If memory serves – this is my very first experience of sipping on a tea from My Green Teapot – and I’m very excited!
Mint Green Oolong from My Green Teapot is the tea I’m kicking things off with and I have to say I’m already a fan! Talk about great first impressions!
Many of you know I’m freakishly into mint! I absolutely LOVE mint! The minty-freshness…oooooo…..ahhh! So when I saw that this Oolong Tea was mint flavored I automatically jumped for joy and then ran over to my hot water apparatus and started heating!
The fairly intense mint flavor paired perfectly with the natural Oolong punch of the leaf. The first infusion was completely impressive and the 2nd infusion also packed a powerful minty punch.
For me – this was the BEST first choice to make a first impression of My Green Teapot’s company and tea offerings! I can’t want to try their other offerings but I’m a little frightened that I won’t be able to find another one that blows this out of the (tea) water! The more I sip on this the more I adore it!
While sipping on this tea I decided to visit their website and noticed they SPECIALIZE in High Mountain Flavored Green Oolongs! WOW! How glorious! I can’t wait to try the rest of their flavors!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: My Green Teapot
Description
Our Mint Green Oolong Teas are all natural whole leaf teas from Taiwan infused with mint.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
D’s Teas– Pancake Breakfast, Marshmallow Treat, Graveyard Mist from 52Teas . . . ..
If you missed the announcement in my previous post, our beloved and super-talented tea-blending friends at 52 Teas have recently launched a permanent line (yes friends, you heard me correctly) of teas! D’s Teas features all of the ultimate fan favorites from 52 Teas over the years: Pancake Breakfast black tea, Marshmallow Treat genmaicha, and Graveyard Mist green tea. If you’re curious about the history behind these beloved blends, check out my previous post. If you’re ready to hear the low-down on their delightful sip-ability, you’ve come to the right place! Let’s chat about each one individually:
Pancake Breakfast: is where we start. A robust black tea with calendula petals offering a lovely, maple-syrup-y variance in color, this tea smells like straight-up starchy, delicious pancakes. When my samples of these three arrived, this was the one that I could smell through the package. THIS was the one that my dark-and-malty-tea-loving fiance was ready to tear into at a moment’s notice. It brews up beautifully strong, almost like an English Breakfast, with syrupy maple notes perfectly balanced alongside the starchy, bread-y flavors of cooked breakfast cake. There’s something magical about 52 Teas’ flavors: a maple tea is never just a one-note maple tea. Sure, you can add maple to a black tea and call it a day, but this blend harnesses all the nuance of a true pancake (sweet, bready, starchy, slightly savory, fully syrupy, a little buttery) and packs it all into one cuppa. This one, I’m happy to say, makes an incredible tea latte, sweetened with a hint of– you guessed it– maple syrup.
Marshmallow Treat Genmaicha: As a fairly new fan of genmaichas– roasty, toasty, popped-rice greens– I was eager to dive into this one. How would the flavors vary from the few standards genmaichas I’ve begun to dip my toes into? First things first– this one boasts the addition of marshmallow root, my favorite creamy-herbal addition to tea, kicking the flavors to next-level sweet n’ creamy. Still harnessing the traditional toasty-green that I’ve come to love from genmaichas, this one uses a matcha-infused genmaicha (as Anne explained in our interview) that gives this green the perfect vegetal kick to round out the sweetness of the marshmallow-y notes. I drank this one straight, but I’d love to see what a touch of foam on top does for that already-present creamy factor. Yet again, D’s Teas knocks it out of the park!
Graveyard Mist: Oh, this tea. This delicious, magical tea. I’d been lucky enough to give this one a try before, when Sororitea Sister Nichole aka CuppaGeek- shared a sampling from her precious stash. I’d heard Nichole rave about this one– minty, creamy, green, fresh– so frequently that she practically had me salivating. This tea truly lives up to the sense of place set by its slightly spooky name– picture a foggy, chilly morning, mist rolling in across a centuries-old stone graveyard– yup. If that mist had a flavor, it’d be green tea-meets-marshmallow-with-some-spearmint-for-fun, yah? Yeah. This tea is crisp and bright, with a pillow-y vanilla mouthfeel that is unmatched by any green I’ve ever had. It’s minty, sure, but it’s a more delicate, fresh, and vanilla-y mint than say, a traditional peppermint. Think those green star mint candies as opposed to the red. But better. This one is as spectacular on ice as it is hot, and defies all logic to be perfectly appropriate morning or night, any season, in any mood. It’s one of those tea, you guys– simply magical.
It’s clear why these three are the teas that Anne and her team chose to bring back permanently. 52 Teas devotees and newbies alike can now stock up on some of the blends that make this brand such a crowd favorite! And if these three are any indication, I’d recommend you stock up on as much as you can find. Even permanently-stocked, these are bound to be snapped up quickly.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black/Green
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Description
Every once in a while, we craft a very special tea – well, we think all our teas are pretty special! But sometimes, one is so special that it’s beloved by our customers and requested for reblends on a regular basis.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Blackberry Mojito Green Tea from Teavana . . . .
