Moroccan Mint

Golden Moon sample No. 7 of 31. You guessed it — randomly picked.

This is going to be interesting. It’s my first loose leaf gunpowder green tea. I’m enjoying looking at the little rolled up leaves as I haven’t been able to see them before when I’ve had bagged gunpowder. They’re nestled in and among the brighter green, flat mint leaves.

It’s also going to be interesting because of my love affair with Samovar Moorish Mint, the only flavored green tea that has my number so far.

Smells minty (duh) and the dusky smell of the tea adds some depth and darkness. I’m reminded of Girl Scout thin mints. I heart Girl Scout thin mints! This bodes well.

It steeps to a golden yellow with a hint of green. A dark champagne color. The minty aroma has become duskier, greener and lost its thin mint quality. It’s more like a warmed-up mint cordial.

The minty note is fresh and clean, and lands softly on a surprisingly mellow gunpowder base. I expected it to be more pungent than it is. I’d describe it as a cross between wheatgrass and parsley with maybe a little moss thrown in. It’s not quite sweet, but it’s not overpowering or bitter either. The tea feels soft and velvety, and the finish is sweet with a persistent minty freshness.

It’s a nice mint. I’d drink it if I couldn’t get the Samovar and I wanted a mint tea instead of a tisane, but it isn’t a replacement for the Moorish Mint.

Okay, trying more Gunpowder… kind of. I used the whole sample even though I could have probably split it up between two cups. But I’m on a mission to go through some small tea amounts so really, I couldn’t have split this up. At all.

Smells sweet and wintergreen-y. I know it says to use boiling water, but no. Brewing at 175° I can smell the mint whoosh around so I’m just going to do the steep time on the longer end of the suggested range.

Okay, I’m trying to think of something to say about this and… I’ve got very little. It’s mint. With a little wet ash. And the more it cools, the less pleasant this experience is becoming. The mint tingle is nice but I think steeping the Gunpowder for 4 minutes in this kills it for me. Ick.
^4.5g/8oz

Mmm, I liked this one. G liked it better iced. I couldn’t tell much about the green tea base, but the mint tasted like a blend of peppermint and spearmint. I would’ve preferred straight spearmint – what I remember from visiting Morocco – but this is good. I added sugar, so it was sweet and refreshing.

4.5g, 16 oz, 2nd steep at 4 minutes just as good

Me: Not a huge fan of straight mint. I usually like vanilla or cream flavors added. With that said it isn’t bad just strong but it could be how long I brewed it. I decided not to finish it and gave it to my husband.
Husband: I really felt it was a very minty delicious tea. Much better hot not cold. If however it was iced it would need sweetener. Otherwise delicious and would definitely drink it again and again.

I can feel my tea choices lightening up as the weather warms. I’m looking up all kinds of iced tea recipes, fruit teas seem really appealing, and lo and behold, this afternoon I’m curious about this mint tea of all things!

Taken with a half teaspoon of sugar.

sip sip…not bad. Between what I’ve heard about gunpowder and not really caring for mint, I was expecting to want to throw this in the sink, but it’s ok. I’m getting the ashtray thing going on at the tail end of my sip. Nothing I’d ever seek out, but I have half of the sample remaining…I think I may mint it up further with some mint from my garden. That might take this atrocious ashtray aftertaste away (alliteration!)!

My stomach has been unhappy-making (probably due to the stuff I’m eating to try and gain weight), so I needed some mint to help it ease up.

I almost smacked myself in the forehead after I poured the water into this because I could have tried takgoti’s Moorish Mint. I’m an idiot.

I’ve never had Moroccan Mint, but I have had peppermint tea and gunpowder. The sample is pretty and dark green, with lots of peppermint leaves (complete with static cling), and rolled green tea. All very visually appealing.

The smell… well, it actually smells like exactly what it is. The mint overpowers the smell of the green tea overall (but I’ve never found Chinese greens to be that fragrant anyway), but it has a nice, rounded aroma.

The cup is similar in color to a gunpowder – not green, but a honey color. The smell coming off of it doesn’t have any of the smokiness of the gunpowder, and the mint hits you full force in the face.

