There is something so inherently soothing about a good cup of tea. It doesn’t seem to matter what the problem is, it will always feel better after a cuppa. I’ve found that as a busy mum, making the time to sit down with a cup of tea for five minutes and just recharge my batteries will inevitably make me a slightly better mum after my little bit of ‘me time’.

If I’ve been dashing around all morning, tending to Baby Lighty, cleaning the house and playing all sorts of imaginary games, I always try to make sure that I can grab five minutes to just sit and be. Sometimes, admittedly, those five minutes with my cup of tea in hand are spent sat on the floor playing with wooden trains, building Lego or doing puzzles, but even so, I find that that little cuppa keeps me going.

So when we were sent some tea from The Tea Leaf Company, I couldn’t wait to get stuck in. The Tea Leaf Company only use loose leaf tea sourced from Nagaland in North-East India (which is right next door to Assam, for anyone that knows their teas!!). Traditional farming methods are used to grow the tea, which means that there are no nasty chemicals involved. And the lovely founders of The Tea Leaf Company, have teamed up with a family run tea garden in Nagaland, simply because they like the way that the tea is cultivated with a respect for tradition, for people and for the way that their employees are treated.

My first impressions of the teas certainly didn’t disappoint. I actually opened the package from The Tea Leaf Company whilst at work, and I think the “oohs” and “aahs” from the graphic designers that I work with pretty much said it all! The teas look beautiful, packaged in small silver tins with stylishly designed labels. My immediate thought was that they’d make a great gift for any tea lover!

I’d opted for the Hush Hush black tea with mint, and the No. 6 Simply Green green tea. Well you didn’t think I’d go for something caffeine free, did you?! I think most sleep deprived mums will tell you that copious amounts of caffeine are needed to get through the day! The Tea Leaf Company were also kind enough to send me some of their tea filters, which I have to say are slightly ingenious. They’re basically empty tea bags, which you can then fill with your chosen loose leaf tea. You can make them as strong or as weak as you like, and you can use them in your cup or in the teapot. I loved that there was no faffing around with tea strainers or tea infusers. Perfect for us busy mums, of course!

I actually used to drink peppermint tea all the time before I was pregnant. But then I got to the second trimester of pregnancy, and for some reason it started to make my morning sickness worse. I’ve been meaning to switch back to it for a while – it’s meant to be amazing in aiding digestion – but I haven’t quite been able to ditch the caffeine of normal tea. The black tea with mint was therefore a perfect compromise! I have a bit of a ritual of sitting down with a cuppa whilst Baby Lighty settles for his afternoon nap, and so that was the perfect time to try it. My naptime cuppa is one of the only sit downs I get during the day, it’s the only bit of time that I get to either relax or faff around on Facebook do my grown up stuff (unless the blimmin’ postman rings the doorbell, of course!). It was lovely, therefore, to sit down with a posh tea like this, do some blogging, and have a little look at a magazine.

Both the black tea with mint and the green tea had a great flavour. They were both strong enough for the flavours to really come through, and I liked the fact that they could be enjoyed without milk. There was just something about them that made them feel that little bit nicer than just dunking a bog standard tea bag in a mug. It’s probably no surprise therefore that I’ve been saving them for my sacred naptime cuppa each day! It’s just one of the little ways that us Mums can feel like we’re treating ourselves!

Now if The Tea Leaf Company could just be kind enough to invent a tea which doesn’t go cold when you’re called away from it by your child for the 728th time, they could well be the perfect tea company…!

Disclaimer: please note, we were sent the teas and the tea filters by The Tea Leaf Company in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

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