Great Mississippi Tea Company Mississippi Mint blend

 

On with the theme of trying random samples around, the last of a few from Mississippi.  It's this:

Mississippi Mint ($11.00, I think per an ounce, but it's out of stock so hard to check)

This tea uses a green tea base and is flavored with premium spearmint oil and blended with Kaffir lime and sage. 

1 rounded tsp per 8 oz. of 185F water. Steep for 3 minutes. 

That's not far from the process I used, maybe just a bit warmer, with a little higher proportion, and timing not far off that, so brewed on the strong side.

Review:  

Really nice.  It's unusual adjusting back to flavored teas but I've been mixing tisanes and tea enough that it's not so odd.  Even versions in a similar range; someone gave me some lemongrass and pandan leaf tisane that I had been using to mix with sheng pu'er for grandpa style brewing.  The mint makes this different but it's along a similar line.

It tastes like the ingredients, which makes flavor breakdown reviewing easy:  Mississippi Queen (a green tea), Spearmint, Kaffir Lime Powder, and Sage.  It all integrates really well.  At first I didn't love the sound of a mint tea version, probably why I tried this so much later than the others, but the other warmer and aromatic range really ties it all together.  I suppose this may have been slightly brighter and fresher nearly a year ago but it seems to have held up well.  Maybe that warmth that I've said is positive relates to settling in while stored in a hot environment, with humidity not really factoring in for it being sealed, and never opened in the half year since I've had it.  

As I see it it's really a myth that green tea is ruined by more than half a year's storage time.  It transitions, in ways that most people wouldn't necessarily see as positive, but as long as storage isolates it from air contact it's fine, just slightly different.  Losing that fresh edge is quite negative if that's what one values most in a green tea, of course.  A type like Longjing would be best drank sooner, and styles closer to sheng form, twisted, Vietnamese Thai Nguyen (fish hook style), or maybe even Taiping Houkui might be fine a year later, not really diminished.

The mint level and range is perfect in this; that is what would make or break this tea. This doesn't have a spice-like bite; it blends together well.

It's like a better version of a tea I tried starting out, Tazo Zen.  I'll compare the ingredients:

Green tea, lemon verbena, spearmint leaves, lemongrass, natural flavors

Not too far off.  I can probably appreciate tea quality in a different way than I did back when I would've drank that, on a lot of levels, related to identifying positive flavors differently, considering feel aspects, being familiar with astringency in different forms in tea.  Ground up material in a tea bag would brew much faster but wouldn't be as good.

One limitation of drinking just tisanes, which I still do, a lot more over the last two years than in the decade prior to that, is that the body / feel can seem limited, and complexity doesn't reach the same flavor aspects range.  This base tea version compensates for all that, adding plenty of depth, in a range that integrates with the rest.  Of course mint plays a significant role, just balanced and subdued for not blasting through as a dominant central aspect.  Lime integrates with the rest, and sage you can't notice, beyond what it must contribute for warmth, complexity, and depth.

So that's about it, a nice blend.  It's refined enough that it stands well above any sort of grocery store flavored tea, and it's probably a little better than what most online blend specialists sell.  That Tazo Zen probably wouldn't fare well in direct tasting comparison with this, but drinking both sweetened might even up the gap a bit.  It's still a tea and herb blend though, just a type and range that surely doesn't come up so often.  That's one of the impressive parts of this tea company's theme, to me, that they make products that are novel.  I can't imagine that the average American who would drink this could really fully appreciate the balance and quality level, but a general sense that it's good should still come across.

I rebrewed it; it's interesting seeing how flavor balance shifts in a tea version like this.  For flavored teas a lot of what you experience just rinses out the first round, but this is more of a blend instead.  It's not all that different.  The mint kick hits slightly differently, but it's hard to place exactly how.  Maybe it's a little cooler, or at least it carries across as aftertaste more.  General aftertaste is probably stronger, adding depth to the experience, instead of it thinning.  Astringency doesn't pick up, even though I brewed it for a longer round.  It's quite nice still, just as good.  

Even a third round didn't lose much; I tend to go with a much higher proportion and keep brewing time moderate in order to brew two very positive rounds and one that can seem a little stretched at times.

she keeps growing up

as close as he gets to posing

an unconventional look is coming along nicely