Elizabeth,
Thank you for your honest feedback. We apologize for the inconvenience and disappointment you experienced with our product.
The taste of Essiac tea can become even more bitter when grown in the wettest growing seasons. This is quite normal since differences in each growing season can have a dramatic impact on the taste of many herbs, not just the herbs in Essiac tea. Because the product is minimally processed and contains no additives or preservatives, the taste isn’t always the same from batch to batch.
These seasonal climate differences DO NOT lessen the effectiveness of your Essiac tea. Your tea is still as effective as ever but the taste is simply more bitter.
You might have 2 years of the batches seeming very similar, but then a batch that seems quite different. You also could get different experiences from various bags in the same order. It all has to do with the factors that go into the growth of each herb that is part of the blend.
We recommend adding as much unsweetened fruit or vegetable juice, lemon juice or stevia to your Essiac to help out if you are finding the product to be too bitter.
Please keep in mind that the goal of it isn't taste, it's results, and most customers get used to it after a few days, especially with the added sweetener.
Rest assured, we always use tea from each batch ourselves and if anything was wrong we would be sure to prevent herbs from that batch from going out the door. You can read more about expected taste/texture changes on this page: https://genuineessiac.com/blogs/news/the-consistency-of-how-your-essiac-tea-looks-and-tastes
Thank you for your review
-Michelle