The Good: Good mint flavor, Nothing detrimental in the nutrition department, Good aroma
The Bad: Decaffeinated, Needs sugar for best effect
The Basics: A good, though not amazing peppermint tea comes from Celestial Seasonings all natural Peppermint tea.
When I first started reviewing Celestial Seasonings teas, I was so happy to be able to review one of my favorite seasonal teas, "Candy Cane Lane" (reviewed here!) that I rushed right into reviewing it. Now, as I sit down to review Celestial Seasonings regular Peppermint 100% Herb tea, I find myself quite glad that I did. My reason for that joy is simple: the Peppermint tea is good, quite good in fact, but I know there is something better out there.
In all fairness, the Peppermint tea ought to be evaluated on its own, on its own merits and with only its own strengths and weaknesses in mind. Unfortunately, having had a better peppermint tea from Celestial Seasonings, it's hard not to make the comparisons. But to bottomline it up front: Peppermint is a fine tea flavor and I'll gladly drink it by the pot . . . as soon as I run out of Candy Cane Lane.
Basics
Peppermint is a 100% Natural Herb Tea from Celestial Seasonings. As an Herb tea, the ingredients are naturally caffeine free as they never had caffeine in any of them. This is a plus for those looking out for their health as decaffeinating tea is often a process that is less healthy than using naturally caffeine free ingredients. I am still hunting down a mint tea that has caffeine but for the life of me, I can't seem to find the one recommended to me . . .
Peppermint comes in Celestial Seasoning's standard stringless tea bags, which are paired together with easy to separate perforations that allow one to separate the tea bags. When I make pots of tea, I tend to use two bags and leave them connected. A box of Peppermint herb tea comes with ten pairs (20 individual) of tea bags.
Ease Of Preparation
Despite being an herb tea, Peppermint is prepared pretty much like a standard black tea. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea, thought it cannot be reused well to make a second cup of Peppermint, as there is a significant loss of flavor. The second cup often comes out only about 1/2 as strong as the first, provided the first steeping was not over the recommended time. If the first steeping is longer than that, the second attempt to brew gets even weaker. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well.
To prepare Peppermint herb tea, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour it over the tea bags. Fortunately, the good people at Celestial Seasonings are good enough to remind us in the directions to "pour boiling water over . . . tea bag IN A CUP" (emphasis mine). Presumably, this will keep those of us otherwise inclined to brew tea in our cupped hands from trying that. This tea takes four to six minutes to steep according to the directions and in my experience, it needs the full six minutes to get up to strength. The Peppermint flavor gets no stronger after seven minutes but there is no significant benefit to letting it steep longer than ten minutes.
Taste
Well, the Peppermint tastes like peppermint, which is a plus. Hot and without sugar, Peppermint has a subtle, light minty flavor that brings that special numbness to the tongue that mint is known to do. It also has a slight dull aftertaste of herbs and a standard tea flavor. This is where the necessary comparison to Candy Cane Lane comes in: the Peppermint is good, but its flavor is not as strong as the other tea.
With a single teaspoon of sugar in the mug, this tastes like the aftertaste of, well, a peppermint candy. It's like Candy Cane Lane embodies the candy cane, the peppermint candy and Peppermint represents the aftertaste, the memory seconds later of a peppermint on the tongue. Even more accurately, Peppermint tastes like tea that has been stirred up with a candy cane and imbued with a minty taste as a result.
Cold, the tea is good, though the flavor is more intriguing and minty. Indeed, without a temperature, Peppermint is sharper and has a menthol minty flavor that is delicious. It tends to need sugar when cold to cut the almost bitter mint quality it has otherwise. I'm not sure why the mint flavor overcomes everything else when it's cooled, but it certainly does. I never added milk to this tea, hot or cold, though milk may be added to this tea without any adverse effects (at least in terms of chemical composition).
Nutrition
The ingredients to this tea, rather refreshingly, start with peppermint, which is doubtless why that is the dominant flavor of the tea. Considering it is the ONLY ingredient, it makes one wonder why the tea tastes less strongly peppermint than Candy Cane Lane or why there is a vaguely tea flavor to it, but there you have it. The only ingredient is peppermint, it's simple enough.
In terms of nutrition, this tea is devoid of it. One 8 oz. mug of this tea provides nothing of nutritional value to the drinker. There are no calories (save what one adds from sugar, which I recommend), no fat, sodium, or protein and no caffeine. This is not a tea where caffeine in the tea will wake the drinker up, but the mint flavor just might!
Storage/Clean-up
Peppermint Herb tea is very easy to clean up after - the tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. The tea itself might stain a mug if it is left there for days on end, but otherwise may be cleaned up easily by rinsing out the vessel. Of note is that this tea will leave an aftertaste in the mouth or in a cup, so if you clean out a mug by simply swishing water through it, odds are your next cup of whatever will have a hint of mint to it.
Overall
Peppermint would have lived up to what I expect from a mint tea, had I not had Candy Cane Lane first. It's good, it will leave the person drinking it feeling warm and refreshed and it has a distinct aroma that will remind one of a childhood peppermint patch, but it's just not as strong and enduring a mint flavor as the other Celestial Seasoning option.
Anyone who likes mint tea will likely enjoy this one.
For other Celestial Seasonings tea reviews, please check out:
Honey Vanilla White Tea Chai
Decaf Mint Green Tea
Acai Mango Zinger
6.5/10
For other food and drink reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!
© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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