20
drank Mint Medley by Bigelow
1216 tasting notes

I figured that I haven’t revisited one of my old bagged teas in a while, and I used to drink Mint Medley for migraine nausea before I switched to loose leaf and got a nausea blend with whole leaf peppermint, ginger, orange peel, and cinnamon in it. I always remember it worked well and I liked the taste well enough. I decided to make a batch of it iced for this revisit, by doing a warm steep and then chilling in the fridge overnight.

Now, I certainly don’t remember this tea being red before… and all the mint loose leaf teas I drink now are always caramelly color, which immediately turned me off from the tea. It smells like mint, but… red? Really? Then I saw the ingredients… rosehips and hibiscus in mint tea? Now, I am a big fan of rosehips and hibiscus (from reading the reviews on this site, I may just be the only one!), and I’ve certainly seen some very effective mint/hibiscus blends. But those are usually advertised as such. When a tea is called “Mint Medley,” I kind of expect to be getting a mint tea, not a mint tea with a bunch of odd additives. Why would I want my mint tea to be red?

The tea does have a very minty flavor, but it just has this sort of off-putting aftertaste. It’s a little hard to describe. It starts off with a very brisk, minty flavor, but then sort of ends with this odd, flat, kind of metallic stale taste that lingers on my tongue (and I checked my box; this tea should be fine until May 2019 according to the packaging, so it certainly shouldn’t be stale). Is it the extras in the blend? I don’t know, because it doesn’t even have the tart/tangy sort of flavor that rosehips/hibiscus/lemon peel should leave behind (if it was a tart finish, I’d actually find that quite pleasant, as that is a flavor profile I personally quite enjoy). It’s just this weird sort of taste that I don’t get when I drink mint in loose leaf blends. If I get my hands on any other bagged mint teas I’ll have to compare to see if I get that same weird taste to see if it is indeed from the rosehips, hibiscus, and lemon peel added to this particular tea, or if I’ve just lost my taste for bagged mint tea in general now.

Flavors: Herbaceous, Metallic, Mint

Preparation
Iced 5 min, 0 sec 5 tsp 32 OZ / 946 ML
teepland

I’m also a fan of rosehips and hibiscus, but this sounds like a strange combination!

Mastress Alita

Yay, a fellow hibiscus fan!

Yes, something felt off here. Just seems strange to be adverting a tea as a mint tea, then adding citrus and tart/tangy ingredients to it which cause your glass of mint tea to turn red. It’s bizzare!

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teepland

I’m also a fan of rosehips and hibiscus, but this sounds like a strange combination!

Mastress Alita

Yay, a fellow hibiscus fan!

Yes, something felt off here. Just seems strange to be adverting a tea as a mint tea, then adding citrus and tart/tangy ingredients to it which cause your glass of mint tea to turn red. It’s bizzare!

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Bio

Hi! I’m Sara, a middle-aged librarian living in southern Idaho, USA. I’m a big ol’ sci-fi/fantasy/anime geek that loves fandom conventions, coloring books, simulation computer games, Japanese culture, and cats. Proud genderqueer asexual (she/they) and supporter of the LGBTQ+ community. I’m also a chronic migraineur. As a surprise to no one, I’m a helpless tea addict with a tea collecting and hoarding problem! (It still baffles me how much tea I can cram into my little condo!) I enjoy trying all sorts of teas… for me tea is a neverending journey!

Favorite Flavors:

I love sampling a wide variety of teas! For me the variety is what makes the hobby of tea sampling so fun! While I enjoy trying all different types of teas (pure teas, blends, tisanes), these are some flavors/ingredients I enjoy:
-Dessert/chocolate/vanilla/caramel/cream/toffee/maple
-Sweet/licorice root/stevia
-Vegetal/grassy
-Floral/lavender/rose
-Spices/chais
-Fruity
-Tropical/pineapple/coconut
-Bergamot (in moderation)
-Roasted/nutty
-Tart/tangy/hibiscus/rosehip

Disliked Flavors:

There are not many flavors or ingredients that I don’t like. These include:
-Bananas/banana flavoring
-Hemp/CBD teas
-Smoke-scented teas/heavy smoke flavors (migraine trigger)
-Perfumey teas/extremely heavy floral aromas (migraine trigger)
-Gingko biloba (migraine trigger)
-Chamomile (used in blends as a background note/paired with stronger flavors is okay)
-Extremely spicy/heated teas
-Medicinal flavors/Ginseng
-Metallic flavors
-Overly strong artificial flavorings

With the exception of bananas and migraine triggers, I’ll pretty much try any tea at least once!

Steeping Parameters:

I drink tea in a variety of ways! For hot brews, I mostly drink my teas brewed in the western style without additions, and for iced tea, I drink teas mostly brewed in the cold brew style without additions. Occassionally I’ll change that up. I use the https://octea.ndim.space/#/ app for water-to-tea ratios and use steep times to my preferences.

My Rating Scale:

90-100 – Top tier tea! These teas are among my personal favorites, and typically I like to keep them stocked in my cupboards at all times, if possible!

70-89 – These are teas that I personally found very enjoyable, but I may or may not feel inclined to keep them in stock.

50-69 – Teas that fall in this range I enjoyed, but found either average, lacking in some way, or I’ve had a similar tea that “did it better.”

21-49 – Teas in this range I didn’t enjoy, for one reason or another. I may or may not finish them off, depending on their ranking, and feel no inclination to restock them.

20-1 – Blech! My Tea Hall of Shame. These are the teas that most likely saw the bottom of my garbage can, because I’d feel guilty to pass them onto someone else.

Note that I only journal a tea once, not every time I drink a cup of it. If my opinion of a tea drastically changes since my original review, I will journal the tea again with an updated opinion and change my rating. Occassionally I revisit a tea I’ve reviewed before after a year or more has passed.

Inventory:

My Cupboard on Steepster reflects teas that I have sampled and logged for review, and is not used as an inventory for teas I currently own at the present moment. An accurate and up-to-date listing of my current tea inventory can be viewed here: https://tinyurl.com/xjt9ptx3 . I am open to tea trades (within the United States only!) at this time. Note that I will not trade teas that I currently have in a quantity less than 50g (samplers, 1oz packages, etc.) or any teas that are currently still sealed/unopened in my cupboard.

Contact Info:

Feel free to send me a Steepster PM, or alternatively, check the website URL section below; it goes to a contact form that will reach my personal e-mail.

Location

Idaho, United States

Website

https://teatimetuesdayreviews...

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