Friday, February 15, 2013

Bigelow Perks Near Perfection With Its Peppermint Tea!


The Good: Decent ingredients, Good taste
The Bad: Caffeine free, Additional tea bag garbage
The Basics: With twenty tea bags, Peppermint is a good herbal tea from Bigelow that realistically portrays a strong, peppermint flavor!


My new local grocery store in Michigan is pretty wonderful for me as a reviewer. For inexplicable reasons, the local grocery store keeps discounting items for clearance when they are not expiring mor are seasonal items. Go figure. That allowed me to get a box of Bigelow Peppermint tea at half price! In addition to being surprisingly good, I discovered that this was only the second Bigelow mint tea I have reviewed, right behind Mint Medley (reviewed here!). The Peppermint tea is even better!

Basics

Peppermint is an herbal tea from Bigelow. It is a tea that is naturally caffeine free and it is one of the stronger herbal teas Bigelow makes. Peppermint comes in Bigelow's standard individually-wrapped tea bags, means that each tea bag has a wax papery envelope it is sealed in for freshness. Each tea bag has a five-inch string with a little paper tab at the end, which is quite a bit more waste than I like from a tea bag. When I make pots of tea, I tend to use three to four bags and making a steeping pot of Peppermint reminds me of why I like the easy environmentalism of Celestial Seasonings' stringless bags. A box of Peppermint comes with 20 individually-wrapped tea bags.

Peppermint is marketed as a mint-flavored tea and in that regard it lives up exceptionally well. If one wants something that is flavored like peppermint this is a great way to go.

Ease Of Preparation

Peppermint is an herbal tea, which means preparation is as easy as boiling a pot of water! A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea, though reusing the tea bags yields a barely minty beverage. These tea bags can be reused and the resulting beverage is about 5/8 strength and has a more potent menthol aftertaste than the original brewing. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, even for a second pot.

To prepare Peppermint, simply boil up some water, and pour it over the tea bags in a cup, mug or steeping pot. This tea is recommended to take three to five minutes to steep and after a couple cups and pots, I've found that with boiling water, the tea is ready at the three minute mark and letting it steep longer does not truly change the results. Letting the tea steep more than five minutes does not net any additional flavor, nor does it denature the flavor of the tea.

Taste

Peppermint smells powerfully like it is supposed to; peppermint. This has a sinus-opening menthol scent that is strong and instantly attractive to anyone who loves anything mint-flavored!

On the tongue, this tea tastes like liquefied peppermints, though it is drier than one might expect if they are used to only peppermint candy. The flavor opens up the nostrils and throat and asserts a cool, minty flavor in every space the fluid and steam penetrates. This is a pure peppermint flavor without any hints of other herbs or tastes to it.

With a teaspoon of sugar, the tea tastes like a liquid version of a standard, traditional, peppermint candy and anyone looking for a sweet, dessert tea is likely to enjoy this. This tea, surprisingly enough, leaves almost no aftertaste, but it does leave the mouth feeling cool and clean!

Nutrition

It is utterly unsurprising that the dominant flavor in Peppermint is tea as the only ingredient is peppermint leaves. Peppermint tea is all natural, kosher and does not contain caffeine. It is also gluten free.

Unless one adds sugar (which I think is unnecessary given how flavorful this tea is on its own), the Peppermint tea is devoid of any nutritional value. It contains no calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates or protein.

Storage/Clean-up

Peppermint is a fairly light tea. As a result, cleanup is rather simple, save on fabrics. The mugs and steeping pot easily rinse out, but the steeping pot ought to be rinsed fully after the tea is gone as the mint flavor will linger in a steeping pot to corrupt the next pot, if it is unrinsed. This tea will stain if it is left on fabrics, so simply do not let the tea cups or mugs linger on light colored materials that might stain!

Peppermint is 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. One of the nice things about this tea - like most - is that so long as it is kept cool and dry, it can last for a long time and it is easy to clean up. However, like all Bigelow teas, there is extra waste from the strings, paper tabs and individual wrappings around each bag.

Overall

Peppermint is a pretty wonderful mint tea and a worthwhile Bigelow tea that requires no additional garnish.


Raspberry Royale

9/10

For other food and drink reviews, please visit my Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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