Well, at least one thing is authentic about ‘As ever’: Just like its founder, these foodstuffs and tea bags overpromise and under-deliver.
Trust me: I ordered everything available and put it to a taste test.
A brief taste, that is. Most of Meghan Markle‘s outrageously priced products are inedible. Truly.
Even the language on the cheap-looking, plasticky packaging is insulting.
Consider the ‘Steeping Instructions’ on her little tin containers of tea bags ($12 per tin, or $1 per tea bag): ‘Bring water to a boil.’
Now that is peak Meghan: Unnecessary verbiage conveying unneeded thought or instruction.
As any expert tea maker will tell you, it’s actually best not to bring water to a boil, as extreme heat can damage the flavor. Just shy of a boil is the recommended temperature.
The $14 ‘Crepe Mix’, meanwhile, deploys this descriptor: ‘French style’.
Well, at least one thing is authentic about ‘As ever’: Just like its founder, these foodstuffs and tea bags overpromise and under-deliver.
You might think someone as sophisticated and worldly as the duchess would know that crepes are a French invention, so by definition they are ‘French style’. (The clue is in the spelling, Meghan!)
The ‘Limited-Edition Wildflower Honey with Honeycomb’ ($28) was not included in my order because, it seems, Meghan and her crack team couldn’t get it together.
Even her apology note to customers who suffered unfulfilled honey, orders due to ‘overselling’, contained sloppy copy and grammatical errors.
‘Thank you again for your understanding and support, and for continuing to celebrate with us at this exciting time of launch,’ she writes.
Note to Meghan: These customers aren’t ‘celebrating’ with you. They placed orders on something now unfulfilled. That’s not great for business.
Further evidence of the slapdash nature is in her last line: ‘So much more goodness is coming soon’ — minus a period.
How could Meghan, who, as we know, loves writing and calligraphy, make such a basic mistake?
Ending a sentence with a period is the grammatical rule. It denotes a completed thought. Then again, when it comes to completing things — well, unless it’s the severing of familial bonds, Meghan often lacks follow-through.
On the morning my delivery arrived, Meghan’s second attempt at podcasting dropped. What a day!
Consider the ‘Steeping Instructions’ on her little tin containers of tea bags ($12 per tin, or $1 per tea bag): ‘Bring water to a boil.’
The debut episode of ‘Confessions of a Female Founder’ opens with our host introducing herself as ‘Meghan’ — guess she learned her lesson from that cringe-inducing ‘I’m Sussex now’ moment on Netflix — and telling she’s had sleepless nights over ‘the packaging experience’ of this new brand.
‘A month ago,’ she says, ‘I was absolutely consumed with packaging.’
Really? To feel, look at and attempt to open this stuff is to doubt that assertion.
Let’s begin with the raspberry preserve, which comes in what Meghan calls ‘a keepsake box’ and which one can repurpose as ‘a charming home for your favorite trinkets and small treasures.’
This ‘keepsake box’ is basically a beige cardboard tube with hard plastic buffers glued inside — not very securely, as mine fell apart internally. Its best home is in your recycling bin.
Muslin and bows are for the Kris Jenners of this world, apparently, and the rest of us get clunky packaging — extremely wasteful, given Meghan’s concern for the environment, wouldn’t you say?
The jam itself, much like our duchess, seems to lack a center of gravity.
It is runny — a kind of jelly that doesn’t gel.
The taste, also like our duchess, is sickly sweet, and the texture leaves a filmy coat on the tongue.
The price for this noticeably small 7.6-ounce jar is $14. The cheaper non-keepsake preserves, at $9, were curiously not for sale at launch.
A classic jar of Bonne Maman will set you back around $5 for a more generous 13 ounces.
Meghan’s crepe mix, meanwhile, resulted in a flavor and mouthfeel most akin to undercooked pancakes.
It was bland, as was the shortbread cookie mix ($14), which yielded cookies that tasted both a little too sweet and a little too salty, but ultimately lacked any distinctive punch.
Same with the edible ‘Flower Sprinkles’ ($15), which looked like colored lint you’d pick out off your sweater and felt rough on the tongue and teeth — almost like roasted hay.
Oh, and the words on the jars and tins! I’ll give her this: it’s clear Meghan wrote these messages herself.
Here’s what’s on the side of her cookie mix: ‘Let’s call this a hug in a box.’
That literally makes no sense, but okay.
‘I fell in love with the ritual of tea and “biscuits”‘ — why biscuits is in quotes, I have no idea — ‘during my time in the U.K.’
So she wants to memorialize her time in a country she says treated her terribly, a time when she married into a family she says is racist and who left her so miserable she was suicidal? The logical result: a hug in a box!
Let’s begin with the raspberry preserve, which comes in what Meghan calls ‘a keepsake box’ and which one can repurpose as ‘a charming home for your favorite trinkets and small treasures.’
Meghan’s crepe mix, meanwhile, resulted in a flavor and mouthfeel most akin to undercooked pancakes. It was bland, as was the shortbread cookie mix ($14), which yielded cookies that tasted both a little too sweet and a little too salty, but ultimately lacked any distinctive punch.
On to the tea – surely impossible to screw up?
Meghan offers us three flavors with personal anecdotes on each tin, such as this on her ‘herbal hibiscus’ concoction: ‘There is something magical about placing tea leaves in a mason jar outside’ — this really, really depends on where you live — ‘and letting it steep in the warmth of the sun, as I do with my children.’
The children! I’m sorry — did she and Harry not flee Britain, in part, to keep their children safe from publicity? Why are we now mentioning them on the side of an overpriced tin of tea?
As for the three flavors – which also include ‘herbal lemon ginger’ and ‘herbal peppermint’ – they’re all watered down with, again, little to no actual taste.
And I used boiled water for each cup, per Meghan’s instruction.
The hibiscus brewed to a very deep, almost neon purple, but its vibrant hue was in stark contrast to its insubstantial taste.
The lemon and ginger was like hot water — hard to achieve, given that ginger usually delivers a real kick.
If Meghan envisions these teas as the perfect beverage to accompany her sweet treats, I’d suggest not pairing them but saving them to the end — especially the peppermint, which helps with what this taste test nearly induced in me: nausea.
