Candy Cane Lane

This tea is delicious! It doesn’t just taste like straight up peppermint. It has some of the creamy quality a candy cane has. It is nice it has no caffeine so I can drink it at night.

I bought a box of this last week when I finished up my Twinings Peppermint bags. I remembered that it received satisfactory and downright glowing reviews here on Steepster a few years ago, and decided to try it out.

Now that I have – a few times now – I find that I don’t particularly care for it. Its odor reminds me of potpurri and tasting it reinforces the image in my mind (not that I know what potpurri tastes like…). Adding at least two teaspoons of sugar helps me get it down but I’m trying to consume less sugar, so that’s not really that helpful.

I have 18 bags left and I think it might end up being pushed to the back of the cupboard (there will be a post going up in the swap category soon if you’re interested in taking some/all of this off my hands).

Today is such a yuck day, yuck, yuck, yuck! I went shopping for noms this morning after not getting much sleep (it has been one of those weeks) and progressively felt ickier as the day went on. Not wanting to abandon the blog without a post today, I decided to have a little bit of easy fun.

So I was included in Influenster’s #FrostyVoxBox, a box of really cool products to try out and review (you guys have probably seen me feature past boxes if you have been reading a while) usually I do all of it in one big review, but since one of the things included with it was tea, well, I had to do it separately. Celestial Seasonings Candy Cane Lane Green Tea Decaffeinated, a holiday tea straight out of my memories. This is a blend of peppermint, decaffeinated green tea, orange peel, natural vanilla and mint flavors with other natural flavors, cinnamon, milk thistle, blackberry leaves, roasted carob, roasted chicory, and vanilla bean, and since it is a tea bag, it is the exact level of easy I am in the mood for on this most blah of days. So I know when I was younger I would drink a lot if Celestial Seasonings teas, but I cannot remember if I ever drank this one, fun adventure time, maybe! The aroma of the tea is minty and vanill-y (Minty Vanilli, the holiday themed Milli Vanilli comeback was also lip-synced) a little sweet, and a little papery from the bag. One of the tragedies of teabags is they can smell and taste like the bag, but you do at times make sacrifices for being lazy.

One thing I will give the packaging credit for, it does not say to use boiling water, in fact it says using cooler water with green tea will result in a smoother, more delicate flavor. Yay! Certain other bagged tea companies say boil everything, and people wonder why some people think green tea is bitter gross death. The aroma of the tea is minty and mellow, with vanilla and a roasted undertone along with a tiny hint of sugar cookies. The mint is the primary aroma, but it is not a kick in the face of mint.

The taste is not bad, it is minty and sweet with a hint of vanilla and honey and a slight bit of a roasted taste at the end. The green tea base is really generic, I am not sure how to describe it other than ‘generic bagged green tea I have been drinking since I was a kid’ taste. It is a really mild tea, the mint is cooling, but other than that there is nothing really powerful about it, I do not want to say it tastes watered down, but it does certainly lack oomph. Since this is a decaf tea, I can see this being a tea I could drink before bed or when I feel icky…the tastes are mellow, the mint cools my guts and clears my nose, and the warmth just feels good. In fact I am going to take the rest of this cup and go lay in bed while playing some Minecraft.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/12/influentster-celestial-seasonings-candy.html

An old favourite of mine. What could be better than peppermint and vanilla mingling together in green tea? For me, nothing! I’ve enjoyed many mugs of this in the past. Served it to many friends who went crazy over it. As far as grocery store bought teas go, this one is the leader of the pack. So hard to find though. Not one grocery store in my town sells it anymore. Not sure if it’s been discontinued or just in limited distribution but if I stumble upon it somewhere I’ll be sure to pick up a couple of boxes. Love sipping away at this one during Christmas time. Makes me feel festive!

A sample from VariaTEA. I’m slowly coming out of my flu-fug, and beginning to return to my tea stash. I wanted a herbal last night, and this one just called out to me. I like candy cane — it’s a flavour that cheers me up, for some reason. Maybe because it reminds me of Christmas, and I like Christmas? Something like that.

I gave this one four minutes in water just cooler than boiling. When I returned to the kitchen, the whole room smelt of candy cane. It brought a smile to my face straightaway, and lately they’ve been in short supply. I was very, very slightly concerned about the cinnamon in this, but it’s actually a combination that works really well. Mint was the dominant flavour, but the vanilla and cinnamon swirl around and make this a surprisingly accurate, and Christmassy (!) treat. Totally the wrong time of year, I know, but I’m ILL. I can do what I want when I’m ill, and to hell with seasonal appropriateness.

I’ve tried a few candy cane teas in my time, and this is one of the nicer ones. The flavours you’d expect are there, and it’s a delicious tasting cup. This shall be in my evening rotation for a good few days to come! Thanks again to VariaTEA for sharing this with me.

this is unseasonably yummy. without brown sugar or honey, this is minty and fresh, but with a sweetener, suddenly i notice the cinnamon & the vanilla, and i really do get a candy cane out of this! the aroma is lush and comforting and i must say, the flavor is as well. this has become one of my most sought-after teas before bed & i have come to develop a fondness for mint!

i should probably note this is the same thing as Trader Joe’s Candy Cane Green Tea (my sole box of which is all but finished) but thankfully, i live nearby to a Fairway Market that carries many of Celestial Seasonings’ teas, including their holiday ones!

One part of the holidays I look forward to is the fact that this company puts out their seasonal line. This one in particular is great when the weather starts getting you down….. a cup of this is what I need sometimes…especially when I catch the cough!

I stashed a box of this at work for when I just really, really need some comfort tea. Which was today. Brewed it up in the Timolino and left it uncovered so I could drink it some time today because that sucker keeps everything NUCLEAR HOT. It’s bagged tea, but it’s damn good. I don’t expect much of my bags and this delivers. Creamy, mint, soothing.

While I am not a huge fan of nearly anything Celestial Seasonings makes anymore I found this tea to be right up my alley. Naturally caffeine free green tea blended with my three favorite flavors, peppermint, cinnamon, and vanilla! There’s not much else to say here. It’s warming and soothing and it goes absolutely perfectly with a snowy day and the whole Christmas season. It just feels like a childhood memory of what Christmas used to be like all bundled up in a tiny little tea bag!

Another holiday favorite. I enjoy their regular peppermint tea as well, but prefer the Candy Cane Lane for the additional flavor notes.