Mint tea, anyone?

I only drink mint/peppermint tea, I'm afraid. Does that count?

Sure. :) It's more a toe in the water than swimming - but who would want to keep anyone out?

Have you ever drunk Moroccan mint, a blend of green tea and mint? If not, and you ever feel like venturing in a little further, it could be a gentle, reliable next step.

I have a liking for mint tea myself, though only at night. It's nice when you've non-tea drinking company in particular :)

I am sooo addicted to Moroccan Mint. If you can ever get to a Legal's Seafood restaurant, try theirs. It's the strongest I've found, and it's absolutely fantastic. Great for when you have a cold -- it really clears your sinuses out. Numi makes a decent Moroccan Mint as well, but I have to be in the mood for it to drink it.

This Moroccan stuff sounds great! I'll have to try and get hold of some/try some...

I used to drink the usual type of tea but went off it completely.

As I don't drink coffee either, I've started carrying out mint teabags with me, for emergencies only...but many cafes and restaurants now seem to sell either green tea or mint tea.

I seem to recall that Legal served Harney's tea, last time I was there, so one can get it elsewhere - like www.harney.com.

I enjoy simply cutting a sprig of mint from my garden and letting it steep with the tea, a trick I learned in Israel.

Peppermint's my favorite! I think I've had the Moroccan Mint or something similar at a place in Harvard Sq.

Harney's looks cool, thanks :-)

Harney is my favorite tea company (at least until the advent of my Upton order :) ), and comes highly recommended. I love them.

Mint tea to a Brit is like a draught without a head. Just isn't done in polite company. But to each his own and it won't be the first American affectation that has hit our shores. For me, nothing is a better touch up than a nice cup of Earl Grey with a splash of milk.

I adore mint tea. It's got enough kick and potency to wake me up in the morning but it's also nice and soothing and caffeine-free.

2> I have a loose leaf blend that's labeled as Morrocan Mint, but the description on the package says that it's black tea, not green. The leaf looks awfully green to me though, so it's possible that they mislabeled... It's been a while since I've tried it, so I couldn't even tell you whether my tastebuds say it's green or black.

Hello all,

I haven't yet posted elsewhere in the group--mostly due to time restrictions this week--but I plan to! I couldn't help myself seeing this thread, though. I too am a huge fan of Moroccan mint tea, and I usually get my tins of tea from Tevana. If you're anywhere near Atlanta, there is a store in (I believe) Lennox Mall called Elephant Tea, and you can get it in bulk there for a pretty good price.

I'm not sure about the brands from other companies, but the Morrocan mint from Teavana is pretty potent, so I like to mix it with other teas--especially regular old black tea in the summer and make some southern style mint sweet tea!

Ooh, mint sweet tea is the best. :)

The BEST is Fresh Mint tea with a sprig of Mint in it. As Mint is really really easy (and invasive) to grow there's no reason why anyone in a moderate climate and a patch of earth can't grow their own. Just cut 4 leaves or so off wash and allow to steep for 3-5mins. Add honey or sugar to taste if desired. Mint comes in lots of varieties, lemon, chocolate etc each with their own subtle flavour.

I can't see it as a morning drink, but do find it occasionally worthwhile as an evening drink. As a Brit in contrast to #10 I've been drinking it for years.

Great for your stomach if not too strong -- also great for a cold!! I add honey....

I adore a cup of peppermint tea before bed. It's delicious and calming.

Reading fox...I am in wholehearted agreement! fresh is divine (as is fresh mint added to numerous things)..but definitely watch out if you plant some as mint will rapidly take over your garden, your neighbor's garden, the kid down the street....well you get the idea :) makes a great container plant for kitchen counters/winter growth.

The other problem with growing your own is aphids and greenfly - no matter how hard you wash it beforehand, you still get floaters in your cup!

Planting it in a pot (even in a pot buried in the garden) helps control the spreading.

