, Mother’s Little Helper is minty – that peppermint flavouring is more than enough of a punch the senses. It’s a very relaxing tea, definitely caffeine free because I don’t get that energy I get from drinking other teas. It does have a certain flavour that I find makes my mouth pucker a bit – it’s likely the combination of the valerian root, the lemongrass, and the peppermint. I do find that it makes me feel relaxed (likely due to the valerian root). Valerian root is used in alternative medicine to treat insomnia, it’s no wonder it makes me feel relaxed!

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A Second Cup?

I hardly ever resteep herbal infusions. I did try with this one, the colour was not as deep and the flavouring just was not there. Mother’s Little Helper is really just good for one steep.

My Overall Impression

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I thought that DavidsTea’s Organic Mother’s Little Helper was just okay. Perhaps it’s because I don’t spend my days running after small children or have kids of my own, but it isn’t a tea that I will keep going back to in my tea stash. I think it does have great flavour and does live up to expectations of being a relaxing tea, but it isn’t something that I would necessarily want to have on a regular basis. I still have the rest of my little tin, but I won’t be dipping into it too often. For anyone looking for a really good night time tea, or just searching for a caffeine free herbal infusion, this is a nice one! It’s just not for me.

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.

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Tea Accessory: Tea Ball Infuser

One of my favourite tea accessories is my tea infuser, which I use with loose leaf teas at home. My first tea infuser was purchased online and was this silicone strawberry-like shaped thing. The basics of it is to remove the stem, fill with tea, insert the stem back in and then steep. The problem with it is that the holes were much too large. Every single type of tea I tried in it would come out and I’d wind up with tea leaves in my tea. While that isn’t the end of the world, it’s still not doing it’s job so I had to find something else.

The tea infuser I use now at home is this one:

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It’s stainless steel, doesn’t hold onto any scents or flavours of previously steeped tea, and the mesh sides clean really easily. It’s fairly good about keeping the tea in the ball, I have very minute of tea leaves in my tea (it’s almost never leaves, but just small bits of the loose tea). It opens when I press the handles together, and closes when I let go. If you let go, it will snap close – which is something to note if you’re snapping it close after filling up one half of the ball – tea leaves will go everywhere and it may make you sad (or annoyed).

The nice bonus about this fantastic tea infuser (that I love and use constantly at home, when not drinking bagged tea) is that it can be found in dollar stores! It fits well in most average sized mugs, I can see people running into trouble with the handle not being large enough if you’re prone to using those very large mugs, but for most mug sizes it should be suitable.

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I’ve had this tea infuser for a while now, so I no longer have the packaging to show you, but I do recall that I had purchased it at Daiso. If you don’t have a Daiso near you, don’t despair – you can find many similar ones online or probably in local shops. I know that some people don’t like tea balls because it doesn’t allow for as much room for the tea leaves to expand as they do the infusers that sit in the cup and look like a metal basket. When the tea infuser is $1-2 vs. $10+, it’s much more budget-friendly solution. I will likely get a tea infuser in the future that can sit in my mug and allow for optimal tea leaf expansion and unfurling, but for now I’m using my budget-friendly tea infuser.

Tea infusers come in all shapes and sizes! What’s your favourite tea infuser? Let me know in the comments below!

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Stash Tea Company’s Earl Grey

Earl Grey by Stash Tea Company
Black Tea/ Flavoured
$2.50 for 38g

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First Impressions

I got my Stash Tea when it was 2 boxes for $5. Each box of Earl Grey contains 20 tea bags, which works out to be 1.9g of tea per tea bag which isn’t bad at all. The box for the Stash Tea Company’s Earl Grey makes me smile. It’s a very simple card stock box with two perforated openings to choose from. I opted for the opening at the bottom, so I can sit the box upright and the tea is accessible out the bottom. The other way to open it is to use your finger to punch in the side, and one whole side of the box lifts up (and can be tucked back in. Stash Teas come in individually packaged tea bags. For those that love loose leaf teas, you may be frowning at me right now but that’s okay. Tea bags can be useful! Especially if you’re travelling and don’t want to deal with spoons and infusers – or if you don’t want to make up your own tea bags with filters.

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The foil wrapper for the tea bags are a nice touch. While it does result in more waste, it does keep the tea bag in a sealed environment that protects it from air and light. There’s a handy cut at the top of the packaging which makes it easier to rip that sucker open. Almost instantaneously, I can smell the fragrant bergamot oil – one of my favourite parts of any good Earl Grey tea. Stash Tea’s Earl Grey lists the following as ingredients: premium black teas with oil of bergamot. The bright citrus smell with the scent of the black tea makes me eager about what is coming up next.

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