What a bold and dramatic name for a white tea: White Thunder. So many white teas get paired with desserts, like ice cream flavors or berries, so I was intrigued to try out this flavor just from the brash name alone. Besides, it doesn’t hurt that this tea is from Love Tea, one of our ChariTea companies. Learn more here.
The White Thunder blend features white tea, peony, spearmint, and peppermint. I brewed it both hot and iced, and preferred the flavors chilled. There’s something about drinking an iced mint tea, like Moroccan Mint, that just feels best suited over ice on a hot day.
Back to White Thunder, for a tea without any fruit ingredients, there is a delectable peachy flavor mingling with all the mint. This is a well-balance blend, despite mint making up half of the ingredients list. The white tea and peony really get a chance to shine and be tasted, and bring forward that bright stone-fruit taste. The white tea adds a sweet, mild, earthiness, and the peony compliments those tones with floral, blossoming notes of its own.
The spearmint and peppermint add a touch of frost to even out all the flowers and fruit. The balance of sweet and crisp feel like sitting on fresh green grass that has been cooled by the shade. White Thunder might be my new favorite summer iced blend, bringing just the right balance of cool mint and breezy florals.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: The Love Tea Company
Description:
Bai Mudan, also known as White Peony is a type of white tea made from pluckings of one leaf shoot and two immediate young leaves. Bai Mudan is sometimes preferred by white tea drinkers for its fuller flavor and greater potency than other major types of white tea. For an extra kick, peppermint and spearmint are added to this blend. Boom, crack, that’s the sound of your taste buds loving this blend.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Jack Frost from Bluebird Tea. . . . .
There are a lot of minty candy-cane inspired teas out there this time of year, so I was excited to try a more focused, herbal take on mint tea, with Jack Frost from Bluebird Tea.
This herbal blend is mainly spearmint and eucalyptus with a hint of sweeter flavors like coconut and vanilla. That hint of sweetness makes all the difference– pure spearmint tea has a bit too much icy bite, feeling more like medicine than a calm cup of tea. Jack Frost was smooth and cool without being too fierce or leaving me frozen.
It might sound odd to drink a mint tea at a hot temperature, but I’ve found it very calming both in my mind and in my cookie-crowded stomach. Mint is supposedly good for your digestion, so it’s been a nice blend to have on hand with all the rich eating of the holidays. If nothing else, the crisp, minty feeling on my tongue helps me feel refreshed during the bustle of the winter season. Since Jack Frost is an herbal blend, it’s naturally decaf and perfect for that before-bed brew.
The first time I brewed this tea, I was a bit baffled to see blue-green glitter in my mug. Had my holiday crafting spilled over into my tea? It turns out that the extra sparkle is from the snowflake sprinkles in the dry leaf. Once heated, the sprinkles melt and add a little shimmer and a little sweetness to the lush, green spearmint.
Jack Frost is a great blend for when you want to clear your mind and have the power and focus of fresh, clean, winter snow.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Bluebird Tea
Description:
The mischevious Jack Frost is a crisp, cool cuppa. With icy spearmint, frosty coconut + snowflake sprinkles, Jack Frost will sure nip your nose + toes!
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Sunset in Seattle from Market Spice. . . . .
Wow! This tea is so cool tasting. It tastes like cream soda. Ingredients include rosehips, vanilla, chamomile, spearmint, raspberry, lemon grass, hyssop and herbs. This blend is very soothing, and very mellow. The taste is so unique and interesting. I want to keep taking another sip because there is just so much going on and I want to keep trying to figure it out. I can see why this tea has won awards and is a “fan favorite” at Market Spice
The first thing I noticed was that it smelled really sweet, so I skipped the agave (this is happening a lot lately! So unusual for me). I’m glad I went without sweetener because naturally it is already sweet enough. The second thing I noticed was vanilla and herbal flavor- spearmint, chamomile, and lemongrass. I could taste the raspberry at the end- but it really just added extra sweetness and nothing tart, which is great in my opinion because I don’t like tart. When I saw spearmint and lemongrass in the ingredients, I got nervous because I really dislike anything minty or lemony. I found that these ingredients were not overpowering and I quite enjoyed the little symphony they created, even if I don’t generally enjoy them on their own.
One thing I would like to mention- as a breastfeeding mother I am apparently not supposed to ingest the herb “hyssop”. It also shouldn’t be ingested if you are on any kinds of medications, like antidepressants. I realized this after I had finished about half the mug. Once I read the warnings on a few different medical sites, I dumped the remaining tea (sadly, because I really wanted to drink it). Please check with your doctor (or at least google interactions) before ingesting any herbs, it can be really dangerous. However- if you aren’t breastfeeding, pregnant, or on medications- go ahead and enjoy! This blend is dang good!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Market Spice
Description
One of our sweetest and most popular herbal teas, Sunset in Seattle is a blend utilizing a myriad of herbs that are soothing and mellow. Ingredients: Rosehips, Vanilla, Chamomile, Spearmint, Raspberry, Lemon Grass, Hyssop and herbs. Contains no sugar and is caffeine free.
