Tea Emperor

So, my review was a long time coming as my wife so eloquently put it in the previous article - Tea Emperor’s own review post will come soon after mine.

MAKERS OF THE TEA
Small tea plantation in Japan under private ownership. Can tea get any more real? Not much!

INSTRUCTIONS
Instruction manuals (and asking the way if lost) are for women and engineers. They are helpful if one has no idea about the topic, but useless if one doesn’t know how to read. Luckily I can read and I am rather new to tea. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I drink several big mugs of the damn thing every day, but ceremony and gong fu are far beyond the reach of my skills. Good thing that they include all the necessary guides on their website too, check them here.

COVER LETTER
They had included a very comforting cover letter, which told about the teas in question. Sample bags were stabled on to the paper so it was impossible to mix them up and therefore accidentally review a wrong product. Simple and effective not to mention beautiful.

THE TEA
Now you know that supportive items were fine, but how about the tea itself?

1st steep for half a minute
Refreshing and light taste with sweet aftertaste. Just my kind of a cup of tea that’s what this is, but then again I am from Finland and the strongest spice that we use here is black pepper. We like our food mild and vodka strong and cold. We drink coffee here tea, however, is a drink for old women… Anyway I liked my first cup.

2nd steep for about ten seconds
Much stronger and pit over the top for me. I liked the aftertaste though and had high hopes for the third steep.

3rd steep for half a minute again
This one already had lost its luster and was easily downed as a refreshing drink.

4th steep for one minute

Frustratingly bland and got quickly thrown away, but the left over green tea salad was fantastic!

Ricola used to be my favourite big brand name manufacturer of foodstuffs. The company was established in 1924 and originally made various sugary sweets of which a cough drop with herbs became a big hit and was further developed into a Swiss Herbal Candy. Customers took the herbal candy and used it in the most peculiar manner. When candies were mixed into hot water the result was delicious herbal tea. Sales rocketed!

Eventually one thing led to another and the company became involved with supporting the growing herbs that they use in their production. Think of those pure plants high on the mountains, could there be a cleaner place to grow crops?

THE TEA REVIEW
Enough of the company background and to the point. This time I’m going to focus on Ricola Herb Tea that is absolutely fantastic! With fantastic I refer to the taste, which is just delicious. Quick glance to the product information sheds some light on the reason for the taste. It must be delicious, because the herbal tea is basically sugar and only 2,7% of the content consists of herbs. Candy for kids, eh?

I don’t have scientific reports to back me up, but I believe that product, which has so much terrible carbon hydrates can’t compensate with a small amount of herbs. I know it tastes great, but for diabetes sake, don’t drink it! End of story. Drink real herbal tea instead!