Mmm a lovely cuppa pee (Twinings Peppermint Tea)

Member Name: bondgirlk8

Product:	Twinings Peppermint Tea
Date:	11/02/09 (287 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Smells heavenly

Disadvantages: Tastes vile

I've recently changed jobs and the supplies in the kitchen at my new office are far superior to anywhere I have worked before. Part of this is a stock of several boxes of every kind of Twinings Herbal Teas you can imagine. Now, my prior experience of herbal teas has, almost without exception, always been a let down. This has usually occurred due to seeing a tasty looking box of tea in a supermarket and deciding it looks tasty and healthy. It is the kind of product I WANT to like. Somehow it finds its way into my basket and I rush home full of excitement to try my new tea. I get home, boil the kettle, marvel at the wonderful smell, wait for the never-cooling-drink to reach a temperature which will not burn my mouth, take a sip, and YUCK! It tastes nothing like the nice taste that the smell had led me to believe I would experience. I end up grumpy that I have a gross drink and am a few quid lighter for the pleasure.

Anyway, I've not had herbal tea for some time, and if you are anything like me you'll recognise the fact that the impact of drink memory somehow lessens over time. The clever marketing and pretty packaging wins and you completely forget that you don't like it and think, 'Oooh, herbal tea! Now doesn't that look nice?' You cave in and decide to try it. The yummy smell is just confirmation that you were right to give it another chance. Seeing as work was offering, I thought I'd give it that chance. After all, I hadn't tried Pure Peppermint before. It sounded like the very thing I needed, and if by some awful chance I didn't like it, at least I wouldn't be out of pocket and stuck with a box of tea bags that I didn't really like but felt forced to drink anyway.

I went for it. I tried the mint.


WHAT IS IT?

Twinings are somewhat the experts when it comes to tea; they've been making it since forever, well for 303 years anyway. Thomas Twinning started selling tea, an exotic new drink, on the Strand in London and his pledge to create exceptional teas for everyone has remained at the heart of the business ever since.

Today, Twinings have a vast range of teas as well as lines in coffee, hot chocolate and iced teas. Part of their tea collection is their herbal range, 'Infusions'. This in itself is massive containing every kind of herbal tea you could possibly dream of, and they are even categorised into sub-categories to help you match your tea to your mood.

Pure Peppermint is part of the Revive and Revitalise sub-range which contain teas designed to give you a natural lift. All ingredients in this range are natural, so you know that you aren't putting anything grim into your body. This is reassuring. Poor Peppermint, oops, I mean Pure Peppermint is described by Twinings as "A refreshing infusion with a clean taste. The cool aroma of mint is not only refreshing, but fresh peppermint leaves have traditionally been used to sooth the stomach and to aid digestion. It's naturally caffeine free and has no added sugar. You can drink it at any time of the day but its digestive qualities mean that many people choose it as an after dinner alternative to coffee." Sounds brilliant, doesn't it?!


PRICE

As of today (11th February 2009) a box of 20 would set you back 92p (were you to shop online at Sainsbury's). Now compared to regular tea this is quite pricey at a whole 4.6p per tea bag, but for a speciality type tea, it's not so bad. It is also decent value if you like it. If, however, you're not so keen and will never make it after the initial try it will be 92p per drink. Put like that, it's quite dear. As mine was free, I can't grumble.

PACKAGING

This is where they suck you in. The whole Twinings range of teas are supplied in pretty boxes which are an appropriate colour for the flavour, mint is therefore green, and show illustrations of the particular fruit, herb or plant that it is made from, in this case mint leaves feature on the box. The packaging stands out on the shelf (or in this particular case the kitchen!!) and makes you want to try it. It somehow manages to convince me that I am one of those people who drink herbal tea - you know who you are, you are a special breed and I know in my heart I am not one of you. This box, however, somehow manages to convince me that I am, or at least that I want to be.

Inside the box is another packaging delight, there are little rows of pretty little sachets of tea, all individually wrapped up and safe from harm. The actual bag itself is the kind that is on a string for ease of brewing in and removal from a mug, this is always a good thing in a tea bag as it does make it feel a little bit decadent. On the other hand, we could make do without the card and the string and save the environment a little bit really now couldn't we. We could also do without the individual sachet it is provided in. Alas, though, this is too pretty to be taken away. It features the same lovely colours, pictures and happy hippy health mind-control powers of the box. If I wasn't convinced before that I love herbal tea, I am now.



SCENT

In order to deal with the sensation of smell accurately, I am forced to break this into two areas: the smell in the bag and the smell as it 'infused'.

As I opened the box, my nostrils were filled with the wonderful aroma of peppermint. It was refreshing, uplifting and very, very minty! It smelt delicious. I couldn't wait for the kettle to boil so that I could try it. I opened the packet and carefully removed the tea bag. As the bag was removed, the smell grew into something even more wonderful. My mouth was watering with anticipation.

I hung the teabag in my mug taking care to drape the little string on the outside of the mug. The kettle finally boiled and I poured the hot water over the bag and prepared to give it the two or three minutes required for the tea to brew properly. As the water splashed on to the bag, a new scent was released and it smelt.........grim! There was still, a very slight undertone of mint to the smell, but the overall aroma was one of bad herbal tea gone very wrong. My heart sank. Was this particular herbal tea about to turn out to be yet another disappointment?

It is the nice smell of the bag that offends me the most. How dare it pretend it is going to taste so yummy? The release of scent two confirmed that, once again, scent one was a rotten lie.


TASTE

Peppermint tea tastes, to be honest, gross. It's like a cup of garden goo and really not that pleasant; such a let down after such a promising delightful-smelling bag. What's more, I'm convinced it didn't taste of mint. To me this drink tasted, well, kind of like soil. But then, there was a surprise; there is an after-taste. This after taste is actually quite nice. It is quite fresh and (obviously, you would think) minty. It also made my teeth feel nice, kind of as if I had just cleaned them.

Sadly though, despite the fact it was freezing in my office to the extent that I may have drank old cabbage water in order to try to raise my core temperature, I just couldn't drink the whole mug. Even the fairly OK tasting after taste was not enough to entice me to drink the rest of my mug.

Later that evening I swear I could still taste it a little bit. I don't know how as the taste wasn't in the slightest overpowering, I imagine it was just psychological. It was mainly the soil 'instant' taste rather than the minty-ish aftertaste that seemed to stick with me. I'm guessing the fact that my brain did this means it really wasn't keen on it and was trying to tell me not to forget and repeat the error.

I have, as a result given it two stars. One is because I have to - as a 'no-star' rating is not possible. The second star is because a single star rating has to be reserved for the truly awful things in life, like cancer, torture or Sandy Toksvig. The tea, grim though it is, ranks well above such horrors and is therefore deserving of more than one star. It earned this status mainly for having a nice smell and for being a healthy hot drink.

Sadly my opinion that herbal teas smell divine but then let you down on taste has not been revised as a result of trying this tea. This view has only been reinforced.


Thanks for reading

© BondgirlK8 - February 2009

Summary: Learnt my lesson? I doubt it.