This tea is a 3rd place winner in the North American Tea Championship for Flavored Herbal Blends category.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Jasmint from Chash Tea . . . . .
When the weather gets warmer, I feel a resurgence of my love for all things minty and cool. Iced mint tea on a hot day helps me cool down and refresh like nothing else. After getting a taste of Jasmint from Chash Tea, I’ll have to add this blend to the rotation.
This tea came to me in well-designed little package, and when I looked it up online, the Chash website is equally enticing. The stylish package makes me feel extra classy when I brew up my tea.
The dry leaf of this tea is everything you want in a minty tea, fragrant and cool and crisp, as popping and fresh as mint right from the herb garden. When brewed, this tea shows off its other ingredients, with a dominant bloom of jasmine, and a nutty, barky undertone from the tea leaves. The spearmint is at the back of each sip: minty and slightly creamy, with a touch of vanilla. I always find that peppermint is a little too harsh on its own, and it needs the softer creaminess of spearmint to help balance it out. The sweet-mint taste of spearmint in this blend is no exception.
My go-to summer mint tea has always been some variety of Moroccan Mint with peppermint and black or Darjeeling tea blended together. Jasmint is a lovely departure from this usual mix. The flowery jasmine and creamy mint are a great combination of both floral and cool. This tea feels like the ideal summer night, with open windows blowing in cool air with the fragrance of garden blossoms.
Stay cool and classy this summer with a cup of Jasmint from Chash Tea.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Chash Tea
Description:
When blending we occasionally find one so obvious we can’t quite believe we didn’t think to blend it earlier! One afternoon it occurred to the team that Jasmine might support Spearmint and Peppermint. Counter-intuitive? Very much s0! The rest is history!
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Catnap from Aka Tea
I misread the name of this tea at first, and thought it said “Catnip.” Turns out I wasn’t far wrong, because this blend does actually contain catnip. It’s even more fitting when you consider that the company logo, and indeed the majority of their blends, are cat themed.
Catnap is purportedly a relaxing blend, containing chamomile, mint, lemon verbena, lemon balm…and catnip. In my head, catnip isn’t something I typically associate with relaxation – it conjures images of bright-eyed, mischief-making kittens. Maybe in humans the effects are different.
Noticeable amongst the dry leaf are small whole chamomile flowers, pieces of lemongrass, cinnamon chips, bright blue cornflowers, and finely shredded mint (and, assumedly, catnip) leaves. I gave 1 tsp of leaf 4 minutes in boiling water, no additions. The resulting liquor is a bright yellow-orange, the scent generically herbal with an edge of sweet mint.
To taste, it’s a little danker than I was expecting, more a dark, sludgy herbal than a bright, clean, refreshing one. Mint is the main flavour – there’s the characteristic cooling peppermint, the sweeter edge of spearmint, and then a borderline vegetal flavour that I’m assuming is the catnip. I’m putting it with the mints because that’s how it comes across to me – minty, but with a definite swampiness about it. Underneath all of those runs the cinnamon, adding a warming spiciness. I’m not sure that it pairs 100% successfully with mint, though. It’s not a flavour combination I’ve come across many times before, and I’m pretty sure there’s a reason for that…
The lemon emerges in the mid-sip, and lifts what could have been a fairly uninspiring cup into brighter territory. The lemongrass adds another layer of sweetness, combining hay-like notes with a light citrus, and the lemon verbena and lemon balm also help to heighten this impression. The chamomile makes itself known at the end of the sip, with its typical thick honey notes. It pairs well with the lemongrass, and moves this blend more firmly into “relaxing tea” territory.
To me, this is a tea of two halves. The initial sip is very heavy on the mint and cinnamon, but that fades pretty quickly and is replaced by the citrus-honey flavours that seem to develop further as it cools. It’s certainly a unique blend, but I’m not sure it’s one I’d seek out especially frequently, primarily because I find the flavour combinations a little too jarring.
Having said that, this is an interesting caffeine-free option, and it’s different from most other “relaxing” blends I’ve tried. If you’re looking for something a little unusual to brighten up your evening tea drinking, this could well be the blend for you. Cat lovers may well award extra points also!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Herbal
Where to Buy: Aka Tea
Description:
CatNap, anyone? Sometimes that’s just what the doc ordered. Catnip is not just for cats. It has been known to help humans relax, relieve headaches, and calm the nerves. Curl up with a cup and “cat”ch some z’s.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