I actually really enjoyed the taste of this. It’s uncomplicated, but interesting. Definitely a nice change of pace from the normal peppermint that I tend to drink. The green tea peeks through with a hint of verdant sweetness, but it really isn’t the main player here. The mint is fresh, and it almost, but not quite, drowns out the tea. Its herbal edge is definitely cut by the green tea, which is nice. No astringency… and no smoke, surprisingly.

I’ll probably have some Moorish Mint later, because those flavor combinations seem absolutely delicious.

I’ve nearly forgotten about my sample box, which is the cute box I had received from Golden Moon Tea! I wanted something refreshing and figured I should try this one out. It is raining out, and I burned a veggie bun in my microwave so it stinks in here! pole sana.

The scent is very strong. Very minty. I can taste the gunpowder slightly as an aftertaste. I didn’t particularly enjoy the minty/tingly/medicinal feeling I had on the tip of my tongue. Must be the mint oil… Anyway, good tea! I was tempted to try with sugar, but I didn’t.

Let me start off by saying I am not a fan of gunpowder green tea so I was expecting to not like this one, but I getting sick and my throat was hurting so since this was mint tea I decided I needed it! To my surprise this wasn’t bad, the mint complimented the taste of the gunpowder green tea… not bad, not bad and my throat was better the next day!

Having just had a not-so-nice time with Golden Moon’s gunpowder green, I was a bit hesitant when I saw that this was the base of their Moroccan Mint blend. However I’ve always been a fan of mint, so I thought it was worth a shot to see how the two got along. I went easy on the steeping, to minimize the risk of ending up with a drink that would be unbearably bitter yet breath-freshening.

I’m okay with it. The mint is there, front and center, and the gunpowder thankfully does not leave any acrid traces. I can definitely tell that the blend has been enhanced with mint essence, as it does not have the strong herbal flavor that using freshly dried mint leaves brings to the table. After looking at the tasting notes here from some of the other mint blends, I’ll try those as well, but overall this would be a good fall-back.

Golden Moon Sampler Tea #27:
So in my tea cupboard right now, I have Rishi Tea’s Maghreb Mint, and Adagio’s Casablanca Twists, both of which are riffs on the classic Moroccan Mint theme. I have yet to try the Maghreb Mint because I forgot I had it for a really long time and it got into a corner of my tea cupboard which is organized according to the highly scientific “shoving things in and leaving them there” principle. Now that I’ve found it again, I’ll be sure and try it! At some point.

In any case, I am trying to think if at any point I have had the original Moroccan Mint or if I went straight to the variations, and I am forced to come to the conclusion that, even if I have, I don’t remember it. So thank you, Golden Moon, for giving the opportunity to try the theoretical baseline for these other teas.

Obviously, the dominant taste here is mint. In fact, it’s mostly mint, I’m not getting much of the underlying green at all. It becomes a little more dominant as it cools, although it probably helps that I am done with my super spicy, super basily dinner. The stronger green taste makes the whole thing very vegetal, not sure if I’m a fan. Either way, given that I have a giant thing of straight spearmint, a normal sized think of Casablanca Twist AND a pouch of the Maghreb Mint, I am thinking there is just not much room for this in my life, even if I did like it.

Minty, savory green tea. I’ve steeped this pretty potently so the “brothy” notes are shining through. Not bitter at all and very refreshing. After a very late, fun night, I’m finding this very soothing to the tummy this morning!

This would definitely be delicious with sugar or honey!

I’m kinda here you guys! Just not posting with the frequency with which I once did. I did manage to make a cup of this (with pictures!!) this morning, and it was pretty good. I typically don’t love Moraccan Mint teas, but this one was actually quite good for me. I added a bit of sugar in the raw, and the balance of tea and mint was good.

The 75 this gets? It turns out my rating system isn’t perfect for me. 100 is the perfect cuppa- the ones that will always be in my tea cupboard. It’s the “best in class” rating for each type of tea. It fails me because I’m not always going to have Moraccan Mint in my my cupboard, but if I did, it would be Golden Moon’s.

Hmmm refreshing but not the best mint tea I’ve tried. Bit bittery. Should steep it on lower temperatures. Really refreshing tho. Can’t say it doesn’t suite me this morning.

