Tag: Woash Wellness

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Woash Wellness’s Immunity

Immunity by Woash Wellness
Honeybush / Straight
$12.50 for 40g

Woash Wellness has provided me with Immunity for the purposes of providing an honest review.

First Impressions

Woash Wellness released their latest herbal blend, Immunity, in January. It’s a tisane that is designed to help boost the immune system and help relieve those pesky cold symptoms. As someone who was also very recently feeling sick with a (stupid) cold, Immunity could not have a picked a better time to arrive in my PO box. Immunity comes in a dark blue and cream sealed, resealable bag. The label on the back lists steeping instructions and ingredients. Woash Wellness describes their Immunity blend as being full of vitamin C and antioxidants.

The aroma of the Immunity blend is, in short, delicious. It smells a bit like an herbal-ish dessert. I can smell the honeybush, ginger, cloves, and the lemon myrtle. The lemon myrtle gives it a nice citrus aroma, and the combination of citrus and honey fragrances reminds me of some common lozenge flavours. Immunity consists of: honeybush, elderberries, ginger, lemon myrtle, cardamom, and cloves.

Preparation

Woash Wellness recommends steeping Immunity in 205°F (96°C) water for 5 to 10 minutes. Because a lot of herbal infusions don’t do well with a second steep, my initial steep of Immunity was for 10 minutes with 200°F (93°C) water.

First Taste

Immunity steeps to a deep brownish-orange colour. The aroma is primarily that of the lemon myrtle and the honeybush. The citrus and honey notes really do remind me of the cough lozenges I had been using not that long ago. The flavour is a mix of the honeybush, lemon myrtle, and ginger. I get the natural warming sensation from the ginger in this blend, which is a quality to have in a blend that’s meant to make people feel a bit better from beig sick. There’s a nice thickened mouthfeel to Immunity, which does a lovely job of coating the mouth, and adds a nice soothing aspect to my poor throat.

A Second Cup?

I attempted to resteep Immunity but found that it didn’t taste as good compared to the initial steep.

My Overall Impression

I loved Woash Wellness’s Immunity. I’ve been actually drinking this almost daily since I picked it up from the post office. While I am getting better on my own, having it to help with my sore throat has been absolutely lovely. I love the combination of honeybush, lemon myrtle, and ginger – it makes for a tasty blend that both smells and tastes pretty good. If you’re in need of a delicious boost of flavour while sick, Immunity might be a good option for you!

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Woash Wellness’s Think

Think by Woash Wellness
Oolong Tea / Flavoured
$12.50 for 40g

First Impressions

The thing that drew me to Think when I was looking at Woash Wellness’s offerings at the 2018 Vancouver Tea Festival was the fact that it had an obvious oolong base – and even before looking at the ingredients list, I could smell that it was a milk oolong. In my previous experiences with milk oolong, it’s often creamy, has a light sweetness, and some lovely long-lasting floral notes that are just buttery and good. Think is said to “help to improve mental performance and alertness, while increasing memory retention and lower stress levels”. I think we could all do with a little bit of that in of our lives!

The dry leaf of Think smells primarily of milk oolong – there’s that pleasant, floral and dairy aroma of the oolong base, and I can also smell the lemongrass and potentially the lemon verbana as I can smell a bit of a lemon/citrus in the background. Think consists of: milk oolong, lemongrass, rosehips, lemon verbana, and gingko.

Preparation

Woash Wellness recommends steeping Think in 195°F (90°C) water for 3 to 4 minutes. I followed the steeping instructions for my initial steep of Think and steeped for 4 minutes.

First Taste

Think steeps to a bright golden yellow. The aroma from this oolong blend is primarily creamy, buttery notes for me. I find that there’s a light hint of citrus in the background that I’m attributing to the lemongrass and lemon verbana. It adds a nice brightness to the fragrance. On first taste, I can definitely taste the oolong base – creamy, buttery – everything that I enjoy in a milk oolong. The lemongrass and lemon verbana really offer a burst of citrus that is almost invigorating for the senses. If you’ve ever eaten citrus early in the morning and gotten that burst of energy just from that bright flavour, you may understand what I’m trying to convey here. I do taste the other ingredients, but not enough to be able to pick each one out individually – although it does add for another layer of complexity to Think. There’s a nice sweetness to this oolong blend that balances well with the buttery flavours of the milk oolong.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Think three times, adding an extra 30 seconds to the steep time in each subsequent steep. I found in the first resteep that the colour of ht tea was even a brighter yellow, if that’s even possible. The flavour was undoubtedly more buttery, and the texture of the tea had a thicker mouthfeel to it. The flavour and colour became consistently lighter after that, but the balance between the butter flavours and citrus notes remain well balanced throughout each steep.

My Overall Impression

I loved Woash Wellness’s Think. I think that the milk oolong is cleverly balanced against the citrus/lemon notes from the lemongrass and lemon verbana. It has a great burst of flavour, with all the pleasant textures that I enjoy in milk oolong. What Woash Wellness was striving for – a tea to help with mental alertness – was a goal that was met in my opinion, especially with those citrus flavours that really wake you up. It’s a very pleasant take on a milk oolong blend that I haven’t experienced before and really enjoyed.

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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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