Shamrock Tea

My stomach was a bit upset before dinner so I wanted some tea with mint to help soothe it.

This did the trick – with that extra creamy vanilla note to boot. Definitely my favorite mint green, largely because of the added vanilla. It calmed my stomach down too, so added bonus!

so many teas to drink…i really do neglect the teas in my cupboard that aren’t blacks – someday i’ll need to either just stop buying them or make sure that at least once a week i drink them. Today is apparently that day. I have a full bag of this, and while i like it…i don’t love it. I am not usually in the mood for a green mint tea…however when i do drink it i’m always slightly pleasantly surprised because i forget there’s vanilla in here to soften the mint. I wish there was a little more of the vanilla flavour :) Likely not a repurchase ever but i’ll still like drinking this.

De-cupboarding – I think I may have given all of this away lol I’m not sure. I can’t find it anywhere but no biggie I can get more … I know I sent out some samples and pretty sure I sent the package to someone – just wish I could remember for sure if I did this so I won’t go insane wondering what happened to it. Lovely tea.

Absolutely delightful. Although the vanilla is not noticeable, it takes away the bite from the peppermint. The spearmint further smooths out the minty flavor. In fact, with about 1 tsp of sugar, this tea tastes exactly like a spearmint sno-ball. This has become one of my favorite mint teas!

Thanks to Doulton for the sample….

YUMMO! Special Thanks to Azzrian for sending me a bit more of this! She knows I LOVE my mint! This does the trick! The vanilla is a nice touch, too!

This is one of the teas I was unsure about when i ordered…green and I have issues sometimes. It makes me queasy occasionally (no clue why) and it always seems like too much work. Ironically, when I’m at work it’s one of the easiest, since the water is nowhere near boiling and I can just take it from the spout.

Anyway. I tried to give this a good shake because I could see lots of mint at the bottom and lots of tea at the top. I got a good mix in the end, and I see some sticks in there, but some pretty large leaves as well. I can smell the mint and vanilla mix more than anything in the dry and steeped tea. It makes a mouthwash sort of smell, but luckily not a mouthwash taste.

I find it brisk and refreshing, leaving my mouth cool but not too sharp. I don’t get any green tea taste, it must be hiding under the bold mint and the creamy vanilla. It’s definitely nice, since I love mint, but I don’t love this tea necessarily. Yet. Silly green tea. I’m having a weird week with teas. I’m sick so I think that is affecting all my perceptions, even though I can still taste properly, my general unwell feelings affect my judgment.

EDIT: (Over)Steep #2 brings out more hints of green tea flavour, but this is still predominantly mint. THe flavour has thinned out a bit, but is still a comforting cuppa minty goodness. I am getting a hint of the mouthwash flavour I associate with 52Teas Mintastic…I think it is the spearmint they use, maybe.

Bumping up a whole bunch :-)

While creating a spreadsheet log inventory of all of my teas, yes it has come to that. I decided to have some of this tea. I think I have finally figured out how to make this tea right and once I got it right I really did enjoy it. It was creamy and mint and just pure yum. As for my log so much more to go. Think I will take a break now.

I’m valiantly trying to get through my swap samples from everyone to get a bit of a handle on my tea stash! It’s crazy, really. My roommates were contemplating an intervention of sorts, where they were going to lay all my tea out on the dining room table and invite people over to take some away so I’m not so overwhelmed. I think it’s just a plot to steal my tea >.>

Anyways, I decided to go for a one-cup sample tonight, so I can “remove something from my cupboard”! Woo! Missy and Dylan were lovely and sent me just the one cup’s worth of this (and a couple other 52teas mint blends) I asked for, because I’m always willing to try one cup, but don’t want to waste someone’s tea if I don’t like it, and mint is one of my least favourite flavours (but I’m just so darn curious!) Also, it’s nice to “finish something off” – need to feel good about something, since I’m sitting here alone in my house (roommates out dancing… I was too tired earlier) being all depressed about being single after over 4.5 years of being with my boyfriend (we broke up nearly 4 weeks ago… I am far from over it). :(

Sob story over. Onto the tea.

The aroma is pretty pepperminty. Enough pepperminty to make me wrinkle my nose and go “egh”. I don’t have high hopes, but I’ll drink this one cup at least (barring it being absolutely disgusting!) Ok… first sip, definitely very peppermint. I can taste spearmint too, which I have less of a problem with, and luckily there’s a really nice creaminess in there as well to negate some of the icky peppermintness. I’m not tasting any green tea at all though, so this is really coming off as more of an herbal tea. I must say though, this is definitely not a tea for me. Drinkable, yes, and the creaminess redeems it a bit (I love creamy), but I reaaaaally don’t care for intense peppermint flavour, and there’s just too much of that. I would drink it if offered though, and would be surprised if any peppermint tea-lover didn’t enjoy this! Withholding a rating because my peppermint bias would lower it to somewhere in the 60s, perhaps, and I think this is more of an 80s tea.

ETA: Second infusion (82C/4? min) loses most of the redeeming creaminess. Don’t think I’ll finish this one.

I’ve been drinking this all afternoon – iced – and it’s been delicious. It’s even better iced than it is as a latte! YUMMY!

I had a lovely day in Cromer yesterday. The weather was bright and hot, the people friendly and most cafe’s sold some sort of ‘speciality tea’. One place had a balcony hanging over the beach so I could sip on Twinings – Darjeeling whilst admiring the view. pic.twitter.com/VRCqSsNAgy

Back and relaxed today and thought I might as well go through more samples to clear out my cupboard a little. I have one pot of shamrock tea and something minty would be nice so this is my first post of tea this morning.

In raw form this blend looks like any other Sencha tea, it has dark green leaves that are crisp, long and thin but with this having the exception of smelling sweet and minty. I can notice both the sweet, creamy vanilla and the peppermint in the scent.

Once steeped the tea is golden in colour and has a fresh minty aroma.

Flavour is sweet, creamy, minty, refreshing and overall of medium strength. The vanilla is rather toned down in flavour with the mint dominating everything else but it does seem to help lighten the tea and keep it sweet if not much else. As for the Sencha I would not have known this contained green tea had I not seen/read it myself.

The only means for comparison that I have for this was drinking Butiki Teas – The Killers Vanilla which was much creamier, sweeter and vanilla. I think that tea is still my favourite mint/vanilla blend but having said that this would make for a great cold steep because it’s lighter in flavour.

Overall I would say this tea is perfect for those looking for a lightly minted but sweet tea. Something to settle the stomach with perfectly.