Candy Cane

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge Sunday, December 26th: National Candy Cane Day Tea #2

From AJRimmer, thanks very much!  I do believe this was the last of the Pudtea’s I had remaining to try.   It’s fairly straightforward – rooibos with peppermint.  The ingredients say candy cane pieces, which I hardly noticed.  And the rooibos is supposed to be vanillaish, but really I’m only tasting a minty rooibos… to the point where it seems like plain mint.  At least the rooibos is fairly smooth!  I felt very grateful to try most of Pudtea’s blends thanks to AJRimmer’s generosity before they seemingly disappeared.  Looking at my ratings for them again, I’d say I gave most of the teas ratings of 70 or early 80s.  The top favorites were BANOFFEE PIE, Eton Mess and Sticky Toffee Pudding in the 90s.  I disliked Summer Berry Pudding.   But the other teas were at least average.  Good to know!   I wish I could do small samples of entire tea shops more often!  In other news, I am now two weeks behind in reading tasting notes. oh no.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons // 20 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 min

Made this as a latte. It’s very minty but also has vanilla to it. I think if it were made plain, the vanilla rooibos would be too strong but as a latte, it’s alright.

When I bought this tea, I didn’t realize it had candy cane pieces in it. Luckily they were really big and easy to remove. I won’t leave a numerical rating since I didn’t experience this tea as intended. All that being said, the flavor is pretty similar to other holiday mint teas. It’s a nice balance between the rooibos and the mint. The resteep ended up murky and weird, but the first one was quite pleasant. Definitely more mint than candy cane, but I like mint.

I’ve gotten so much tea mail this month, as all my pandemic tea orders are finally getting “unstuck” from postal delays, and it’s been hard to keep the pace I want to with trying everything quickly – this was from one of those orders that’s come in; I ended up buying a sample of one of every tea that they carry because they all just sounded so good!! Basically, the company’s “thing” is that all the teas are pudding/dessert (cakes/crumbles) inspired – and I do love a good dessert tea!

This is the first blend I tried, and I picked it for two reasons – it’s caffeine free and it was very late at night, and it was at the top of the box.

For a candy cane blend, I have to admit that it sort of misses the mark? And that’s not to say it isn’t a nice tea, because it’s actually a very smooth and potent tasting crisp peppermint with a pleasant, nutty rooibos. However, there’s a difference between the taste of actual peppermint leaves and the sweet and implied “candy like” taste of candy canes – and this is the former, not the latter. Agave or some kind of sweetener might help, but there’s just a herbal undertone that doesn’t exist in processed candy canes.

Good mint tea – not a good candy cane tea…