Until "Relaxing Chamomile", I hadn't chugged a chamomile tea with this many ingredients: at least seven. I say, "at least", because after chamomile, hawthorne berry, eleuthero, rose petals, natural blood orange flavor, and natural vanilla flavor, the final ingredient was, "other natural flavors", whatever that means.

This was an experience. The dry-bag aroma was a mildly fruit-punchy, somewhat honey-like, somewhat straw-like chamomile, very intriguing. Brewing it up, the liquid began as an oddly vivid green color, somewhere between lime and olive on the palette, slowly transitioning over minutes to the mostly translucent golden/tan hue we more likely would expect with a regular chamomile that has been sitting there steeping awhile. The in-cup scent much like the dry-bag aroma. Sniffing the wet bag, however, yielded an entirely different impression: a strange combination of buttery and earthy smell, only faintly chamomile-like, that I've not experienced before. It was as if someone had dropped freshly buttered popcorn on the moist forest floor, followed by shoving one's face down in it and breathing deeply. I haven't known such a marked difference between aromas of dry and wet bag in any tea that I can recall.

That only heightened the anticipation of how the taste would shake out. For all the precursory weirdness, the flavor was a fairly straightforward chamomile, neither weak nor especially robust, but with a little fruitiness, and most of all, a noticeably creamy, rich, honey-butter sweetness that I found quite appealing. The aftertaste was only faintly bitter, rather earthy (that impression showed up again!) and honey-like. Every stage of the process offered a different aroma or flavor sensation. All in all, Allegro's version of flavored chamomile ain't boring, that's for sure. I recommend trying it if you like both chamomile and a diverse herbal-tea experience.

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