I might have mentioned it before, but I’m currently on a tea-buying ban. Unsurprisingly, there are tons of tea that I want to buy so I’ve redoubled my tea drinking efforts. So far, I’ve finished three teas and opened two new ones lying around. One of them was T2’s Lady Esmerelda’s Ultimate Dream Dictionary and the other is this one.

Yarra Valley Tea Co.’s Aunt Myrtle Organic Recharge Tea

Aunt Myrtle Organic Recharge Tea describes itself this way:

“Subtle, invigorating and complete. A perfect combination of Victorian grown green sencha tea blended with Queensland grown lemon myrtle. A delightful mid-morning comforter or afternoon restorative! Delightful with honey, a well read book and a comfortable chair!” 

I don’t really think subtle teas are the most invigorating but this sounded good! And if you’re like me and don’t know your plants, lemon myrtle is a type of plant native to Australia. One of its other names is lemon scented verbena, which is apparently a different plant from lemon verbena.

The tea smells like lemon, a little sharper than lemongrass. The liquor is a light greenish yellow colour (my camera didn’t capture it too well, unfortunately) and it tastes like an astringent lemon tea. I’m afraid I didn’t taste the green tea, unless the astringency was it. It’s actually one of the more astringent teas that I’ve had – the only one I can think of that is more astringent without being bitter is Leaffree’s Red Jade Black Tea.

Recommended Brewing Directions: Brew with water “off the boil” for 1 – 2 minutes

Green Pot’s Lemongrass Green Tea

Interesting, I have another tea similar to the Aunt Myrtle Organic Recharge Tea! Both of them were given to me via the Dayre Tea Exchange, so thank you, Y!!!

The description of the tea is rather long, so I’ll just quote the last paragraph:

“This tea is wonderfully relaxing. Citral, found in lemongrass, calms the body down, eases the muscles and nerves so you’ll feel composed and refreshed. High in antioxidants, it lowers our cholesterol, detoxifies and reduces skin inflammation. Besides an ancient home remedy for cold and nausea, it also relieves bloatedness and gas in the stomach.” 

With so many purported health qualities, I have to check it out. Especially since I spent quite a lot of time at work this week on Google Scholar to look for the health benefits of various tisanes. So before I go into the taste of the tea, here is what I found out about lemongrass:

• Calming effects: I did not find any studies about lemongrass, but I did find one about citral [1]. It’s not about relaxation, but about muscle relaxation and sleep, which is the closest I could find about the claims. According to the study, “muscle relaxation detected by the rota rod test was seen only at the highest doses of citral (200 mg/kg body wt.)” and “although citral did not increase the onset of sleep, it increased the duration of sleep, which is indicative of a potentiation of sleeping time”. The study was done on mice, so while I wouldn’t be so definitive about the calming properties of lemongrass, it could be true.
• While I couldn’t find anything about the amount of antioxidants in lemongrass, there is a paper that says that the research “suggested that the lemongrass plant (C. citratus) extract has antimicrobial activity, antioxidant activity and DNA damage protectively”[2]
• I could not find anything about detoxing[3], bloatedness, and skin inflammation, but to be fair, antioxidants do a lot of different things and these may be one of the effects. Plus, Google Scholar, while a pretty good resource, doesn’t have everything so I might have missed something.

This tea is a sweeter version of Aunt Myrtle Organic Recharge tea. Unlike the previous tea, I could feel the green tea, though mostly a rough (and perhaps umami?) sensation when I swallow. It isn’t particularly sharp or astringent, which would make it good for chill days.

Overall, these are pretty nice teas. While I woudn’t be reaching for them for health benefits, I will be reaching for them as a tasty drink. I think Aunty Myrtle will be nice for the morning, when I need something a bit sharper[4], and that the lemongrass tea will be good for after lunch.

References

[1] Do Vale, T. Gurgel, et al. “Central effects of citral, myrcene and limonene, constituents of essential oil chemotypes from Lippia alba (Mill.) NE Brown.” Phytomedicine 9.8 (2002): 709-714.

[2] Balakrishnan, Balachandar, Sadayan Paramasivam, and Abimanan Arulkumar. “Evaluation of the lemongrass plant (Cymbopogon citratus) extracted in different solvents for antioxidant and antibacterial activity against human pathogens.” Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Disease 4.1 (2014): S134-S139.

[3] To be fair to them, I’m the kind of person that goes “Your kidneys and liver do all your detoxing needs!” and generally won’t do detox diets on the basis that they are unnecessary.

[4] And to remind myself to drink water because I actually became thirsty after that tea.