The Good: Truly relaxes, Great taste, Easy to prepare, No aftertaste
The Bad: Extraneous tea garbage, I’d prefer it had a stronger, more distinctive, taste.
The Basics: Oregon Chai Dreamscape Herbal Chai tea effectively took the sting out of a few stressful days, which tells me it does what it promised!
My Oregon Chai experiences are rapidly coming to an end, arguably because I have been calling upon their teas to do what they promise for me the last few days! So, after trying the Oregon Chai The Original Chai Tea (reviewed here!) as a baseline, I had reason to use the Energia Herbal tea (reviewed here!) to try to keep myself awake. Ironically, as my ridiculous day job began to put some unexpected stress upon me, I had cause to go through my box of Dreamscape Herbal tea from Oregon Chai ridiculously fast.
The thing is, the Dreamscape Herbal tea worked! Drinking it (and especially smelling it!) in my office helped me to relax and distress and that is pretty awesome!
Basics
Dreamscape Herbal Chai is a tea from Oregon Chai. It is a tea that has no caffeine, which makes sense for a tea intended to relax. The Dreamscape is a fairly mild herbal tea. Dreamscape Herbal Chai comes in Oregon Chai's standard individually-wrapped tea bags, means that each tea bag has a wax papery envelope it is sealed in for freshness. Each tea bag has a five-inch string with a little paper tab at the end, which is quite a bit more waste than I like from a tea bag. When I make pots of tea, I tend to use two bags and making a steeping pot of Dreamscape Herbal Chai reminds me of why I like the easy environmentalism of Celestial Seasonings' stringless bags. A box of Dreamscape Herbal Chai comes with 20 individually-wrapped tea bags.
Dreamscape Herbal Chai is marketed as a chai spiced tea and a relaxant and it lives up on both fronts!
Ease Of Preparation
Dreamscape Herbal Chai is a chai tea, which means preparation is as easy as boiling a pot of water! Dreamscape Herbal Chai, as the directions clearly state, requires water that is boiling. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea and reusing the tea bags yields a mug full which is about 1/4 strength. This is not a great tea for trying to reuse the tea bags.
To prepare Dreamscape Herbal Chai, simply boil 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 with boiling water, the tea was ready at the four minute mark and letting it steep longer does not truly change the results. Letting the tea steep more than five minutes does not net any additional flavor, nor does it denature the flavor of the tea. However, after brewing for five minutes, trying to reuse the teabag is likely to be a pointless endeavor.
Taste
Brewed properly, the Oregon Chai Dreamscape Herbal Chai Tea emits the exact aroma one might expect from a red tea. The scent is warm and inviting, much like cinnamon and the rooibos is evident for any tea-lover who is able to recognize it.
Dreamscape Herbal Chai tea tastes like is smells; the flavor is mild and warm and contains the distinct flavor of red tea from rooibos and honeybush. This is basically the flavor of a half-strength black tea with a lot of cinnamon and cloves poured in. It is more mild than forceful and it actually was relaxing.
The Dreamscape Herbal Chai tea does not have an aftertaste, which is always nice.
Nutrition
The primary ingredients in the Dreamscape Herbal Chai tea are: organic rooibos, organic Honeybush, and ginger root. This tea is devoid of any nutritional value. It contains no calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates, caffeine or protein.
Storage/Clean-up
Oregon Chai's Dreamscape Herbal Chai is a fairly light brown-colored herbal tea. As a result, cleanup is rather simple, save on fabrics. The mugs and steeping pot easily rinse out. This tea will stain if it is left on fabrics, so simply do not let the tea cups or mugs linger on light colored materials that might stain!
Dreamscape Herbal Chai 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. However, like all Oregon Chai teabags, there is extra waste from the strings, paper tabs and individual wrappings around each bag.
Overall
Oregon Chai Dreamscape Herbal Chai tea is a wonderfully relaxing red tea and while I might have wanted a little more flavor, it is not at all enough to sink this beverage!
For other teas, please check out my reviews of:
Bigelow Sweet Dreams
Yogi Ginger Organic
Dilmah Ceylon Green
7.5/10
For other beverage reviews, please check out my Food Review Index Page!
© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
No comments:
Post a Comment