Random GM Sampler pick of the day. I was a bit skeptical about this tea, as I generally do not care for mint teas. I was pleasantly surprised. As far as teas go, it is a very mild green with a zinger of mint. The flavor was clean? Not antiseptic or tannic tasting, but more importantly, not earthy, woodsy, or musty. It was exactly what the ingredients would lead you to think…good quality green tea with mint. Situationally, I found it very relaxing after a tense day at work. Not something I’m likely to keep on hand, but I did enjoy the sample.

Needed something minty but was looking for something a little stronger on the tea side, so I decided to try this (it won because it had the gunpowder). This smells minty and tastes a bit minty but I think I over steeped it as it is quite a dark, almost amber, liquor, dark at least for a green based tea. I don’t think I’ll try a second steep of this one. Although maybe I will…maybe it will lose some of the POW BAM strength and sweeten up a tad. I’ll stick with vanilla mint.

Today seemed like as good a day as any to try this one, and I must say I rather enjoyed it.

The dried leaves smelled a little like a junior mint, strongly minty and refreshing. There is no hint of green tea. Brewed hot, three minutes, no additives. The brewed tea smells even more strongly of mint, and at this point I am excited.

The green tea is subtle, the mint is strong, there is a mint flavor up-front, green tea taste and then the cooling mouthfeel of the mint after the tea was swallowed. The green tea is completely a base here, it is hard to pick up at all even, it is not vegetal or grassy, there is no reason to even believe this is green tea except that the package said so (of course, the color of the liquor and the lack of flavor tells me that it is not a different type of tea).

Would definitely like to try this iced. Also, hot and sweetened. Also, I think it would make a fantastic mojito if I infused the tea in rum, but I am going to have to buy more to try these all out. :) Until then, enjoy

I really, really like this one. It has a strong mint flavor, but not so much that you can’t taste the tea. I think this would be a fabulous tea iced, and I’m definitely buying a tin for the summer time.

I oversteeped some (oops, forgot the tea again!) but it was still good.

Opened the bag and inhaled. Mint and gunpowder smokiness, but pretty light on the smoke. Ignored the instructions to pour boiling water over it and steeped for four minutes in 175-degree water.

I drink my tea sweetened, but do like to take the first 1-3 sips “untainted” by milk or sugar. In my first (unsweetened) sip and in every (sweetened) sip thereafter, I felt that the smokiness in the tea’s fragrance was absent from its flavour. And while I tasted the mint that seemed a combination of peppermint and spearmint, I didn’t feel any of the “coolness” with which mint generally hits the palate…until I swallowed. Then, to my surprise, the coolness spread in my tummy; I kind of felt like there were good little microbial soldiers going to work setting things right in there. While it felt like good things were happening in my tummy, my mouth wasn’t nearly as happy (that sounded so much better in my head, but you know what I mean): I’m beginning to think that “dry mouth” is a gunpowder thing. The gunpowder taste may not be strong in this tea, but it’s a champ at dry mouth. =(

I’m not really a fan of mint tea, so I probably should’ve saved this one for Mum, but it’s late, way past my bedtime, and whenever I blindly reached for a tea packet I kept coming up with black/caffeinated teas that wouldn’t sit well with me right now, so I just went for it. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. It’s kind of uneventful, really. I probably wouldn’t buy it, but if I had more of it, I’d drink it.

It was an okay tea. I don’t like gunpowder, I would of preferred a different green tea base. And the mint is strong, of course. I prefer lighter mints, with other flavors alongside it. It was refreshing iced. The gunpowderiness of it turned me off, but was good for something I wouldn’t really like!

Hi again! I can’t get this page at work. I’ll blame the firewall for my lack of posting :)
So, I’ve got 3 more samples left. Here is one of them.
Strong mint scent. It smells light and minty when brewed but strong at the same time… It’s kind of contradictory but that’s what it’s like to me.
Taste wise… There is mint- combo of mints- again light but strong at the same time. The mint is much fresher and more natural tasting then most mint flavored things.
Nice fresh after taste.
The tea flavor underneath is very mild.
Oh, and for the rating scales. I give up. Perhaps I’ll come up with something and start for the next tea but so far, they are rather random and don’t relate to the other teas I’ve tasted as I can’t remember how each tea compares to each other…