Oh Christ. I almost can't believe I'm doing this. It's like admitting that you think the 80's were a really cool decade, style-wise, or that ginger's quite a nice hair colour, all things considered (I know, who am I kidding? No one thinks that ginger is good. Not even the gingers). Anyway, despite all that, I really am about to do a review on peppermint tea.
Incidentally, probably best not to read on if you're offended by swearing, are a ginger/quite like herbal tea.
In my university days I used to consume 9 cups of coffee a day, on average. This was mainly because I lived with a ginger and I needed that amount of caffeine to function in the midst of the orangey haze (I swear to God, she's a ginger, she drives a Micra and her music of choice is Westlife. It's hard to believe that one individual can be that cursed). When I started teaching I remained on 9 cups a day, but progressed to putting 2 dessert spoons of coffee in the cup. All was well, until one day we ran out of coffee (incidentally, the woman in charge of buying the coffee supplies is a ginger. Coincidence? I think not). I thought I was going to die. The resultant migraine was so bad that I had to abandon the kids and go and lie down on the storeroom floor for a wee while. I probably would have chalked the whole thing down to experience and carried on downing coffee by the pint, but in my de-caffeinated state I had a moment of clarity. The ginger in charge of the tea fund was charging the teachers a fiver a month for tea and coffee, and the classroom assistants got the reduced fee of two pounds fifty. That's a total of seventy quid a month. For tea and coffee. Now, unless the coffee was made from gold (and if it was, Nescafe are keeping that damn quiet) that's a bit of a rip off. So, rebel that I am, I decided to eschew staffroom tradition and branched out on my own.
Initially I bought nice Douwe Egberts coffee, and drank it in the manner of a smug person who has saved loads of money. However, every time the ginger forgot to top up the coffee supplies (which was every sodding week. Gingers: not bright or any good at buying coffee) the teachers and classroom assistants would have no qualms about helping themselves to mine. Bastards. A radical re-think of my guerrilla tactics was necessary. Also, a combination of caffeine addiction and hangovers was starting to give me the shakes in a quite noticeable way. You can't get away with having the shakes as a primary school teacher anymore, which is a sad indictment of our society, I think.
Anyway, coffee was out, I don't particularly like the taste of tea, so that left herbal and fruit teas. Now, I despise those who drink herbal teas in a manner which is only right and proper, but the only other alternative was drinking water. Peppermint tea it was, if only because it's slightly less camp than all the other herbal teas.
The only reason I bought it is that it was on offer in the supermarket, and because I had a friend staying who's not manly enough to drink proper tea. Should you have the shakes/know someone who's not hard enough for a proper beverage you'll find it with all the other tea/coffee stuff in the supermarket. It's about 90p for 20 teabags. Just think of that - almost a month of minty beverage enjoyment for less than a quid. That's value for money. It's in a green box. You'd probably guessed this already, but it'll have 'Twinings' emblazoned on the front in an attractive, Stephen Fry endorsed kind of way. Incidentally, the name 'peppermint tea' is a bit of a misnomer. There's no actual tea leaves involved. Rather, the top leaves of the peppermint plant (herb? Bush? Tree? I have no idea) are selected by the nice people at Twinings, and lovingly forced into bag format for your delectation. This is good, as it means that you don't have to bugger about with tea strainers and the like, although I'm not really sure who even does that anymore apart from old people.
No doubt after reading this, you'll be just itching to buy a box and get started on a veritable fiesta of peppermint tea drinking. Well, rein your enthusiasm in, because it's a bit different to making a normal cup of tea. For a start, you don't add milk. That turns it from pleasurably minty and watery to the broth of the devil. Nor, if you're a puritan with a keen appreciation for fine minty drinks should you add sugar. What you should do is wallop one of the bags into a cup, add hot water, leave it for a couple of minutes to infuse and then drink it. You don't take the bag out again, either which means you'll save loads of time on washing teaspoons (I know, that alone is reason enough to start drinking it).
It's widely claimed that peppermint is an aid to digestion, and that drinking peppermint tea can help those with IBS/embarrassingly loud and/or frequent trumps. It does settle your stomach slightly if you're a bit queasy/have a hangover, but it's not a miracle cure. If you're on the verge of projectile vomiting peppermint tea will do naff all to prevent it.
The taste is pretty unremarkable, truth be told. It's nice, and all, but you won't ever wander into your local hostelry and say 'Why, no, Mister Barman. Take the lovely cold Stella away. A nice cup of Twinings peppermint tea is what I'm after.' It doesn't have any of the strength of a normal cup of tea. There is a slight minty aftertaste, but that dissipates after a few minutes. Also, I really wouldn't recommend dunking biscuits into it. They'd only get caught up in the teabag resulting in an unpleasant minty/biscuity stodge. No one wants that.
So, if you work with gingers who are incapable of accurately gauging the quantity of coffee needed to comfortably supply you with drinks, Twinings Peppermint Tea may be just the thing for you.
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