Asian Mint

I recently bought an envelope of tea samples from Amanda and have tasted several, but this is the first one I’m finishing so it’s the first one I’m reviewing. The dry leaf smells fabulously minty, with a small but still noticeable hint of the gunpowder and ceylon. It’s really nice, I’d love to have this scent as a body wash! For the most part it looks like a collection of very small (mostly green) pieces, but as it steeps the gunpowder does unfurl. I’m not sure if it’s the relative size of the gunpowder, but it looks like there’s not much ceylon in comparison.

Taking the first sip… yes, this is unsurprisingly a primarily mint taste! Great news for me, a mint lover. There’s a smoky green edge to it, though, and it really harmonizes with the sweeter tones of the peppermint. I’m not really getting any ceylon flavor, but I’d wager that it’s there to increase the complexity of the taste rather than to make it seem more like a black tea. This blend is most certainly more complex and interesting than the gunpowder and mint blends that I’ve thrown together myself!

A lovely twist on Moroccan mint tea, this blend is a winner!

Well, I’m hella busy and can’t write a long review but I am just finishing up a nice cup and LOVE this! You know me and my mint…YAY! LOVE IT! Ahhhhh!

This sample was a free sample as opposed to a purchased sample.

I forgot that when you place an order with TeaFrog they ask if you’d like to choose a sample, so I put samples of all the teas I wanted to try in my cart. I hadn’t picked this one because it’s a green/black blend, and I have a black/green blend moratorium in effect. But faced with the alternative of repeating a sample or trying something different, this was the most appealing of what was left.

I steeped like a green, per the instructions. And I got a minty flavored tea, where the mint is the most definite flavor and the tea flavor is mostly the duskiness of gunpowder. The liquor color is that light orange that’s between green and black, but I don’t really get a black tea flavor. I can smell it ever so slightly in the tea’s aroma.

There’s nothing wrong with this tea. It’s just that it’s not enough to make me break the green/black moratorium. If I were going to choose a similar tea, I’d probably pick the GM Vanilla Mint over this just because the vanilla adds a flavor and texture that appeals to me more than the straight mint in this blend.

As I sat at my kitchen table this morning, trying to decide on a tea to drink before breakfast, they typical questions swam through my head. “Do I want white tea?” “Do I want green tea?” “Do I want black tea?” Well, this morning, I was able to deal with two of those questions at once in the form of TeaFrog’s Asian Mint Tea! This tea is a blend of gunpowder green tea and Ceylon Orange Pekoe black tea. Contrary to how it may sound, Orange Pekoe is a designation for a high quality tea leaf.

I heated water as though I were making a green tea, wanting to not scald the gunpowder green tea leaves. Three minutes of infusion later, and I had myself a cup of tea that looked like a typical, light, black tea. Seeing nothing different about it, I took a whiff of the tea. That is when I could smell the smoky, vegetal green tea aroma wafting out of the blend. And they mix perfectly!

At the forefront of the flavor is the black tea. Mild and yet flavorful, it leads this tea blend well. Then the gunpowder comes into the mix for the finish, and, with a smoky roar, sweeps pleasantly through the taste. This was really delicious. I can imagine that a bit of milk would add to this tea, if milk in tea is to your liking. This might become a new favorite for my morning cup! On my personal enjoyment scale, I would rate this tea a 91/100.

I do not taste the Ceylon base or the Green tea base, one over the other. It is just a mild peppermint in a good tea base. I have been drinking black and green tea blends lately and I like what I taste. The bitterness of a black tea base is camouflaged by the often times grassy taste of a green tea and vice versa. Separately I have to put additions in most black teas and I pour out most greens that I brew. But together, they forge a mild tea with a lower caffeine level that is most enjoyable after a meal. As this cools down the peppermint is less noticeable and the black Ceylon has come forward to take a bow.

This was a free sample included in my TeaFrog sample pack. I’d considered getting it but decided on the Markesh Mint (which I’ve yet to try). Aaaand I’m going to have to reorder this one too.

I steeped it for three minutes and found the black tea slightly more pronounced than the green, with a strong mint flavour that was enhanced by adding a bit of sugar. This was my first green/black blend and I’m very impressed!