Jul 14
Review: Tea Palace Harmony
Cardamom Tea, Fennel Tea, Ginger Tea, Herbal Tea, Licorice Root Tea, Rose Tea, Tea Palace Add commentsVanessa’s Teaview Snapshot
 | "The downfall of this blend is the lack of balance among the ingredients. If you have anything less than a zealous passion for cardamom, then this tea will probably be too much for you."
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Harmony is a blend of herbal tea offered by the UK-based tea company called the Tea Palace. This blend consists of cardamom, coriander, fennel, ginger, liquorice and rose petals, which makes for a who's who list of pungent ingredients. Indeed, as expected, this tea has some serious kick to it. The Tea Palace website lists this tea as a tea tonic, meaning that it is an herbal infusion "exclusively blended according to traditional Ayurvedic teachings from Kerala, India". This is one of those herbal blends that could function not only as a tea but also as potpourri because it is visually attractive and strong in the scent arena. While preparing to infuse the blend for a cup of this, I noticed that there was an awfully large number of cardamom pods, so much so that I was concerned about the strength of this tea. I went so far as to manually remove some cardamom pods from the scoop (with the reasoning that the cardamom pods, being the largest ingredient, had all settled out to the top of the blend). The brewed beverage was, as I feared, little more than a cardamom infusion. I personally find cardamom to be a nice background play in a blend, but never enjoy it when it is the focus of the drink. The cardamom was entirely too strong for me and I could not bring myself to finish more than a few sips of the tea. Not wanting to be hasty in my review, however, I decided to tackle this blend again the next day. Before scooping out a spoonful for infusion, I made sure to thoroughly mix the blend so that all ingredients were represented. I had hopes that this would cure the problem of yesterday's cardamom overload. Sadly, this was not the case. Despite my efforts to incorporate all of the ingredients, this tea was nothing more than cardamom, cardamom, and more cardamom, although this time I did also pick up on a medicinal aftertaste. That the fennel, ginger, and liquorice (all very strong ingredients in their own right) could not even be remotely detected speaks volumes on the strength of the cardamom in this blend. The downfall of this blend is the lack of balance among the ingredients; perhaps if the ingredients were added in different ratios, the result would have been more pleasant. It is clear from looking at this tea that the ingredients are of high-quality, so my low rating should not indicate that this is a bad and low-quality tea. My reason for the low rating is that the tea is not well-balanced and most of the ingredients are drowned out by the ever-potent cardamom. If you have anything less than a zealous passion for cardamom, then this tea will probably be too much for you.
— To purchase Tea Palace Harmony, or for more specific information on ingredients or the story behind this particular blend, click here to go directly to the manufacturer's web site.
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