I drink green tea mixed with mint

I love Moroccan Mint, especially served traditionally in little glass cups, syrupy sweet, with dessert and belly dancers! ^_~

The best mint tea I had was in a Lebanese cafe (in the UK). As far as I could see, they just reached under the counter and grabbed a handful of fresh leaves, stuffed them into a small pot, then poured on boiling water. (I've tried it myself with lemon balm: nice.)

I love putting a crushed mint leaf in my tea, green or black; its a wonderful extra flavor and prevents me from adding sweetener. I second lemon balm as a tisane.

I usually require caffeine in my tea, but I do love blending various herbals and tisanes with black tea for extra flavor. Years back, Bigelow Teas used to have a variety called "Peppermint Stick" which I adored. I've come close to reproducing it by making a mix that is:

2/3 strong black tea
1/6 peppermint leaves
1/6 spearmint leaves

This makes a lovely iced tea in the summer & I'll embelish it with some fresh mint from the garden.

coming from a moroccan family, living in france, i ll tell u how my great grandmother taught my grandmother who taught me to do it :)

The best pot to make it in is those "traditional" metal teapots u get in north africa.
this is for a liter teapot

-one or one and a half teaspoon of gunpowder green tea (u can get that in any oriental retail shop) more tea makes the tea too bitter i think
-one branch or two (20 or 25 leaves) of mint i think spearmint kind of ruins it but some ppl like the spicy coolness of it...
-traditionally u put at least 12 sugars in... of course some ppl dont like it sweet but...

when u serve it, u need to pour it in a cup first then pour it back in the teapot, do that 2 or 3 times to "break the water like grandma says :) "
`
there u are w/ some over sweetened and fat moroccan pastries, you almost get the smell of the desert tickle your nose :)

travellinghuman, that sounds delightful! I do love sweet mint tea but have never made it from scratch.

Can anyone recommend a good chocolate mint tea? I'm not wild about mint tea per se, but the chocolate/mint combination is one of my favourites. If there's a chocolate mint tea (tisane) out there that you love, I would really appreciate the recommendation!

Just spotted a posting in a thread about Christmas teas by mariekat, who says, "Harney & Sons Chocolate Mint Tea is great around Christmastime. :-)"

I looked up Harney & Sons, and it's a flavoured black tea.

Are there any chocolate mint tisanes (teas that don't contain black tea or green tea) out there? Or, failing that, a chocolate mint tea that is based on green tea rather than black?

I have nothing against black tea per se, but in those flavoured blends that are based on black tea, the tannic acid always seems to be too pronounced for me to really enjoy.

From today's BBC website, an article on spearmint tea:

Tea 'controls female hair growth'

Spearmint tea may help to control excessive hair growth in women, say Turkish researchers.

Drinking the tea twice a day, reduced levels of male sex hormones, which can cause excessive hair growth (hirsutism) on the stomach, breasts and face.

Treatment for hirsutism, usually involves drugs to reduce the levels of androgen or male hormones in the body.

Writing in Phytotherapy Research, the Turkish scientists said spearmint could be a good natural alternative therapy.

For the rest of the article, click on the URL.

Chamekke, I've never ordered the Harney Chocolate Mint, but I've had both their Valentine's (a dark chocolate and rose petal blend) and Florence (Chocolate-hazelnut). Florence wasn't to my taste, but the chocolate flavor and quality of the base teas were. Harney tends to be good about avoiding any bitter, rough, or tannic aftertaste in the teas they use for blends, or flavor. Another in this category is Upton's Melange du Chamonix (also with a good-quality, pleasing-if-not-distinguished tea supporting it). The flavors are a dark-ish chocolate, cardamom, and a hint of mint. It's spicy, subtle, and refined - much more so than it might sound, or most flavored teas are.

Sadly, I've got trouble making myself drink enough tisanes, so don't know of lurking mint-chocolate without the black basis.

