Candy Cane Lane

Well, I have never had this particular tea before but so many people seem to love it! I was at Whole Foods tonight at decided to pick some up to try it.

First off, it is VERY minty. I can taste way more peppermint than any of the other ingredients, with cinnamon off in the background somewhere. I don’t taste too much vanilla and I decided to add a bit of coconut sugar because I felt it needed that to be more like a Candy Cane.

Ummm… I was hoping this would be a little less minty and have slightly more green tea and the other flavors. Sometimes peppermint gives me heartburn but of course I had to try it anyway! Still, it is a fairly nice tisane and most likely I will finish the box off someday. :)

Grrr. Decaf teas, why can I taste something off in you so prominently?!

It isn’t as apparent in this as it was in Vanilla Comoro, thankfully. So I can drink it. And I want to love it, so hopefully just a little tweaking here and there makes it amazing.

It does taste just like candy canes. But I just am not falling in love with it like I feel I should. In fact I think if I wasn’t in such a mood for minty teas right now, I’d probably feel pretty meh about this.

I’ll give it another shot though.

I was a bit skeptical about the peppermint/cinnamon/vanilla combo, but so many people rave about this blend on here that when I saw it 2/$5 at Harris Teeter I caved and bought 2 boxes. I figured if I didn’t like ti , it would be easy to unload via a swap or giveaway! Surprise, surprise, I like it too! It smells like Christmas in a cup, and the taste is refreshing and uplifting. Just the thing the cheer and warm me on a cold end-of Daylight-Saving-Time morning.

We meet at last, Candy Cane Lane. As a peppermint junkie I’ve wanted to try this forever: I went to 6 different grocery stores during the holiday season and not a single one had the CS seasonal blends! What the heck. But thanks to a swap with Marcel Duchamp I am finally trying this one out!

Piping hot this really just tastes like peppermint, I was a little disappointed. No vanilla, definitely no cinnamon! But I let it cool a bit as I was reading and once it was hot but not too hot the magic happened. Peppermint, vanilla, cinnamon, oh my! This reminds me of Santa’s Secret and Della Terra’s Peppermint Bark, only a bit softer (because of the green base instead of black) and the cinnamon gives it a really warming feeling.

This is so good! Like, outrageously good for a bagged tea. I usually have Twinning’s Peppermint on-hand for when I need a bagged mint but I think I will be swapping it out for this. I mean, it has everything! Super minty and refreshing, smooth vanilla, warming cinnamon, plus it’s decaf. Yum!

Ahhh…this is a nice, sweet, light mint green tea. And it’s Decaf!!!! This will be nice for my evening cups. I like the smooth vanilla addition to the mint, it really makes it taste like candy cane rather than strait mint flavor. The green tea shines through in taste as well. I will have to get another box to have after the holidays…I really like this tea.

So I have a confession to make. Even though I’ve primarily drank loose leaf for the past two years or so, I’ve been re-indulging in Celestial Seasonings teas lately, especially this one. I don’t know what it is about CS that attracts me, a loose leaf drinker, to go out of my way and find some of the rarer ones. Maybe it’s the cute cover arts (especially this one- I mean, it features bears painting candy canes- what’s not to like?!). Or maybe it’s the nostalgic novice tea drinking years of my life. I remember getting into tea around the time I started my first year of college. Freshman year was a great year for me and very exciting. It’s no surprise that tea held a very special place in my life, especially CS teas which I drank very often.

So, I see no reason for not enjoying a bagged tea occasionally… or even often as it’s the case with this tea! I love the cooling simplicity of this tea. It’s minty and slightly green with a touch of comforting vanilla. There really isn’t a wrong way to brew this tea. Even though CS recommends cooler water (they consider it a green tea), I haven’t found this tea really anything more than an herbal with a tad of green to it. The only way I can pull out the green tea flavor is to let the bag infuse for 15 or so minutes. Even then, I swear it might just me mentally thinking it’s there. The big point is, though, the tea won’t run bitter on you. I’ve had this brewing for two hours once and it still tasted good!

I had a cup of this tea last night after dinner (love that it’s decaf!) We picked up a box of this before the holidays and I expected it to be a regular cup of mint tea. It’s so much better though, with the addition of vanilla and cinnamon. I’ve also made lattes out of this and it’s just perfect. This is a nice twist on the traditional cup of mint tea.

-Regular teabag without a string.
-Teabag smells strongly of peppermint and vanilla. Tea liquor aroma is of mint, vanilla and cinnamon.
-Tea liquor is a cloudy yellow brown color.
-Creamy mint flavor with a soft vanilla finish. Lingering peppermint aftertaste.
-Best with sweetener. Smallest amount of milk optional.
-Very good tea. A smooth and minty cup.

I had this one as my before-bed tea last night, and I have to admit that I was almost expecting it to be terrible. It smells like candy canes straight out of the box, and upon brewing, the scent is pretty close to that of a certain kind of melt away soft mint I like. The flavor is almost spot on for it too. It’s very tasty, at least if you like candy canes or those soft peppermint pieces. I found it quite relaxing, too :)

So when wandering through Bulk Barn on Saturday, I found ample reason to rejoice…it’s Holiday tea time! I instantly snatched up a box of Sugar Plum Spice, my absolute favorite CS tea. I remember seeing someone on my list here raving about Candy Cane Lane and when I found out it was vanilla mint, I had to get some. I love all things vanilla mint, and am constantly searching for a good vanilla mint tea. I have my vanilla mint mate from Teaopia, but there’s only a short time in the morning that I can drink it. Same with Santa’s Secret, my favorite tea ever.

