The Good: Good ingredients, Tastes good.
The Bad: Decaffeined!, Has a slight green tea aftertaste
The Basics: With a pair of subtle flavors Honey Chamomile Green Tea is an adequate but somewhat bland tea from Celestial Seasonings.
As one who drinks a lot of tea, I recently became quite concerned when I heard about a study that correlated the drinking of black teas with the development of kidney stones in people. I became somewhat terrified, looked into it and confirmed that it does seem legitimate that there is a correlation and vowed to drink a few less boxes of black tea a month.
So, to compensate, when I was out buying tea the other day before some coupons expired, I picked up some green and herbal teas, which is not much of a problem; the herbal teas, especially, are what Celestial Seasonings are known for! The first one I found to try that was new to me, though, was Honey Chamomile Green Tea. And despite my usual gripes about decaffeined teas, Honey Chamomile was all right.
Basics
Honey Chamomile is a tea from Celestial Seasonings. It is a 100% natural green tea that is decaffeinated and this is somewhat problematic in its suggestion. Usually, the processes by which tea leaves are decaffeinated - even green tea leaves - is a chemical process which is by its nature not a natural one. It also usually strips off some of the nutrients, yet this tea is both listed as Decaffeinated - NOT Caffeine Free - and 100% natural. As a green tea, the tea includes leaves that are plucked at the peak of growth, not dried. Honey Chamomile comes in Celestial Seasoning's standard stringless tea bags, which are paired together with easy to separate perforations that allow one to separate the tea bags. When I make pots of tea, I tend to use two bags and leave them connected. A box of Honey Chamomile comes with ten pairs (20 individual) of tea bags.
Honey Chamomile is marketed as a lightly flavored green tea and it is all right, though it does fall down on the honey front in its unadulterated form. Those accustomed to Celestial Seasonings' richness of flavor in their other teas are likely to be somewhat let down by how weak the fruit flavor is in this particular tea. Because it is a green tea, Celestial Seasonings seems quite concerned with keeping the flavor subtle, so it is less bold than some of the other teas that trade on being flavored with more than one flavor.
Ease of Preparation
Honey Chamomile is a green tea, which means preparation is ridiculously easy! One need not even be able to boil water to make this tea. Green teas, as the directions clearly state, require water that is not quite boiling. Boiling water cooks the tea leaves and ruins the flavor, so water used for green teas like this one must be kept below a full boil. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea, though reusing the tea bags yields little more than hot water. These tea bags cannot be reused and even credibly call the result "tea." Indeed, the second pots I've tried were incredibly weak, tasting like colored water as opposed to tea. These bags are one-use only. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though it is impossible to get a decent second pot out of the bags.
To prepare Honey Chamomile, simply heat up some water, and pour it over the tea bags in a cup, mug or steeping pot. This tea is recommended to take three to five minutes to steep and based on my experiences with this tea, I've found that with almost boiling water, the tea is ready at the five minute mark and letting it steep longer does not truly change the results. Letting the tea steep more than six minutes does not net any additional flavor, nor does it denature the flavor of the tea.
Taste
Honey Chamomile has a surprisingly wonderful aroma, no doubt from the chamomile. However, while most chamomile teas smell like ricewater, this has a more floral bouquet and it is actually quite delightful. This tea smells like a field of daisies in sunlight.
The taste, though, is as subtle as one might expect from a chamomile and green tea blend. The tea is essentially flavored water and the taste is hard to define better than that. Actually, it tastes like what one might expect as a seasoned tea drinker of a chamomile and green tea blend. By this, I mean that it tastes like washed out black tea (the green tea element) and slightly grainy (the chamomile flavor). The honey flavor is completely sublimated to the light tea taste of the primary tea flavors in its unadulterated form. As well, there is the slight aftertaste one might expect from a green tea, but far far less than one might anticipate.
With a teaspoon of sugar, though, Honey Chamomile actually comes alive with the sweet flavor of honey and the aftertaste is completely eliminated. With sugar, the dominant flavor is actually that of honey and it overwhelms the more subtle tea flavors with a richness that dances on the tongue.
Cold or iced, this tea is little more than colored water with a green tea aftertaste. Seriously, cold the tea's taste dies a quick and unfortunate death and is never heard from again. This is a poor tea cold.
Nutrition
It is not surprising that the honey flavor is submissive in Honey Chamomile, based on the ingredients. The primary ingredients are Decaffeinated Green Tea, Chamomile and Natural Honey Flavor. Actual honey is the final ingredient. Honey Chamomile tea is supposedly all natural, gluten free, and does not contain caffeine.
Were it not for the sugar I add whenever I make pots of Honey Chamomile, this tea would be devoid of any nutritional value. It contains no calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates or protein. It is a subtle tea that is not a pick-me-up.
Storage/Clean-up
Honey Chamomile is a green tea, so it comes out much lighter than other teas. As a result, cleanup is rather simple. The mugs and steeping pot easily rinse out. This tea will stain fabrics if left on them, like most teas, but it is hardly the most extreme in this regard. This cleans up easily and lighter fabrics stained with Honey Chamomile ought to rinse out well.
Honey Chamomile is easy to clean up after - the tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. One of the nice things about this tea - like most - is that so long as it is kept cool and dry, it can last for a long time and it is easy to clean up.
Overall
Honey Chamomile left me feeling like I wish black teas wouldn't destroy my kidneys as I wanted something a little more flavorful. Still, it is not a bad tea and keeping a box on hand makes for a nice afternoon tea.
For other Celestial Seasonings reviews, please check out my takes on:
Devonshire English Breakfast
Canadian Vanilla Maple
Saphara White Tea With Schinzara
6/10
For other food and drink reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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