Eurydice, your descriptions are wonderful. The Upton's Melange du Chamonix sounds absolutely delicious; I love cardamom and think it could be great with the chocolate and mint! Will see if I can track it down. Thank you VERY much :-)

You're most welcome. :) (And thank you!) It's better than I thought it would be, and one I look forward to re-ordering.

The link is obscenely long, but it's item no. TE94, on Upton's site, http://www.uptontea.com .

Found it! (If anyone else is interested, try http://tinyurl.com/3cxqmu.)

Their website says, "Note: Orders going to Canada cost $9.00 no matter the weight or value." Aha! So it may make sense to order and try another tea at the same time.

Eurydice, do you have any other personal favourites from Upton's?

Yes... :)

One you might enjoy is (ZG59), Jun Shan Yin Zhen, a nectar-like yellow tea with a very faint bite. I loved it.

Most of the rest have been black or herbal. (An oolong or two are no longer in stock.) Their herbals tend to be of a very high quality. Both Honeybush Vanilla (BA26) and the out-of-stock Rooibos Lemon Yogurt were delicious. The ginger (BH10) is expensive, but good. I can't say Peach Melba became a favorite, but they get an amazingly fresh, genuine peach taste out of it, and so may hook others, who crave fruit tisanes, more effectively. - And do equally well with other blends.

Heirloom Tea Flowers (BH81) you can read my thoughts on (as with some of these), but it's an interesting experience, and reasonably cheap.

Jiangxi Golden Tips (ZK93) and Yunnan Hao Bin Ren (ZY89) have been my favorite Chinese blacks. Both are excellent. - Teas to savor, like the Jun Shan Yin Zhen. Rose Congou (TP40) is surprisingly good at its price. The rose flavor is natural, lingering, and spicy; the base tea acceptable, if slight.

I'm not sure whether you like Assams and breakfast blends, but of scented blacks, Finest Russian Caravan (TB70), Sacher Blend (TE22), St. Isaac's Blend (TE06) and Baker St. Afternoon Blend (TB75) are all, like Melange du Chamonix, worth trying. :) St. Isaac's and Baker St. are the least distinguished, but very enjoyable teas.

Apologies to everyone on length and digression.... :)

Oh, wonderful! I had pretty much decided on the Honeybush Vanilla already, but it's good to hear that you rate it highly. Tomorrow I'll work through the descriptions of the others and try to put together a shortlist.

In the meantime, I think I'll go drink one of the teas I already own (perhaps a white tea, bought locally) ... all this talk of tea is making me thirsty!

Thank you for the detailed answer, Eurydice, and in lieu of an actual cup of tea, I'd like at least to offer you a virtual one:

My pleasure, and thank you - how beautiful!!!

It isn't everyday one gets offered even a virtual cup! - Much less a visible one! :)

In case it helps: Sample sizes, and their prices, vary with the given tea; but all have felt like enough to enjoy. I recently came to the conclusion that, aiming at value, I'd ordered too few. Also, I've drunk none of the white teas (yet), but ordered some for a gift. I noticed alluring descriptions, a couple well-reviewed at what struck me as very modest prices, and one tea chosen 'Best' (out of how many, or few, who knows), by a Wall Street Journal critic.

i'm new. i love mint tea. i only ever buy it made already made. but now thanks to many of you i have a resource for making my own. Thank you so much! I love spearmint, but never find it available. i dont have a garden. where do i buy spearmint leaves? i am trying to pass a test to get a job and buy my home, so no kitchen yet to design and play in.

i'm new. i love mint tea. i only ever buy it made already made. but now thanks to many of you i have a resource for making my own. Thank you so much! I love spearmint, but never find it available. i dont have a garden. where do i buy spearmint leaves? i am trying to pass a test to get a job and buy my home, so no kitchen yet to design and play in.

My son was colicky his first year and my mom use to make him warm mint tea, no sugar, for his stomach. She grew the mint herself, said that way she knew it was "Safe". It worked like a dream. When ever I drink a cup od mint tea it reminds me of those times.