My coworker brewed up a bunch of this upon arrival this morning and gave me a cup. (AN ANGEL UPON EARTH.)
Brewed hot: It’s a very deep, rich, sassy berry blend, with a lot of blackberry and raspberry notes. You can taste each note individually. I think of those as the semi-sweet berries instead of the super-sweet berries (strawberry, cherry) — like the difference between dark chocolate and milk chocolate. The mint/mojito part of it is more of a mouthfeel* sensation than a flavor. It’s a tingling sensation, like when you brush your teeth.
* Is there a worse word than “mouthfeel”? It’s a great descriptive tool, but as a word, it’s horrid. Gross.
Iced: I drank about half of my cup hot, and then iced the rest, just to see. The mint is a little more pronounced cold, so if you’re a mint fanatic, ice it. The berries turn into a less distinct sensation-of-berry as opposed to an individually-nuanced every-berry-for-itself melee.
In neither case can I taste the green tea much. So if you want just a pinch of caffeine or green tea benefits — but don’t like the flavor of green tea — this might be a workable solution for you!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Teavana
Description
This refreshing flavored green tea perfectly captures the Latin-inspired minty mojito cocktail by combining succulent blackberries and raspberries with a spearmint kick.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Mint Sencha Green Tea from Pique Tea. . . .
Well this was shocking. Mint. Sencha. Green Tea. All of these things are green and so all of these things would indicate GREEN powder was hidden inside the little brown tea packet. There is even a green stripe on the package to drive the point home. So I was certainly surprised when I dumped the powder out of the package only to find a substance that resembled golden turmeric in my teacup.
Since the instructions simply said to dissolve in warm water, I topped the yellow powder with water that was 170F. With just a little bit of a stir, the powder gave way to a golden tea.
Sipping on it now, I will say it is a bit bitter. That could be because of the green tea base or spearmint, the mint used in this tea, can also be a bit on the medicinal/harsh side of flavors. If you can get past the bitterness, there is also a buttery, yet vegetal, quality from the sencha. The mint is also clean and fresh but as I said before, harsh.
Personally I am not a fan of this particular tea, flavor wise. However, I do really appreciate what Pique Tea is doing. Their single serving packets of easily dissolving tea crystals is great for those who want tea on the go. It is also good for those of you, like me, who sometimes wants tea but are too lazy to actually get out the filter and spoons to make it properly. Also, no wet and dripping tea bags to have to dispose of when done. All this requires is some water and a place to toss the wrapper and convenience like that can’t be beat. No mess. No fuss. Just tea.
Pique has a bunch of other flavors to choose from and I am definitely intrigued to see how those flavors fare as tea crystals. Consider me intrigued, Pique Tea.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Pique Tea
Description
A cool variation of all day super plant hydration. Delivers pure, sustained energy and vitalizing green tea antioxidants, plus the cooling effects of mint. A bright and clear green tea with less caffeine. Made via the perfect pairing of an exquisite shade grown green tea and fresh Oregon spearmint. Make every gulp count. Perfect iced or hot. #fuelyourflow
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Sencha Mint from The Cozy Leaf. . . .
I don’t love green teas but I enjoy mint teas and typically my like for mint teas outweighs my dislike of green teas so when I come across something like this, Sencha Mint by Cozy Leaf, I am willing to give it a try.
From the description, I thought this was just sencha and peppermint though the ingredient list is just a touch longer than that, incorporating elderflowers and calendula petals into the mix.
Given the sample size I had, I decided to try this both hot and iced since mint teas tend to be good both ways. I brewed each cup for 1 minutes in water heated to 160 degrees.
The hot tea tastes like sencha and mint. Big surprise. It is a touch vegetal and yet refreshingly minty, with the two ingredients sharing the spotlight. Nothing too out there or unique but what more do you need than a tea that delivers on what it promises?
Iced, the sencha is a bit more overbearing. Adding more vegetal notes than it did to the hot tea which is making for a grassier cup. At the end of the day, this is called SENCHA mint, so you would expect that sencha would be the more prominent flavor and that is certainly true here. The peppermint also takes on a different life in the iced tea, picking up on the temperature and coming off more cooling. Alas, the mint is also drawing from the grassiness of the base and making for a tea that is more earthy and medicinal than I personally would like.
For me, I think I would more quickly reach for a plain mint tea, though this is certainly a nice option for those who enjoy a green tea base. It was also a nice introduction to Cozy Leaf, a company I have never even heard of, let alone tried before.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: The Cozy Leaf
Description
Smooth & full Sencha green tea with refreshing & invigorating peppermint