Green Mint- Chi Whole Leaf

Second last Chi Whole Leaf sample. I’ve been so late getting to these, what with one thing and another, but at least I’m nearly there now. It’s easy to say that this is my favourite so far of the samples Will provided, and with only Chamomile to go it’s a safe bet that it’ll stay that way. The mint is clean and refreshing, but not too strong or overpowering in the way a lot of mint teas can be. The green base is smooth and sweet, not at all bitter or astringent, which is a huge plus as far as I’m concerned. It’s the eucalyptus that makes this one truly unique, though. It adds a distinctive cooling freshness towards the end of the sip that lingers beautifully in the aftertaste – this would be really wonderful on a hotter day, or maybe prepared in cold water/milk. This morning’s cup was hot, as that’s how I’ve tried all of the other samples so far, but I might use the rest of the sample for a cold cup this afternoon. I can see that working really well.

I got the same sludge at the bottom of the cup with this one that I’ve experiences with all of the Chi Whole Leaf samples so far. For some reason, they just don’t seem to stay in suspension very well, or for very long. Having said that, it doesn’t seem to impact too much on the flavour, and the texture is noticeably improved when the settling has occurred.

I enjoyed this one. I was looking for something clean and fresh tasting, and that’s what I got. The eucalyptus is a huge bonus as far as I’m concerned – I simply LOVE the stuff. I’d consider buying a tin of this one!

1/4 tsp, boiling water. No additions.

Sipdown!

My throat has been rather annoying lately – it feels like it’s about to come down with a cold, but it never actually commits to being sore and sick. I don’t have a lot of mint in my cupboard but I do have this tea, so I thought I’d just baby myself a bit.

I kinda wish I’d get sick, though – my immune system is so wishy-washy.

Water: 6oz

Leaves: Tea Powder

Steep: Instant

Aroma: Soft mint

Color: Murky Olive Green

Taste: I can start of by saying the aroma of this tea was nice,not strong mint as you would get from pure peppermint but rather soft. This time I did something completely different and used boiled water instead of letting it cool as i normally would. I saw other tea reviews used hot water so i decided to give it a go. The color was a murky olive green with no clarity. I also noticed as this tea sat it tends to separate you can swirl it and see the changes. As for the taste it was bland, very bitter & unpleasant. I couldn’t finish taking my third sip, another cup I couldn’t drink. Three reviews down two more to go~

Thank you Chi Whole Leaf for this sample

Second of the samples I have had. This tea is okay overall. I am generally not a huge fan of mint tea, but for some reason, I can enjoy this particular mint tea. The Peppermint flavor is the largest note here, that has eucalyptus notes hiding behind it. The green part of this tea is masked entirely by these two strong herbs. This tea is very refreshing, hot or iced, and leaves a almost spearminty aftertaste long after the last sip. Very crisp and very fresh. If you like mint, you will like this tea.

Thanks to Chi Whole Leaf for the free sample! Blended into hot water with my trusty milk frother, this was a pretty boring mint tea. Not bad, but not exceptional either. I frothed the last of the powder into a glass of cold rice milk. The result was a better suspension than I got with the hot water. The flavor was better too. The mintiness of the tea interplayed nicely with the creamy sweetness of the rice milk. I never picked up on the eucalyptus flavor, unfortunately. Overall, I think this kind of powder is most useful for making quick iced tea or lattes. Sipdown!

This one was the Bomb-Diggity to me, Awesome delicious!!!
So I drank up my little sample and now I want more lol.
We don’t do much powdered or matcha teas except for sometimesin the mornings and when we do have them we don’t prepare them as directed.
I use a little hot water in the powder to make a smooth paste and then I pour cold milk in there bowl/cup and froth it up real good, thats just the way we like it.
So anyways this is how I made the Green Mint this morning with a little sugar added and I loves it, I can taste the peppermint and eucalyptus but I can’t really taste tea but that ok because it is so good :)
It kinda tasted like a thin mint girl scout cookie minus the chocolate, so good that i didn’t even let Lance taste it lol
I may buy some of this one of these days :)
I’m about to try one of my other samples now.

Cold, shaken in a water bottle is the way to go with this one. Minty but not too minty, but then I like peppermint. As with most of the samples from Chi Whole Leaf, I liked it with a small amount of Sweetener – just 1/4 packet of Splenda. I can taste the tea base in the aftertaste. I’ve never had eucalyptus before. I can’t say I could identify anything out of the ordinary that I could guess was eucalyptus. This my favorite of the 5 samples.

This tea smells very minty and refreshing, slightly sweet but the peppermint and eucalyptus effeminately take control. The powder is dark green in colour.

Once boiling water is added it has been stirred very thoroughly.

The flavour is mild at first but explodes with fresh mint towards the after taste with a touch of bitterness. The aftertaste is of eucalyptus and definable, it’s refreshing, warming and herbal. It’s not too thick, if anything is the strongest it’s the mint which in my opinion is never a bad thing.

Compared to other brands of green mint tea (particularly those in bags) this blend is cleaner tasting though the dryness is about equal. Plus the eucalyptus makes this taste rather unique in the after taste.

As it cools slightly the strength increases, the mint now adds a soft tingle to my lips as I sip. Also the bitterness increases though not too much.

It was a nice blend, the eucalyptus was stronger than expected and I’m still in two minds about it but all in all it was enjoyable. I may try this one iced at some point to see the difference. My negative point is that I could not really taste the green tea very much, and I feel I should have considering it’s a Darjeeling green.

Pics and more info: http://www.kittylovestea.co.uk/2015/07/14/chi-whole-leaf-tea-sampler-review/

Sipdown (109)!

So, there was an accident of sorts measuring this out and I spilled part of the sample bag so sadly I’ll only be doing the one tasting of this blend.

This was one of the samples I was pretty stoked about; I really like eucalyptus (if I could be reborn as an animal it’d probably be either a Sloth or a Koala) and the pairing of eucalyptus, mint, and green tea makes me think of a day of being pampered at a Spa or hot spring; cool, refreshing and very stress relieving.

Normally I think this is a blend I’d have opted to try cold, but since I’ve made the other three blends I’ve tried hot I did the same with this one just to have some consistency. I thought dry this smelled pretty minty, but as I was tasting it the green tea base was actually the strongest flavour with both the eucalyptus and the mint providing a refreshing, cooling aftertaste. It was very pleasant and did have a calming “Spa” sort of affect. However I personally didn’t feel totally satisfied with the flavour either; I liked the level of grassy, vegetal green tea notes but I really craved a stronger more “menthol” feeling mint notes, and a touch more eucalpytus. I think both were a little light handed for what they could have been.

That said; I enjoyed the blend and I did feel like my hope of a refreshing hot spring-esque tea was met. And again, I can’t stress enough how much I really like the convenience of these powdered teas; it’s a huge part of why I’m so drawn to matcha as well. But unlike the flavoured matchas I enjoy, these ones a more nuanced and layered instead of fairly monotone flavours!

If nothing else, I’m a big fan of the concept.

No matter how many times I have come back and tried this at work, it taste like chilled green mint tea from any teabag that came from the supermarket. I wish the flavors were more distinct and stronger for me to taste something different. Maybe it’s the green tea that was used in this mixture? Either way, I’ve tried this about 7 times now and get the same result.