Offblak – Sleep Breezy Chamomile and Peach flavour infusion
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Let’s be clear about one thing. This is not tea. ‘Ceci n’est pas’ as René Magritte might say, ‘un thé’. Tea, as far as I’m concerned, contains leaves from the plant Camelia sinensis, and anything which is made from some other kinds of plant material is a different kind of beverage altogether.
In fact, there’s a perfectly good word already in existence for such things: Tisane. I feel that if we all use the word tisane rather than trying to shoehorn herbal and fruit tea under the tea umbrella, then the world would be a much more straightforward place.
Americans in particular seem to be a bit fuzzy about the distinction between herbal nonsenses and proper cups of actual tea. In the horror film, The Prodigy, there’s a scene where someone is asked if they would like a cup of tea. They are then offered the choice of peppermint or honey and lemon. What the hell is that about? Surely the natural reaction to that would be “No, I’d like a cup of tea please. Like you offered. Not some random-arse bits of other foliage steeped in water”. The main character doesn’t say that though. To be fair she had found herself living in a horror movie so she was probably a bit distracted.
Fruit infusions always promise so much. You open the packet and the whole thing generally smells marvellous and brings to mind some classy brand of potpourri. (Whatever happened to potpurri by the way? Do places even sell it anymore? Has it been ousted by the diffuser?) Once you add boiling hot water, though, that’s where it generally fails to live up to expectations and all you’ve got is a cup of delicately scented hot water.
“Well, if you feel that strongly about it,” you might say. “Why are you reviewing fruity tisanes on your tea blog?” It’s a perfectly valid point, dear reader, and one which I will robustly counter by refusing to answer the question.
Offblak’s Sleep Breezy is a perfectly satisfactory representative of the fruity herbal tea genre. Billed as chamomile and peach flavour, the word ‘flavour’ there is an acknowledgement that there are no actual peaches in it. It does, however, contain lemon grass, rosehip, apple pieces and blackberry leaves, which presumably all add to the flavour and produce a chamomile tea, which doesn’t actually taste that much like chamomile (which is a definite plus in my opinion). I do think they need to up their game, as far as the peaches are concerned, though. Bird and Blend’s Peach Cobbler contains freeze dried peach pieces so we know that the technology exists.
One odd thing about this tisane is how much the dried ingredients want to escape from the confines of their tea bag. If you shake the dry tea bag over a saucer (which obviously I did do in the spirit of scientific enquiry) you get a substantial scattering of tiny flecks of something or other, which look just like the bath does when I drained the water after I’ve been shaving my legs. In fact, to continue the leg stubble analogy (and I’m sorry Offblak, but you’ve brought this on yourself really), when you examine the teabag all the twiggy needly bits are poking through the mesh in a manner reminiscent of sheer tights over stubbly legs.
Sleep Breezy is nonetheless, a pleasant enough drink. It is – as these things are – pretty much the same as drinking a cup of hot squash. But in this case, it would be one of those posh squashes that comes in a glass bottle and calls itself a cordial.
If, unlike me, you are a big fan of fruity concoctions attempting to pass themselves off as tea, you should probably mentally add two stars to every tisane review that I do going forward. It seems unlikely that I’m ever going to give one more than three stars to be honest. I will keep looking though. Perhaps one day I will find a fruity, not-tea that absolutely knocks my socks off.
Lots of my tea pictures will feature books because I like to photograph the teas next to stuff and most of my stuff is books. Today’s featured book is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman: Dream Country.
