Day 86: Candy Cane Tea (Holiday Decaf Green)

If yesterday's tea was a campfire in a cup, then today's is Christmas in a cup.  This has been a favourite tea for many years, but I generally only drink it during the holidays.  Interestingly enough, I've only discovered today that it's a decaf green tea (no wonder I like it!).  There's a very strong peppermint flavour - so strong that you feel you could get the same taste by heating hot water and dropping several sticks of peppermint candy into it.  The green tea is an excellent flavour enhancer, though - much better than black tea.  It's lighter, and I'm discovering that when green tea has another flavour with it, the secondary flavour becomes the primary one.  I think green is a very humble tea.  It insists that the other flavours go first, have more of an impact.  It's content to sit back and just be the base, the capability, the opportunity for these other flavours to shine.

Candy cane tea is also an excellent choice if it's cold, or wet, or grey, or rainy, or if you're getting a cold.  There's something about anything minty that not only soothes, but provides contentment, too.  I'm struggling a little to drink this tea on a summer July day, but summer in Scotland is all over the place, and within the last hour it has gone from a warm, clammy, summer's day to a very grey and wet one.  So I feel I'm justified in having this mint infusion while I "chillax".

And every time I take a sip, I'm transported a bit.  I see wrapping paper and ribbons and sparkling baubles.  I smell the tangy green scent of a Christmas fir, with the needles flinging themselves with joyful abandon all over my white carpet.  I hear "I Saw Three Ships" playing while I write out Christmas cards, and families laden with good things laughing and sometimes arguing as they return from the shops.  I feel the sharp softness of velvet ribbon and the sleek slidiness of silk dresses and tops.  And I can just taste those Christmas cookies we used to make every year back when I was younger - pink and white striped, twisted all along and curved at the top, and sprinkled with crushed peppermint.  (My friend Heather blogged the recipe here, if you're interested.) Candy cane cookies, they're called.  It's the only thing missing while I drink my Christmas tea in July.

Walk length: 15 minutes