Oh my goodness. This tea is amazingly good. Last Christmas I discovered an amazingly tasty candy cane hot cocoa that I fell in love with, but after swearing off dairy, that’s no longer an option for me this year. I no longer care. I love this tea. I want to drink it every day for the rest of forever. I need to stock up immediately. It’s light, but sweet and mint and vanilla-y and just so darn good!

This was part of a gift basket full of decaf/chai bagged teas that my good-intentioned sister-in-law put together for my Xmas gift. Bless her heart for trying (even though she has a local tea shop within 5 minutes of her house ::sigh::).

Anywho, this was the one tea that I was like “hey — this has got potential!” And it does. It’s not knocking my socks off, but it’s a rather pleasant pepperminty tea. In a future note I’ll go into detail of flavor/aroma, but I’m absolutely exhausted after watching Monday Night Football (Geaux Saints!) and need to get some sleep. Overall, thumbs-up on this tea from little ole me, and I’d consider getting more. NE

I have a box of this saved up for special occasions when it is really needed. Well today is definitely one of them. I’m supposed to be teaching knitting classes at Michael’s, but I just found out that there haven’t been sign up sheets out since June. :( I’m also supposed to be hearing back from another job to see if I got hired, but I’m guessing I haven’t since nobody has called me. I have basically no income right now. On top of it all I’m sick and only seem to get more sick as the days go by. I think a nice soothing cup of tea is exactly what I need.

As for the tea itself, I’m not sure what more I can say that hasn’t already been said by one of the other many tasting notes here. The flavors all work wonderfully together. I do wish the mint was a bit stronger, but I’m the kind of person who can never have too much mint in her tea. This tea seems to be doing wonders for my sore throat as well. I can’t wait to stock up again this winter!

I’m not embarrassed to say it…THIS is my FAVE tea from CS! I don’t care if it’s bagged, I don’t care if it’s cheap…I LOVE IT! The only bummer…it’s seasonal and not available year ’round.

Love this. LOOOOVE. Way to go, steepster and co, for getting me hooked on this gem. Something nostalgic stirred in me after reading so many tasting notes on this stuff. I knew I had to try it. And thankfully Safeway had 1 box left!

For a bagged green, I love how I can’t taste the green tea. It’s peppermint and vanilla for me mostly, with that hint of cinnamon lingering at the end of some sips. I’ve been managing two long steeps from a bag.

I’ve plowed through a fair bit in just a couple days, all the while totally neglecting other teas to be de-cupboarded before a massive boxing day tea shopping spree. Needless to say I need to hunt down more boxes of this!

Candy Cane Lane by Celestial Seasonings is crazy delicious! I imagine some earnest hippie woman at Celestial Seasonings HQ in Colorado, losing sleep, trying again and again to get the blend just right and finally collapsing, beaming, sipping this tea from a handmade pottery mug. First of all, it has a subtle green tea taste, which gives this tea a little body so it’s not all herbal. Second of all, the blend of mint, vanilla and cinnamon is just perfection. A candy cane in a cup! After getting a sample of this (thank you Josie Jade!) I admit I’ve been to three stores, hoping that there will be a bin of holiday teas on sale, but no luck. Fortunately, one can order Candy Cane Lane online, so I won’t have to wait for Christmas to come around again.

For the first half of this box I didn’t really see what all the hype was about this tea. I experienced a whole mess of tea fails, but I had this tea the other night and all the stars must have been aligned beause wow!! I totally get it now. A little bit of honey makes all the difference in this tea. I am thoroughly enjoying this mug which is also helping greatly with my sore throat.

I am so happy I decided to buy this! So yummy and wintery and I can have right before bed! It smells very heavily of vanilla and tastes exactly as I want it to. I’m really liking the peppermint/vanilla, and the touch of cinnamon and spice is a bonus. As for the green tea aspect, its really just the vector and nothing special, but it really doesn’t need to be. A down point is that the tea does taste semi-stale, but I wasn’t really expecting high-quality leaves from this.
I like how sweet the aftertaste is especially because I refuse to put sugar in anything and rarely have sweet drinks. I do however eat cake like its my job.

This. ‘Cause why not? It’s 72-ish degrees outside, and I’m taking a break between cleaning spurts. Not much to say, had this tea before (although apparently I didn’t log it then… oops).

I’m having a cup of this today and it is so great. I don’t know what it is about this tea. I reminds me of the Modern Marvels Tea episode when they visit the peppermint room! ha

Had this at work yesterday. Just stuck two teabags in my water bottle and stuck it in the fridge for a bit. Tasty, love the cinnamon!

Backlogging. I’ve had this one several times now and got it quite awhile ago.
I love mint teas, and I don’t have a lot of greens in my cupboard so I thought this would be a good one to try.
It has a nice sweet mint to it as the main flavour. There’s also sort of a Christmasy spice note in the aftertaste that makes it more warm/cozy than refreshing. I like that the tea itself is mild and doesn’t compete with the mint. It’s really nice and soothing. This is my go-to this season for when I’m not feeling well (it isn’t too rich for an upset tummy, and it feels nice on sore throats). I also gave a few bags of it to a friend who had strep throat; she found it soothing on her throat as well.