I've bought spearmint tea (just the mint) from my local tea shop, and it makes a lovely iced tea. If I wasn't so lazy I'd make my own, but, well, I foresee buying more in the future.

anyone in louisiana? i just found the most awesome tea room. the English tea room. in covington. i've had spearmint, moroccoan mint since my last post. and they have a belgium chocolate chia tea that is to die for. straight of the boats from India...

Served a very large dispenser of iced spearmint tea for daughter's baby shower this weekend. Several people commented that they thought the odor was marijuana at first, which was a bit weird. Perhaps they haven't been exposed to my spearmint before, which is the best tasting ever. I found it in the wild and have brought it into several of my properties so as to always have it available.

>38 LA12Hernandez: I'm glad to know about it's use as a colic remedy. I will pass that thought on to daughter.

I make a blackberry cordial and served it as well. Last year I experimented adding spearmint to two bottles. For me, it made it taste medicinal. But one of the guests really liked it and so took the bottle home with her.

We also have some spearmint that went wild, and it does have kind of a grassy undertone to it.

Not until I started growing my own did I realize how many varieties of mint there are. My very favorite is applemint, which actually does have a fruity freshness to it, followed by chocolate mint--yep, if you think about it enough, you can taste the Hershey bar.

For medicinal purposes, I keep a tin of strong, professionally dried peppermint leaves for everything from headache to stomach upset.

I used to live off of Celestial Seasonings mint tea (almost all mint type teas I find now are peppermint). Rarely have it now though, unless I feel shouldn't have more black tea or my gut is bothering me. I grew some "English" mint (segregated into it's own pot after I had it in a mixed pot and found that, when I tried to lift it out, the entire pot and dirt came with. Do not trust mint) and would put a sprig of that into a fresh cup of whatever I was steeping at the time. Usual Red Rose. Even with my stocked tea cubby, I still default to regular RR bags.

Hear, hear, to RR. It's blendable and un-goof-able. Everybody needs a stock of something like that in the tea pantry.

And the Red Rose tea bag itself has no plastic content. I did a burn test on it.

Did you know that some tea bags contain plastic?

>43 WeeTurtle: >44 gmathis: >45 2wonderY: Canadian or American RR? They are different teas. I do like American Red Rose as a basic tea, but the Canadian blend is bolder and I prefer it when I can get it.

American blend for me, most likely--we're in the Midwest. (People are tea wimps around here. ;) I'll have to pay closer attention to the labels.

I didn't even realize there would be a difference in the blend. Interesting! Mine is American blend too.

I remember the old Red Rose commercials - Only in Canada, eh?

It's easy to tell which one you have. Canadian RR bags are two cup bags without a hang tag.

>49 raidergirl3: Pity. :=)

Hello, i really enjoy green tea, and mint tea. Have you ever tried ginger tea?

Ginger tea--another medicinal staple at my house!

Ginger herbal is great for a queasy stomach, but for regular tea drinking, English Tea Store has a black tea and ginger blend that I just love.

https://www.englishteastore.com/1mt-gr.html

I didn't know there were different versions, though it makes sense. I know that certain items in Canada are different than the states because of ingredients rules. For instance, Coke in Canada doesn't use high fructose corn syrup.

Red Rose changed the bags not too long ago, and my sister has been less keen on it. We've been trying to find a new one but we keep going back. So far, nothing has panned out.

Returning to the thread after eleven years, I saw the discussion of chocolate mint tea from ten years ago (!). I grow chocolate mint in the garden (it's a chocolate-scented variety of peppermint). I believe you can make tea with it, though I haven't tried it yet. Has anyone ever tried it?

Yes. I've had good luck with it ... depends on the particular variety, of course, but with a good, long steep, you can pick up a definite Hershey bar essence.

Applemint is another of my favorites--easy to grow.