Winter Mint Oolong

Sipdown (233)

This was from last year’s advent teas and apparently I just didn’t get enough advent teas today so I pulled it out.

As far as mint teas go, its really quite nice. The oolong works really well with the mint flavor. It has a minty gum sort of vibe without being too harshly menthol tasting. It’s also really creamy and almost vanilla-like in sweetness.

When I was a kid, my siblings and I really liked Winterfresh gum but we used to only be able to get when we went to Florida. I remember stocking up and bringing it back home with us to Toronto. This reminds me of that, except the flavor doesn’t disappear after two seconds so I am left happy.

The flavor here is so smooth and delicious. What a lovely mint, and the oolong complements it really well. It also made a super delicious second brew, heavier on the oolong than on the mint. It probably would have made a third, but I didn’t try. I wish I had!

Another sip down. Sad to be out of this one. It’s definitely one of the best (if not the best) mint tea that I’ve ever had. So easy to drink. Boosting my rating substantially.

This tea was our 8th Tea of Christmas for 2019. A fairly simple recipe: Wintergreen essence, vanilla extract & spearmint leaves with a lovely green TieGuanYin. I had originally obtained this TieGuanYin to reblend the Maple Cheesecake TieGuanYin. However, after I tasted the TieGuanYin on its own as well as another Oolong I ordered at the same time (Qilan), I determined that the Qilan would taste better with the Maple Cheesecake flavors so I did a slight alteration to the Maple Cheesecake recipe which left me with some TieGuanYin that I didn’t have plans for – so I created this recipe to include in our 12 Teas of Christmas box.

I love the way it all turned out. The Maple Cheesecake Oolong is really good with the Qilan Oolong (I think I prefer it with the Qilan – it has a darker, roasted flavor that just works better with the maple notes) & this tastes simply amazing: it’s sweet, it’s creamy & there’s just enough crisp mint to it to give it a lovely winter-y kind of flavor.

I found myself wondering why I didn’t keep more of this tea to myself – but then, I remembered that I have a whole tea studio filled with tea.

Yummy yummy oolong!

As I’ve mentioned in other tasting notes this last few weeks, despite all the Covid-19 insanity going on right now I’m still commuting into work and working in the lab because it’s not possible for me to do my job from home long term. Well, today the QC Government announced a mandatory closure of non-essential businesses and a required three week quarantine for all QC citizens not working at an “essential business” or going to one (ex. dentists, grocery stores, pharmacies, etc.)…

They announced this while I was work, and all three of us in the lab had a moment of solemness as we realized that probably means we’re going to be laid off for a few weeks. We’re still waiting for official confirmation whether or not we’ll be going into work during this mandatory quarantine/business shut down – there’s a saving grace possibility that we might stay open as one of the business categories that are allowed to operate is “Food Production – Beverage” and we MAY fall under that, especially because we supply tea for sale in grocery stores…

But it’s limbo now waiting to find out if I still have a job for the next few weeks.

This was the tea I turned to for comfort, when I needed something reliably really good to sip on during the awfully tense moment that stretched on the whole afternoon. So happy I have this in my at home and work stash; there wouldn’t have been much else I’d have wanted to steep up in that moment.

Still waiting to hear, so cross your fingers for me.