Tapee Tea is a caffeine-free blend of fifteen botanicals, finely ground and sealed into tea bags. The cup that results is earthy and warmly spiced, with a woody backbone, a resinous, slightly incense-like aroma, and a light floral-fruity finish. Every pack lists all fifteen botanicals, so nothing here is a secret — this guide simply walks through what each one adds to the flavor and aroma of the cup.

The Foundation: Jewel Vine

Jewel Vine (Derris scandens) makes up roughly 65% of the blend and sets the base note for everything else. It’s a woody, climbing vine used in Thai culinary tradition, and in the cup it reads as earthy, faintly sweet, and a little tannic — closer to a dark bark tea than a green or black one. Every other botanical in the recipe is layered on top of this base, which is why the tea keeps a consistent woody undertone even as the spice and floral notes shift from sip to sip.

Warm Spice Notes

Four familiar spices give the blend its warmth:

Siamese cardamom — cool, resinous, and slightly citrusy, it lifts the front of the sip
Cinnamon — sweet and fragrant, adding a rounded, comforting warmth
Star anise — a clean, licorice-like sweetness that carries into the finish
Nutmeg — soft, nutty, and slightly sweet, filling in the middle of the spice profile

Together they read less like a single dominant spice and more like a warm, mixed-spice background — closer to a chai’s spice layer than any one note standing out on its own.

Two Aromatic Rhizomes

Two root ingredients give the tea its most distinctly Thai character:

Thai Black Ginger (Kaempferia parviflora), known locally as Krachai Dam, contributes a spicy, peppery, faintly sharp edge that plays off the warm spices above it
Sand ginger (Kaempferia galanga) is a related but distinct rhizome with a more pungent, camphorous aroma — sharper and more herbal than common ginger, and used across Thai and wider Southeast Asian cooking

The two are related botanically but taste different in the cup: Thai Black Ginger leans peppery, while sand ginger leans aromatic and slightly camphorous in the way galangal or lemongrass can be, without either one overwhelming the base.

Woody and Herbal Undertones

Six botanicals deepen the tea’s woody, herbal character:

Sandalwood — smooth, creamy, and softly woody, closer to a fragrance note than a spice
Vetiver — a grassy root with a cool, earthy, faintly smoky aroma
Cat’s Whiskers (Orthosiphon aristatus) — a mild, green, herbal note from a Southeast Asian flowering plant
Sea Holly — an earthy, slightly bitter green note that blends into the herbal background
Saul Waeng — a Thai forest botanical that lends a subtle, resinous, balsamic edge
Lovage — a celery-like, peppery green herb that adds a savory counterpoint to the sweeter spices

None of these six are meant to stand out individually — they sit underneath the spice and floral notes, thickening the tea’s aroma and giving it the slightly incense-like quality tasters often notice.

Fruit and Floral Accents

Two ingredients soften the blend’s edges:

Goji Berry — mildly sweet and tart, closer to a dried cranberry or raisin than a fresh fruit, adding a small note of natural sweetness
Orange blossom — a light, honeyed floral top note that lifts the aroma without adding actual citrus flavor

These two are used sparingly relative to the base and spice layers, so they read as background sweetness and fragrance rather than a fruity or floral tea in their own right.

How It All Comes Together

In the cup, the fifteen botanicals don’t taste like fifteen separate ingredients — they blend into a single earthy, spiced, woody profile with a light floral-fruity edge and a clean finish. Jewel Vine anchors the base, the spices and rhizomes build warmth and a distinctly Thai character on top of it, the woody and herbal botanicals thicken the aroma, and the goji berry and orange blossom round off the sharper notes at the finish. The full ingredient list, in order, is printed on every pack for anyone who wants to check exactly what’s in their cup.