The Two Teas We Sell for People Who Think They Don't Like Tea
"Herbal tea" is a category most people walk past. It sits next to the real tea on the shelf, it does not look like it belongs there, and the reason is usually that they have tried one and it tasted like a warm leaf.
That is a fair complaint about most herbal tea. It is not a complaint about these two.
We sell five teas and a matcha. Two of them are made specifically for the person who is not a tea person — someone who has been handed a mug of chamomile at someone's house and decided, permanently, that tea is not for them.
Here is what is in them, why they are different from the other three, and how to brew them so they do not taste like a warm leaf.
First, what herbal tea actually is
Neither of these two teas is tea.
Real tea — green, black, oolong, white — comes from the leaves of Camellia sinensis, and everything else in the tea world is a herbal infusion, which people usually call a tisane. The distinction is not pedantry; it explains why these two behave completely differently in your cup. Tisanes have no caffeine, no tannins worth avoiding, and no tannin bitterness to hide behind. They are fruit, leaves, flowers, and roots steeped in hot water, and you can taste exactly what is in them.
We have written about tea, tisane, and herbal infusion if you want the full breakdown, and about why tea tastes nothing like coffee if you have never understood the difference.
The short version: with a tisane, there is nothing to hide behind, which is exactly why a good one tastes like fruit and a bad one tastes like a warm leaf.
Mango Treat
This is the one we hand to the person who does not like tea.
Mango Treat is an herbal blend built around natural mango flavor, hibiscus, and rosehips. The cup is ruby-gold and distinctly fruity, and it is just sweet enough that you do not reach for honey — the sweetness comes from the dried fruit, not from anything we added.
That is the whole trick, and it is worth being honest about it: this is a fruit-forward blend, not a medicinal one. If you have ever been handed a cup of something that tasted like a cough drop, this is the opposite of that. It is sweet, fruity, and rounds out warm.
It works hot and it works iced, and it is genuinely better iced. Cold brewing it for six to eight hours in the fridge pulls out a brighter, less tart cup than hot water does, and it is the version we make in summer.
How to brew it: one generous teaspoon per 8 oz of just-boiled water, steep five to ten minutes. For iced, cold brew in the fridge overnight and strain in the morning. The full method is in how to brew Mango Treat herbal tea.
3 oz of loose leaf is $19.99. No caffeine, so it can be the last thing you drink in the day.
Peach Paradise
Same idea, different fruit, and it is the more elegant of the two.
Peach Paradise is built around fruity peach, sour cranberry, and smooth rose. The cup is light ruby in color, distinctly fragrant, and naturally sweet from the dried fruit. The cranberry gives it a little sharpness at the back, which is what keeps it from tasting like dessert syrup — the peach and the sour are supposed to sit next to each other.
It is the one to reach for when you want a cup that feels like a treat in the evening and does not keep you awake. Zero caffeine, and the flavor is rich enough that nobody will ask you why you are drinking herbal tea.
How to brew it: one generous teaspoon per 8 oz of just-boiled water, five to ten minutes. Cold brewed six to eight hours in the fridge, it deepens the peach and softens the cranberry, which is the better version if you are doing it in advance. The full method is in how to brew Peach Paradise herbal tea.
3 oz of loose leaf is $19.99. Also no caffeine.
Why these two and not the other three
We have three other teas, and each one asks for something.
Hibiscus Berry is the one people have usually already had. It is ruby-red and built on organic hibiscus flowers, rosehips, orange peel, and rooibos, finished with blueberry, passionfruit, and mango flavor. Blueberry up front, currant depth underneath, low astringency, high body, and it holds up cold. It is the brightest of our tisanes and the most tart, and if you like cranberry or hibiscus tea, you already know whether you want it. Its method is in how to brew Hibiscus Berry tea.
Jasmine is green tea, which means it has caffeine and a completely different personality — a green tea base scented with jasmine blossoms, medium-bodied, sweet, smooth, silky, and built to be steeped more than once. Thirty seconds on the first infusion, forty-five on the second, and it keeps going for four or five rounds. How to brew jasmine green tea has the method, and what a second steeping does to your tea explains why the second cup is the best one.
Matcha is a different thing entirely — a finely cut green tea you whisk rather than steep, made for a slow morning. It is our most expensive tea per ounce at $24.99 for 1 oz, and the story of matcha is worth reading before you buy it.
Mango Treat and Peach Paradise are the two that do not ask you to already know what you like.
One thing that will fix most bad cups of tea
Measure it.
A "teaspoon" of loose leaf tea is not a consistent unit. Leaf size varies by plant — a hibiscus petal is not the same volume as a rolled oolong — and a heaped spoon can be twice the weight of a level one. This is the same problem as scooping coffee, and we have written about why in why tea measured in spoons doesn't work.
If you have a scale, use it. Our Hibiscus Berry is 3 g per 12 oz. For the two fruit blends, one generous teaspoon per 8 oz of water is where we land, and that is close enough to get a good cup even if your spoon is a little off.
If you have no scale, do the thing that makes these two forgiving anyway: use more leaf than you think, and steep for the full five minutes at the start. You can always shorten the next one. You cannot fix an under-strength cup.
When to drink them
These are evening and afternoon teas, not morning ones.
Because they have no caffeine, they work at the times coffee stops working — the three o'clock slump, the last hour of the evening, the night before an early start. If you are trying to cut back, what to drink when cutting back on caffeine covers the reasoning, and caffeine-free herbal tea for better sleep is the specific case for the last cup of the day.
If you want to choose by mood instead of by caffeine, how to choose the right tea for your mood is the longer version.
If you want to try more than one
We sell a Taster Flight for $49.99 — three full-size 3 oz teas in one box: Mango Treat, Hibiscus Berry, and Jasmine. One caffeine-free, one bright and tart, one caffeinated green tea. It is the cheapest way to find out whether you are a tea person, and it is what we would hand to someone who is not sure.
If you are buying for someone else, we wrote about how to choose a tea sampler for a tea-curious friend, which is a slightly different problem from picking for yourself.
Try one of these two this week
Take the one whose fruit sounds good to you. Mango Treat if you want the sweeter, sunnier cup. Peach Paradise if you want something with a little more edge to it.
Brew it hot with a generous scoop and a full five minutes. Drink it black, without sugar, because the sweetness is already in the cup and the whole point is that you did not have to add anything.
If you still do not like tea, we will say so on our own site and save you the bag.
Steep slow. Sip slow.
— Seraphina