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
This was another one from my friends at Tea's Me Cafe, and another one that I bought because it sounded amazing, not because I loved the smell or taste of it. I am learning my lesson to smell the loose leaf tea, and if possible try some before buying 75g of it! I like it all right, but chai is very, very powerful, and this one is no exception. Even smelling it kind of blows you away! 
When you smell it, it does kind of remind you of a green Christmas. Cinnamon, cardamom, green leaves, spicyness...it's a sharp and tangy taste, powerful, with hardly any of the 'green' taste at all. As a chai it's very light - without the milkiness of a usual chai, it's not heavy, and I think it could be a good one if combined with some other teas or flavours.