Winter Mint Oolong

Happy Universal Health Coverage Day! Today the prompt is to drink a tea with (supposed) health benefits!

I’m not really one that purchases “health blend” teas, and tend to instead look for (usually tastier) options that include the ingredients that work for me. No “headache” tea blend I ever tried ever did anything for my chronic migraine condition… but I have found mint and ginger to be quite effective on the awful nausea and GI issues that accompany migraines.

Aaaaaaaaand I just happened to wake with a migraine this morning. A rain/slushy wet snow storm moved in over night, and the barometric pressure changes set me off more often than not. So today was going to be a “tummy tea” day regardless.

I actually find ginger works a bit better for me than mint, but I’d already pulled this packet out of hiding and stuffed it in the Sipdown Corner™ last night, so rather than dig up a ginger tea I decided to brew this old holiday tea. Has a delightfully strong spearmint aroma, both in the dry leaf and the steeped tea. My warm cuppa also has a sweet aroma, and combined with the spearmint, is reminding me of the sweet spearmint-flavored spice gummies.

Mmm… nice! The oolong gives the tea a very silky/creamy mouthfeel, and I’m getting a strong spearmint presense that leaves a cooling menthol presense on the back of the throat after the sip. During the sip is a warm, sweet, creamy vanilla note. I think that sweetness is amplified by a subtle background florality from the oolong. After the sip, I’m left with what I can only describe as a “carbonated tingle” on the back of my throat, and the mix of the mint and sweet vanilla with that sensation is giving me an odd reminescence to rootbeer (just without the “barky” sort of flavor that accompanies rootbeer).

Easily one of my favorites so far as I drink through old 52Teas advent teas of years past. And it is very soothing this morning when my head is yuck and my stomach is blech.

2021 Sipdown #34
Another old one I finished off. I got some nice mintiness but sadly the oolong succumbed to age long ago

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.