This entry is part of a series, Drink To Your Health»

Summary: A well-balanced lemon herbal blend that’s a balm for sore throats.

Maker: Bigelow
Type: Herbal (bagged)
Ingredients: rose hips, lemongrass, natural lemon flavor (soy lecithin), lemon peel, lemon verbena, peppermint leaves, ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), citric acid
Steep time: 3-5 minutes

I never thought I would be reviewing a Bigelow tea this favorably. They tend to be either very run-of-the-mill (emphasis on very) or actually bad. However, someone did right with this blend of lemon, lemon, and lemon.

I’m used to teas that apply lemon as the winds of a tea blend symphony, rarely in the forefront—or if it is, usually paired up with some other featured ingredient. In Bigelow’s I Love Lemon, however, lemon is clearly the star soloist, with just about every kind of lemon-style ingredient in any other tea combined together.

However, if this were merely lemon on lemon plus lemon with a dash of lemon, this would be a mouth-puckerer rather than a balanced tisane. The addition of the rose hips and the peppermint, however, turn this into a lovely blend, giving lemon a background instead of letting it just overpower the taste buds. Primarily it’s the rose hips that work so well. (I’ve seen rose hips give life to other blends that otherwise would fall into mediocrity or worse, like Mighty Leaf’s best-selling Chamomile Citrus.)

The amount of lemon in this tea makes it wonderful for a sore throat (which I’m experiencing right now, ugh). In fact, I actually dragged myself out of bed while still ill to buy four boxes of from the local store1 because this tea was the only one that actually soothed my throat well. Even other teas designed for this purpose (like the Throat Coats from Traditional Medicinals) didn’t work as well as I Love Lemon. Plus, they don’t taste good, whereas I Love Lemon does.

So now I suppose I also love lemon.

Would sip again: Definitely now, while my throat is still tender and sore. Will do so again when that (inevitably) happens again.

Buy: Amazon.com • Bigelow • any grocery store

  1. Don’t worry, this was early in the morning, when there would be few other cars or people [↩]