What Does Yarrow Tea Taste Like?

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Let me welcome you to our look at yarrow tea and more specifically how this herbal flower tea tastes.

Yarrow tea is not an incredibly popular tea.

But it is an old one that has been used for centuries for various medicinal purposes.

What does yarrow tea taste like? Yarrow tea has a very bitter flavor to it. There’s also a slightly earthy flavor and very little sweetness to the overall experience.

I feel there’s a medicinal flavor to it that is pretty unappealing for most people.

So it’s not looking good for yarrow tea but with a little bit of lemon or honey, you can certainly make this flower herbal infusion much more palatable.

Read on to get an in-depth look at the flavor profile and aroma of yarrow tea.

The Flavor Profile Of Yarrow Tea

This was actually my first time ever trying yarrow tea. I didn’t really have any expectation of want the flavor of the yarrow tea was going to be other than smelling the dry tea bags right before I steeped it.

I used Buddha Teas Yarrow Tea, get it here, for this taste test.

#1 Yarrow Tea Is Very Bitter

The first thing you’re going to notice about Yarrow tea is just how bitter it is. It’s one of the most naturally bitter teas that I’ve ever tried.

Typically bitterness in a tea doesn’t really bother me especially if it’s steep properly and it just happens to be bitter.

But in the case of yarrow tea, it is really noticeable and there is not anything you can do about it.

I tried steeping a few cups at different temperatures and for different durations and the result was basically the same.

That is just a bitter tea.

I think that most people are going to want to put something in their teeth to cut through the bitterness, honey and lemon are two great things to put in the can make this team much more palatable and much smoother to drink for the majority of people.

However, if you like a nice bitter tea then this little herbal flower infusion might just be right up your alley.

yarrow flowers closeup — Yarrow Makes A Good Tea If You Can Overcome The Bitterness

#2 Almost No Sweetness In Yarrow Tea

Yarrow tea has almost no natural sweetness that I could detect. Typically these herbal flower teas have at least a little bit of sweetness to counteract some of the bitterness of many of these teas.

That’s simply not the case with yarrow tea. If you don’t like bitter teeth and there is no place to hide with a cup of Yarrow tea.

The bitterness simply overwhelms just about everything else to the point that all the other flavors are basically background flavors.

#3 Yarrow Tea Has A Slight Earthy Tone

As we’ve seen with a lot of these other herbal flower teas, check out our look at some great examples of flower infusions, there’s a slightly earthy undertone to most of them.

And yarrow tea is no exception.

The earthiness is not as pronounced as some of the other teas. I think that’s because the bitterness is such a defining flavor in the overall taste of yarrow tea that everything else kind of gets pushed to the background.

Earthy is always a tough one to explain to a reader. It’s not necessarily that it tastes like dirt but it does have that kind of taste of how fresh dirt smells in the air.

But again with yarrow tea, it’s not that pronounced and some of you might not even taste it at all due to the overall bitterness.

#4 Yarrow Tea Tastes A Little Medicinal

The last aspect of the flavor for a profile that I want to talk about is the medicinal quality of yarrow tea.

I wouldn’t say it’s quite like taking cough medicine but it’s pretty close to it due to the bitterness and general lack of any really defining flavor.

Even when you dab a little bit of Honey or lemon into your yarrow tea it’s still quite bitter and still quite medicinal with its overall flavor.

Need More Tea? Check Out Some More Of Our Articles

What Does Yarrow Smell Like?

So the end result is a bitter brew.

But what does the yarrow flower smell like in his dry form, in this case, what should it smell like in the tea bags that I used for this taste test?

Yarrow is quite pungent and has a very strong aroma to it. A lot of this comes across as well in the steep tea where the yarrow tea has quite a strong smell to it as well.

The best way that I can describe the pungent aroma of yarrow is that it has a very herbal smell.

When I say herbal I mean in terms of cooking herbs. I think the closest smell that I could attribute to it is kind of a mix between oregano and rosemary.

Oddly enough I didn’t find any of these cooking herb flavors to really come through in the tea itself, just a lot of bitterness.

yarrow flowers — Yarrow Flowers Smell Very Herbal

The Big Finish

As I mentioned before this was my first time trying yarrow tea. I’m going to be honest with you, I am not a huge fan of the taste of it.

This is mainly due to the bitterness of yarrow tea. However, if you can get past the bitterness then you have yourself an incredibly beneficial flower herbal tea.

There are plenty of benefits(source) that you can take advantage of from drinking a cup of this tea every so often. It also is reported to have great benefits for skin conditions as well.

So whether you’re drinking in or using it as a can treatment yarrow tea is definitely something you should take a look at if you can get past the incredible bitterness of the tea.

Be sure to check out some of our other articles and find the teas that are perfect for you. If you are interested in other flower herbal teas we have you covered right here.

Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful day.