Mint Pistachio

Home – 8:30 PM

This was one of the bonus 50g bags from my Bird & Blend order. It looks like this was a spring blend that they don’t carry at the moment. I do like both mint and pistachio, so hooray! I was surprised that this is a black tea – if I were to blend those two flavors, I would likely put them with a white tea base.

Wow, sniffing the dry tea certainly cleared my sinuses out! It smells like peppermint Altoids… O.O

Luckily, the steeped tea doesn’t have such a strong peppermint aroma. Hmm… The peppermint here goes a little “wet rag” for me. I sometimes have that issue with peppermint leaf. I do taste just a little bit of cardamom, which is a spice that I really enjoy when it’s not too strong. To me it almost tastes like a combination of citrus and floral with some additional spiciness. I’m not sure I can taste the black tea at all here. The pistachio (which really is almond extract, like in pistachio ice cream) comes at the end of the sip, and it is quite subtle. It gives the blend a slight creaminess as well.

Personally, I could do with less peppermint leaf here. I feel like it overpowers the other two flavors, and it definitely overpowers the black tea.

Maybe next time I’ll try picking some of the peppermint out to see if that improves it.

Hot latte!

So, I liked this a lot better as a latte – it was especially creamy and rich and all three flavours in the blend came through very well. The mint was the strongest; very crisp and cooling and refreshing. You could very much tell that it was achieved through natural peppermint leaf and not oils or flavouring because it had there slight grassy/herby quality that real peppermint leaf has. The pistachio was the second strongest of the three; it was more of a “lower” body/slightly undertone note that was definitely nutty and sweet consistently but at times didn’t come off as specifically pistachio. I felt like it was more of a pistachio “flavour” the same way, say, Dammann Freres uses pistachio flavouring in their Carcadet Fraise Pistache blend. It’s a good compliment to the latte format though – definitely adds to the richness of it all. Finally you have the cardamom, which was the most subtle of the three main flavours in the blend. It was also more of an undertone to the mint/general milk creaminess, and I felt like it was most clear in the finish of the sip where it popped a little bit alongside the pistachio/nutty quality. It’s kind of hard to describe cardamom as tasting like anything other than cardamom – it’s such a distinct flavour. However, the combo of pistachio and cardamom really reminded me of Halva and with the overall profile I was really getting the Persian inspiration of the blend.

I will likely finish the rest of this as a latte again or, possibly, try to make some sort of Mint Pistachio rice pudding dish because just now I realized how well this tea would compliment that sort of dessert…

196/365

I’m kind of behind with Bird & Blend’s spring collection, mostly thanks to the cold I got a couple of weeks back. It’s been the lingering kind, and I’m only just starting to feel like I’m finally getting rid of it. The weather also took a turn for the worst at about the same time, and all things considered I just wasn’t feeling spring.

Now things are finally looking up, I decided to give this a go. Bird & Blend (I still type Bluebird every time…) have an amazing looking recipe for Mint Pistachio Gelatte on their website, so that’s what I did. It uses 2 tsp of Mint Pistachio and 1/4 tsp of Ice Cream Matcha. I whisked up the matcha in a splash of water while the Mint Pistachio brewed, the combined them over ice and topped the glass up with milk.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but the end result is pretty good. The mint is the main flavour, in a way that’s reminiscent of moroccan mint without the sugar. I was really pleased to find that the pistachio has a strong presence, too, since I thought it might get drowned out. It’s creamy and mildly nutty, and complements the mint perfectly. The ice cream matcha works nicely as a base flavour, adding a hint of extra sweetness and creaminess. It doesn’t have as much impact on the flavour as I thought it might, but it adds a nice dessert-like backdrop that helps to bring out the best in the other flavours. I imagine a latte without the matcha would be a little flatter and more savoury, although I would probably add some honey and vanilla essence to compensate for that. It’s definitely something I’ll try before I say goodbye to this one.

I’m really pleased with how this worked out, but mostly with how clear both the mint and pistachio were as flavours, and how well they worked in combination. I feel like it’s an unusual pairing, but one I’d seek out again in the future. I hope they bring this back again next year!