Aviva Chai Yerba Mate Tea Review and Celestials Seasonings Giveaway
April 6, 2009 by Diana
Filed under yerba mate
Aviva Yerba Mate Review Week Day 2. I’m going to be reviewing Aviva’s Chai Yerba Mate tea today because I need to warm up and I think a tea would spices is just what I need. Last week it was so sunny and hot that I was wearing a t-shirt outside, now fast forward to this morning. When I woke up, I saw SNOW. It’s APRIL! Come on! As I’m typing this review, there is about 2 inches of snow on the ground and the flurries are coming down hard. ;(
Look my cup is almost empty!
The ingredients of this tea are wild harvest grown yerba mate, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, allspice, cloves and black pepper. Yerba mate is hard to use as a base in teas because it’s so overpowering, you really have to use a lot of flavouring, herbs and spices to counteract the mate. It is definitely a difficult base to blend with. The aroma and flavor of the yerba mate a very potent, there is only a slight spiciness that comes through with this tea. It really helped warm me up! I’m also getting a caffeine type rush though from the tea, phew. I think this tea missed it’s mark as a chai, but if you like a strong mate with a hint of spiciness or you’re just drinking it for the numerous health benefits then this tea for you. It’s also on sale right now; $18 US will get you about 207-214 teabags!
To enter follow me on Twitter or comment on my blog for the month of April until the 20th.
I’m very excited to announce Rocking the Republic’s first tea giveaway. I hope to give away many more teas in the future from various tea companies. For the month of April, Celestial Seasonings and I are partnering to do a giveaway. The winner will be drawn on April 20th 30th 2009 before I leave for the World Tea Expo. To enter please start following me on twitter or comment in the month of April on my blog on or before the 20th 30th. And the contest is open to anyone and everyone. The mystery tea gift package will be mailed out after I draw the winner!
Good luck everyone!
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Celestial Seasonings – Sleepytime Throat Tamer Tea Review
March 31, 2009 by Diana
Filed under Black Tea, Health, Tea review, Tisane, herbs, loose leaf
There are so many amazing tea companies from Colorado, and Celestial Seasonings is another one of them. I’ll be reviewing one of their caffeine free herbal supplement teas today – Sleepytime Throat Tamer. To start, the ingredients of this tea are chamomile, licorice, tilia estrella (a flower), ginger root, slippery elm bark, spearmint, west Indian lemongrass and natural lemon and ginger flavours with other natural flavours (contains soy lecithin). Phew what a mouthful – no pun intended. The dosage of the first 5 ingredients are:
Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) (flowers) 550mg
Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) (root) 260mg
Tilia estrella (Ternstroemia pringlei) (flowers) 150mg
Ginger (Zingiber officinale) (root) 70mg
Slippery Elm Bark (Ulmus rubra) 35mg
The purpose of this tea is to soothe minor throat irritations that may occur between seasonal changes. This is all too common when the harsh cold winter turns into spring!
Herbal supplement in a cup
I brewed this caffeine free tea with water that was almost at boiling point for 6 minutes or so. With herbal teas you can always steep longer to get a stronger flavour without risk of it being too bitter. After steeping the tea became a dark golden brown. It smelt heavily of lemongrass and chamomile when I first dipped my nose into the tea. Now comes the sipping. This tea was very light in body and is very soothing. There was a strong kick to the tea from the licorice, ginger and slippery elm.
If you’ve never had licorice as a root before, there is the possibility that you may not like this herb! Licorice as a herb gives off a sweet and almost minty type of sensation in your mouth. It can be very refreshing and cooling to the body. it’s great for reducing inflammation and detoxifying. Please note licorice root is not safe for pregnant or breastfeeding women, so if you are, do not take this tea.
Overall, I recommend this tea, if you need something soothing to sip throughout the day, in the evening or at night to sooth the throat and cool the soul.
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Celestial Seasonings Plants Trees
February 24, 2009 by Diana
Filed under Environment
Do you remember the first time you opened a Celestial Seasonings box? Were you confused? Amazed or Annoyed? I for one was, baffled. Where were the cute little individual tea packets? When I expressed my annoyance to Dean, he said something along the lines of “It’s more environmentally friendly!” Of course! How did I oversee that? It was brilliant. Celestial Seasonings puts all their individual tea sachets into a wax packaging to prevent waste from the strings and cute little tags that many companies have.
I am a huge environmentalist and always have been since I was a little kid. I always felt there was something “wrong” with wasting paper, cutting down trees and polluting. Those WWF commercials in the 1990s of the evil industrialist cutting down all the trees in the world really made a huge impact on my impressionable psyche. 
Needless to say, I love it when companies choose to give back to the community or in this case, the world, instead of always looking at the bottom line.
Recently Celestial Seasonings partnered with the non-profit organization Trees for the Future to support the planting of trees in developing countries. If you visit Celestial Seasonings from now until March 31, 2009 you can plant a virtual tree on their website that Celestial Seasonings will then turn into reality. As of this posting I just planeted the 1960th tree! Once you plant your tree Celestial Seasonings sends a cute little em-mail saying
“Your tree will help remove approximately 50 pounds of harmful carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year.” If you are wondering why planting trees is so important in developing countries. I encourage you to visit the Trees for the Future link above for more information. Also note that
“For every box of tea you buy between January 1 and March 31, Celestial Seasonings will sponsor the planting of trees all around the world—up to one million trees in all”
Yay drink tea and save the environment. Celestial Seasonings teas are pretty cheap and can be easily purchased at any local supermarkets, even Wal-mart carries them.
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