Sampling Wild Alaska Chaga Tea

Earlier this year, when I wrote about Alaska in my new Saturday series, I mentioned discovering a new-to-me tea (or tisane, actually), Wild Alaska Chaga Tea, which is made from wild Alaska chaga mushrooms. I later received an email from wildalaskachaga.com offering to send me some of the tea to sample, so naturally I said sure! I waited until I knew I was going to be home for an evening to try it, because I had a teeny bit of trepidation about consuming wild mushrooms and heading out on the road!

This is what the tea bags look like. The paper is much thicker than that I usually find in tea bags, and I suppose that's a good thing since I was instructed to steep my tea bag for 15 minutes! The tea didn't have much of a scent, and it had only a slightly mild taste. Because it isn't made from camellia sinensis, I knew that it wouldn't taste like true tea, but it does have a mildly tea-ish taste, perhaps like a tea that hasn't been steeped very long. From what I gather, chaga tea is consumed not for its taste but rather for its health benefits. According to the company's website, "Recently, numerous beneficial compounds have been discovered in chaga including: high levels of antioxidants, triterpene sterols, betulinic acid, polyphenols, phytonutrients (superoxide dismutase, beta-glucans, melanin, polysaccharides, etc.), adaptogens, amino acids, and numerous vitamins and minerals." So since the tea doesn't taste bad and boasts so many benefits, I'm going to drink this for a while and see what happens! Have any of you heard of chaga tea before? Have you tried it? You can learn more about Wild Alaska Chaga Tea (and see a photo of the wild mushrooms) by clicking here.