Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Element Tea
Product Description:
If you love mint, then you’ll love this tea! With a combination of peppermint AND spearmint, your taste buds will experience a mint extravaganza. This tea is wonderful iced, too!
Ingredients: Bai Mu Dan White Tea, Peppermint, Spearmint
Taster’s Review:
When I first decided to brew this tea, I had prepared myself for a very minty-tasting tea, and I had expected the white tea to be completely overpowered by the peppermint and spearmint. Fortunately, this is not the case at all.
While the Bai Mu Dan base is indeed a delicate taste, the peppermint and spearmint have been blended skillfully so that they would be in perfect balance with the softer, gentler white tea. So now, what I taste is a medley of soft, fluffy white tea and cool, crisp mint flavor without feeling overwhelmed by them.
Even though I am sipping this hot, it doesn’t make me feel uncomfortably warm. I find it both exhilarating and calming to drink. I can feel it cool me as it hydrates me.
A very harmonious tea blend – I like it very much.
Chocolate Mint Tea from Culinary Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Culinary Teas
Product Description:
Our Chocolate Mint tea is an after dinner mint in a tea. Why risk cavities? Drink tea!
Made with all natural flavorings.
Taster’s Review:
OH … yummy yum yum yum!
This Chocolate Mint Tea from Culinary Teas had me at chocolate. But, as I’ve said before, I am a chocoholic, so even when a tea says it’s a chocolate tea, I am skeptical until I’ve tasted it, because their idea of chocolate tea may not be equal to my idea of chocolate tea. I’m sure that fellow chocoholics understand where I’m coming from there.
But this has a pleasant level of chocolate to it. Granted it is not as strong as some chocolate teas I’ve tasted, but, it has a nice balance of chocolate and mint and tea. So while I would normally balk at the amount of chocolate here, I am not going to do that, because as it is, it is quite harmonious and palate pleasing.
The black tea base is strong and brisk without being too aggressive. It doesn’t attempt to overpower the flavors, but the flavor is not lacking either. The chocolate is a sweet chocolate which is beautifully complimented with the crisp, fresh taste of peppermint. What this tastes like to me is that someone dropped a peppermint patty in a cup of Black Ceylon.
This is absolutely delicious. It is sweet but not cloying. No additional sweeteners are needed with this one, making it the perfect dessert tea that can be enjoyed any time. This tea not only gets passing marks from the chocoholic in me, but the seal of approval from my sweet tooth.
Cold Brew Mint Green Tea from Culinary Teas
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Culinary Teas
Product Description:
Two all natural mints, peppermint and spearmint were cut and blended with our Sencha tea leaves. The mint has a relaxing and calming effect and is a great thirst quencher.
These large 5 gram teabags contain specially steamed and fired Sencha leaves which have been blended with a hint of Matcha. Specially processed to brew in cold water, just add a bag to a 20 oz bottle of water shake and you’re ready to go!
Taster’s Review:
I must admit that I’ve been skeptical about cold brewing. I guess I just always thought that you had to brew tea in hot water for it to taste good… but then, that doesn’t explain sun tea tasting so good. And let’s be honest, sun tea is essentially a cold brewing method because the water never gets hot enough for a hot steeping process, and if it did, the tea would become bitter from overbrewing.
There has been some controversy about whether or not sun tea is actually good for you, as it promotes bacterial growth. I don’t know how much it will hurt you, but it would seem that cold brewing in the refrigerator is the perfect solution if that bacterial growth concerns you. 
And Culinary Teas makes cold brewing so easy with their new Cold Brew Green Tea Collection. I did not do as suggested, and pop one of these pyramid bags into a 20 ounce bottle of water. Instead, I added four of the bags to my half gallon pitcher and filled it with cool, freshly filtered water, snapped on the lid and stuck it in the refrigerator overnight. I knew it was finished the next morning when my husband took one glance in the fridge and said it looked like a science experiment (really, it didn’t – he likes to tease me about my tea obsession).
The result of my “experiment”? This tea is fantastic! The peppermint and spearmint flavors are strong. The Sencha has a sweet, buttery note to it that I find very intriguing and the combination of minty and buttery keeps me sipping on this tea. It tastes really good. Sweet, slightly creamy, and somewhat savory too. I can also taste a distinct Matcha flavor to this too, it isn’t a strong presence, but it is just enough to give this a very pleasing dimension.
I love it when sweet refreshment like this is so easy to attain – and this Cold Brew from Culinary Teas is the key to the simplicity. So good!
Champagne Mojito Green Tea from 52Teas available from iHeartTeas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: iHeartTeas
Product Description:
Fresh cut spearmint in a blend with sweet Chinese Sencha green tea infused with the essence of key lime and champagne.
Taster’s Review:
Recently, 52Teas announced their “Rescued from Retirement” program which enables other companies to bring back some of their blends. I was thrilled with the prospect of being able to try some of 52Teas blends that were released before I “discovered” the company. This Champagne Mojito is the perfect example. Released the week of April 5, 2009 – about seven months before my first order with 52Teas – this was a tea I probably would not have been able to try if it were not for the Rescued from Retirement program.
And I’m really glad I got to try it, because it is yummy. The green tea base is a Chinese Sencha that is sweet and a little creamy/buttery. It has a fresh taste but not very vegetative, and in the case with this particular tea, I think that is a good thing. I think that a more vegetative tasting green tea would interfere with the delicate taste of the champagne.
These ingredients compliment each other very well. I find that the crisp, clean taste of the spearmint brings out some of the sweeter notes of the lime, complimenting the sweet, delicate features of the champagne. The lime is zesty with just enough tart flavor to cut through some of the mintier tones of the spearmint. It doesn’t taste too minty, it doesn’t taste too tart, and it doesn’t taste too sweet. It is a very pleasing harmony of flavors. This is delicious served hot, but, it is even better when iced. It is incredibly refreshing and thirst-quenching.
Many thanks to Rachel from iHeartTeas for bringing this one out of retirement. This tea appears to be sold out at her Tea Trade store, but, she has many other excellent teas from 52Teas available.
Moroccan Mint from Tea Licious
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Tea Licious
Product Description:
green tea with peppermint leaves
Taster’s Review:
The green tea in this blend is a gunpowder green, evidenced by the tiny pellets of green tea in the dry leaf. Sometimes, I find gunpowder green teas to be a bit on the harsh side, but not tonight. This is very pleasant, with a light vegetative quality and no bitterness. There is a lightly drying astringency at the finish.
The peppermint is crisp and cooling, but it is not overpowering (peppermint can be somewhat aggressive and take over a blend, that didn’t happen here). There is a good balance between mint and green tea flavor.
The sip begins with a sweet introduction of mint and green tea, with the peppermint maintaining its presence throughout the sip. The green tea is present in the beginning, drops off a little, and by the end comes through with a slight grassy note and the astringency. The aftertaste is sweet and minty.
I love sipping on a mint tea after a meal. It is soothing on the stomach and it helps to freshen the palate after heavy (or spicy!) foods. A great tea to keep on hand when you might need a little minty refreshment!