Hullo!!! How has everyone been doing? It has been awhile since I last did a review on this blog and today I'm here to review Your Tea's Liver Cleanse Kit that they have so kindly sent over for me to try. Please note that I am not paid to promote, however, I am merely penning (figuratively) down my opinions and what I have observed when drinking the teas. I'll first talk about the packaging, what did the pack include and my overall impression and then moving on to the taste and smell of each tea. Finally, I'll talk about what I felt after drinking the teas and end with concluding comments on the kit itself in general.
Can't start a product review without a artsy-fartsy picture of the products itself isn't it. heh.
For people who know me, I really like to drink tea. I mean, what is there not to like about teas?! Personally, I choose white and green tea over black and red tea. One of my favourite teas in the world is the Genmaicha, Japanese brown rice tea. My friends once jokingly said it was peasant tea because it was supposed to be cheap, for some reason I can never get the peasant association out of my mind every time I have some of those. >=( Thanks. Nicole.
Whoop! Really love the packaging! More about this later.
I also have a personal preference that is slightly more biased towards eastern medication rather than western. Though of course, often when I am suffering from a mild headache or menstrual cramps, it is often easier to pop Panadols rather than to find out what kind of herbs would help. However, during my 2 years living alone in Newcastle, I often found my own home made Chinese herbal tea (Dried chrysanthemum with dried honeysuckle - the more bitter the better) more effective in quickly relieving sore throats when they are about to hit me than say the western method of taking vitamin C right before you fall sick to boost your immunity system. Tried and tested guys. For some reason, Chinese herbal tea works better for me. Or maybe the aunty in me just approves of the methods my mom pass down to me. Anyway I digress, let's move on with the review.
1) The Packaging
I do have a particular bias towards brands that actually put in effort in packaging their products. It is after all, about first impressions and the customer's buying experience. This starts right from the moment they enter your webpage all the way till they receive and use the product. Here you can see that they have specially designed the box that fits and displays all the teabags and the glass thermos nice and snug in their respective compartments. At the inner flap of the kit comes with a short welcome message from Your Tea. This is a really nice detail that I do really appreciate. The kit itself contained Morning, Afternoon, Probiotic and Night Teas with a leak proof glass thermos and a 100 page liver cleanse guide
2) The Teas
Your Tea team has kindly sent me the Liver Cleanse Kit for me to review. This pack consist of 14 Morning Teas, 14 Afternoon Teas, 14 Night Teas and 8 Probiotic Teas. According to Your Tea, the Morning and Afternoon Tea are the crux of the cleanse, designed to cleanse the liver and digestive system. Night Tea is intended to remove excess heat, having you cool, calm and relaxed, ready for a restful, rejuvenating night’s sleep.
The Morning Tea
I'd like to give you some context before I start my review on the teas. I received the kit during my revision week before my finals in my final year. I thought it was a great opportunity to test them out as I do have a history of overly stressing myself out and having breakouts during the exam period. Thus, diligently, I drank the morning tea as per instructed. The tea has a mild taste and having a warm drink in the cold dreary England mornings has always been a routine I look forward to every day despite not looking forward to any of the scheduled revisions that follows.
As aforementioned, due to my Asian roots, I do have a slight bias towards eastern medicine. To my delight, the Liver Cleanse pack are all made up of a formula of Chinese herbs that are prepared by their team of professional Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Practitioners. Actually, this was also one of the main reason why I chose to take up this product review assignment over other detox/self-proclaimed 'slimming' products.
The Morning and Afternoon Teas are blended with Jasmine Green Tea (yay one of my favourite teas!) and many other Chinese herbs such as Dan Shen (Salvia Root), Bai Shao (White Peony Root), Huang Qi (Astragalus), Bai Zhu (White Atractylodes Rhizome), Chai Hu (Thorowax Root, Bupleurum), Mu Dan Pi (Chinese Herb: Mu Dan Pi (Cortex of the Peony Tree Root)), Gan Cao (Licorice Root), Tai Zi Shen (Pseudostellaria Root), Chen Pi (Orange Peels), Zhi Ke (Bitter Orange Peel), Chi Shao (Red Peony Root), Da Zhao (Jujube Fruit), Gou Qi Zi (Goji Berry).
I'm not going to pretend like I am a pro in this area as many of the herbs listed are quite beyond me. I can maybe recognise the orange peel, goji berry, red dates and liquorice. The mild taste of the Morning Tea came as a surprise to me as the tea bag did look really filled up with lots of herbs. However, I did notice better bowel movements as well as digestion which often comes together with drinking warm water in the morning. I usually take the Morning Tea after my breakfast as a way to prep myself for the revisions scheduled for the day. As I do not usually have problems with bowel movements or digestions, I treated it as a way to add flavour to the otherwise tasteless, good old H2O.
