Peppermint Marshmallow Melting in Hot Chocolate

This sipdown brings me back down to 49. Most excellent. I enjoyed this a lot in the beginning but grew tired of it near the end, but that’s all me. I’ve noticed a pattern, that blends with cacao shells have been rubbing my tastebuds the wrong way, and I’m fairly certain it’s due to my cacao shell obsession 3-4 years ago. I’m still not over that, apparently. I think it’s not only a flavour thing, but a textural thing. Cacao shells yield a slightly dusty, grainy liquor, and with each sip, I’m transported back to slamming back mug after mug like a boss while sitting on my ass for 16 hours a day writing papers, marking exams, extracting data, etc. Let’s hope that someday, I’ll get over that psychological hurdle and love cacao shells again.

I am sipping on a cup of this – an effort to relax after a very hectic week of getting the 12 Teas of Christmas boxes on their way.

I made a couple of changes to the recipe this year – I still used the Laoshan teas from Verdant – but I also added just a little bit of Assam to the blend to fill out the base flavors a little bit. The malt and the strength of flavor from the Assam helped give the Laoshan teas just a little more – something.

I also added some vegan white chocolate chips to the blend because I wanted a little more creaminess to the cup. I don’t know how much difference the little bit of white chocolate chips added to the cup, really, it gave a pretty almost marshmallow like appearance to the dry leaf which is nice – maybe a touch more of a creamy vanilla taste?

Nice cool, crisp flavor from the peppermint – lovely chocolate notes. Still one of my favorites that I’ve created thus far.

Sipdown! I can see why 52teas is bringing this blend back for the holidays this year. It has a rich chocolate flavor with a minty undertone and slight creaminess. Adding rice milk really clinches the hot cocoa flavor, though it does drown out the mint. Pretty darn yummy.

So…this. is. AMAZING. Seriously, sooo sooo good!!! And I need MOAR!!!! Alas, there is no more left to buy or else I would be stocking up. Though the awesome Sil did give me enough for at least on more cup and for that I am super grateful!

From scent to sip, this is exactly what the name implies, peppermint marshmallows melting in hot chocolate. Its minty fresh without being overly herbal and yet sweet and creamy from the marshmallow root. There is an overall fluffiness that helps sell the whole idea. Add to that the perfectly rich chocolatey base and you have a winner!!

Sil, I can’t thank you enough for sharing this with me as I am loving it.

There hasn’t been much time, or energy, for tea drinking lately. Things have been quite busy here, constantly in motion, to the extent that I have overdone it by the time I realize it and then there’s nothing to be done but rest and nurture.

Then too, there’s the influence of starting and ending the day with absolutely foul Chinese herbs, incredibly bitter, which are taken in tea soup form. Yuck. But apparently good for me, so I will continue the course. Even though my tastebuds are destroyed for a bit after drinking this down.

And so the journey towards health continues. That’s pretty much what I’ve been busy with altogether. It’s quite a process.

Today, thankfully, I was able to simply be. At home. With tea.

After the morning herbs and oil tea, I chose this one to unwind with while doing some typing. What joy!

I’m not a big fan of mint really, but here it is subdued enough that it adds just the slightest something something to the Laoshan Black chocolatey thing going on.

Beautiful.

AMAZING! No more words needed.

Drank this… a while ago. It was good. (Also drinking it now, better tasting note to follow. This is just for the number-of-times-drank logging, which is probably completely pointless given my lack of record-keeping.)

This is a tasty cup for sure. I ended up having a session of this with my mom while my niece was over.
The peppermint isn’t full leaf so it’s hard to measure it out to have what 52Teas intended a serving to have in it. I believe I had a decent portion in everything that I used to steep with. The chocolate and malt notes compliment each other as they should, while the peppermint is the background noise of the conversation. While I don’t see any sweetness to associate with marshmallow, I’ll the name of the tea and acknowledge that this is something I enjoyed drinking.
This can be resteeped for a lightly malted black tea with a nice finish for your less than boiled water that has been set aside; thus, you can compare the fully blended cup to a partial for the base within the blend.

OMG, this needs to be perma collection! I’d be sad to see this tea not for sale until next Christmas, it is really good!

This tea is dessert tea heaven, minty and chocolate and marshmallowy over a nice smooth tea base. The chocolate is milky and pairs awesomely with everything!

My only beef with this tea is it’s a little tricky to steep just right. If you over leaf or over steep it is too pepperminty and you lose all the chocolate flavor. You also want to shake the bag well as if you get too much goodies you’ll get a watery cup. That said, I liked the parameters I list, and it took a couple tries to get it right.

Full review, along with the other 52 Teas Holiday teas on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/52-teas-2015-holiday-teas-tea-review/

When Anne revealed that she was going to use Verdant Tea’s Laoshan Black as the base for this tea, I got super excited. I had Laoshan Black back in October, and its flavours of malt and cocoa nib seemed like the perfect way to complement and blend the marshmallow, mint, and chocolate.

You can see all of the elements in this blend in the dry leaf — the marshmallow root, the cocoa nib, the chocolate chips. When you open it up, it smells like an After Eight chocolate mint. Yum!

I used boiling water and let it sit for about 6 minutes; this is longer than the recommended 4 minutes max listed on the package, but I chanced it because the tea looked a tad light after 4 minutes. It was still fairly light after 6 minutes — beery amber rather than the kind of malty black I was expecting.

However, this didn’t negatively affect the taste. I got mint and chocolate, but the marshmallow was the strongest note to me. The tea was also kind of malty/bready, which made the whole thing taste kind of like a cookie. Nice!

Full review of 52Teas 2015 Holiday Kickstarter set at http://booksandtea.ca/2015/12/christmas-teas-from-the-52teas-holiday-kickstarter/