Tea Review Tuesday - A Review of Stash Tea Company's Lemon Ginger Herbal Tea

This week's tea review involves something different. For once, it seems, the tea I am reviewing came to me, rather than me seeking after it. The office in which I work has a decent amount of bagged tea - mostly Peet's, Stash, and Bigelow - which I typically overlook in favor of my own "stash" of loose leaf tea, kept in a desk drawer. However, when the latest restock of the break room occurred, one of the new offerings caught my eye - this Lemon Ginger Herbal "Tea" (quotation marks added by me to emphasize the misnomer).

An herbal blend, created by the Stash Tea Company, ginger root and lemongrass have been combined with lemon flavor, safflower, hibiscus, and citric acid for what is sure to be an intense cup. Personally, I am not entirely certain about the purpose of the citric acid in this blend, but the hibiscus should be an interesting touch. I boil a cup of water, pour it over the teabag in a mug, and set the timer for five minutes.

The packaging suggests three to five minutes, but as is my normal tendency, I go for the longer steep time, both for the sake of the intense flavors and to see if the upper-end leads to any over-steeping. Expecting aromas of lemon and ginger, the presence of hibiscus in the pre-steeped scent surprises me. However, when the steeping is done, the aromas are almost entirely ginger and lemon. The lemon scent noticeably comes from both lemon grass and added lemon flavor. In fact, they actually smell quite different.

Even though I steeped the blend for five minutes, my first sip does not hit me with a blast of ginger, as I expected. Instead, the ginger first bites the tongue, then subdues as the lemon slides over the taste buds. They merge in the finish, leaving a smooth aftertaste. On the sides of the tongue, hibisicus moves quietly in the background.

While I like the initial flavor and most of the body, the finish disappoints. It tastes thin and weak. Yes, I did mention it was smooth, but as I work my way through the cup, the aftertaste seems like I drank this an hour ago, not just a few seconds. I wonder, if this has to do with the freshness of the ingredients. While my teabag did say to enjoy by August of 2017, I have had other blends that used both lemongrass and ginger root together, and the ginger, at least, was a powerful flavor throughout the tea. That said, I did enjoy this cup, and I would rate it a 72/100 on my personal enjoyment scale. Looking for something totally different for your non-caffeinated cup? This might be to your liking.



Photo credit to Built from Ink and Tea.
Stash Tea Company's Lemon Ginger Herbal Tea is available from their website, here.
This review was unsolicited and uncompensated.
Text is copyright 2015, Built from Ink and Tea.