The Afternoon Tea
I usually take the Afternoon Tea after lunch. Again, it has a rather mild taste as well which I really like as reflected on my personal preference of white and green tea over the stronger tasting varieties such as black and red tea. Psychologically, it makes me feel like I am treating my body properly as you know how during exams, the quality of the food taken is usually lower due to the lack of time to cook proper food. As Newcastle is really cold in comparison to Singapore, it is often very therapeutic to watch the steam spirals from the mug; Cupping the mug in your hands and feeling the warmth spreading onto your palms whilst being in a 2 degree weather. I also did notice feeling more relaxed after a cup of warm tea (as you know, stress levels are usually constantly high as the exam date drew nearer).
The Probiotic Tea
This one is supposed to help with 'heatiness'. I had a pretty entertaining conversation once with my previous flat mate who was a British medical student. I was trying to explain to him the concept of being 'heaty' and also how our bodies have to balance the 'ying' with the 'yang'. He looked at me like i was crazy and said it was old wive's tales. As much as I hate to admit that he may have a better argument about how the body works as opposed to my argument of 'my mommy said so', I still insist that drinking/eating 'cooling' fluids/food such as herbal teas (liang teh) and watermelons really works.
Luckily for me, I didn't feel like I was really 'heaty', also, fearing that I will be too 'liang' which may potentially make me fall sick as well (not something you want to do when you're about to take your finals), the Probiotic Tea is the only tea that I did not finish drinking. I'm saving this for the next time I get a sore throat from eating 'heaty' food. :3
The Night Tea
The night tea has the strongest taste amongst the 4 teas. Naturally caffeine free, it contains a distinctive liquorice after taste. Not being a huge fan of liquorice, I must admit, I have skipped this tea once or twice with the Morning and Afternoon Tea being my favourite. However, as Newcastle is very cold, I really do enjoy a warm beverage throughout the day and into the night. My body is very sensitive to caffeines hence, I do not drink liquids containing caffeine after 5pm every day. This is thus, a great solution to my own particular preference towards the liquids I put into my body.
The night tea has a blend of ingredients that is put together to help remove excessive 'heat' from your body with ingredients such as lotus plant, lavender, rose and of course, as mentioned before, liquorice root. As mentioned before, it as a distinctive liquorice aftertaste that is not pleasant for people who doesn't like liquorice, however, as I do really like the taste of lavender and rose, I felt like this was a cup of tea that I do enjoy in general.
Totally not flexing
3. The Glass Thermos
The kit comes together with a leak proof glass thermos that has a mini sieve at the top to prevent any loose tea leaves from going into your mouth. It is currently my favourite bottle x mug and I use it to drink all my teas including the ones from the Liver Cleanse kit. I love the simplicity of the design and also the good glass quality. Initially I was a little skeptical as I was afraid that putting boiling hot water into a glass thermos is going to burn my hand at best, or worst, explodes. Surprisingly, the thermos was pleasantly warm to touch, understandably with boiling water sitting on its insides. It is very easy to grip and you can very easily see any dirt and clean off any remnants of the tea leaves.
So after an overview of the product and a little discussion of my general impression, taste and feel of the teas, here are some of my critiques on the kit in general. I felt like the word 'Liver Cleanse' kit was a little misleading as your liver cleanses itself. I understand that the teas will aid in cleansing your liver but I felt like calling it a 'Liver Cleansing' pack can be a little bit misleading.
1) Packaging 10/10
I love the packaging and the presentation of the product. Information on the product was very clear and informative which, I really appreciates as anyone would want to know what exactly they are putting into their bodies.
2) Morning, Afternoon, Probiotic Teas 9/10. Night Tea 8/10
I couldn't really tell the difference between the teas besides their flavours. However, in general I love how the teas make me feel. Somehow, I always feel like my mood gets better and I do feel more relaxed. However, I felt like most teas would give you similar effects even though the liver cleanse teas have very unique taste that is not replicable by the store bought teas.
Liquorice Root. No. I really don't like it. Self-explanatory.
3) Glass Thermos 10/10
I love it! Works well, does not leak, pretty, portable, super useful!!
Overall rating for this product: 9/10
I honestly feel like it does what it says, elevates my mood, reduces stress, better bowel movements, better digestions. I love the suggested scheduling of the tea breaks and also, I really like how much effort were put into compiling the information booklet and the wealth of general heathy living information that makes it interesting to read in addition to the product information. There were suggestions on the type of food to take with eating plans, shopping lists and lots of recipe at the end. 9/10!
Thanks for reading my humble review. Till next time!
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