Review: Plantation Mint - Bigelow

Type: Blend (Black and Herbal)
Producer: Bigelow
Origin: USA
Brewing Parameters: 2 minutes, 1 1.9g teabag (recommended)
Appearance: Trapezoidal paper tea bag with black tea fannings and spearmint dust
Rating: B | 87/100
# of Brews: 1

Tasting Notes and Thoughts
Bigelow is the standard in office and hotel teas. Along with Tazo, you can find these in big display stands with a large variety of flavors. Today's tea is from my Cal friend, who picked this particular blend up at her work (tutoring) with a number of other flavors. Surprisingly, I'm almost near 200 reviews now– this should be number 195, and I have a lot more tea bags to go through. I feel like it's kind of a cop out to end on these teas, but tea is expensive and I want to save some money.

Anyway, after brewing this tea, the liquid came out a dark brown. It's interesting; I feel like you usually find mint on its own as a tisane or brewed with a weaker tea, like a green. However, this came out pretty good. The liquid obviously smelled like spearmint or spearmint gum. The taste was a lot more minty than I expected, considering the base. If you didn't tell me, I'd say this was just a spearmint tisane with no tea at all. It definitely has the slightly sour flavor and cooling sensation of the mint that is characteristic of spearmint, but it also has a nuanced sweetness and a little bitter, earthy flavor from the base. Overall, I thought this tea was very enjoyable. It's not too different from just a regular spearmint tea, but I think the black tea base makes it a bit more subdued.

Other Notes
Today's album is Bang Bang by Dispatch. My Cal friend gave me a mix CD a while ago with The General as the first track. I don't think I usually listen to rock, but this is surprisingly catchy. I don't have much more to say since I'm still listening to it as I write this.

I'm finishing one busy week and it looks like I'll be going into another one. Since the last review, I've been doing the same old things– practicing handwriting, studying math, doing that online class, working out, etc. I did go last night with my Cal friend to the Japanese supermarket in San Jose where we got food and some snacks, and she gave me some art she made. The day before that, I helped my childhood friend pack up for moving– I came over at 6 pm and we were lifting stuff in and out of a truck until 2 am (and they weren't finished yet when I went home). I'm sure he's moved to Stockton already, but I told him he's always welcome to hang out with me at Berkeley. My friends and I are trying to plan a road trip to Los Angeles since I have my driving test next week, but it's hard when everyone is busy and with college stuff coming around the corner. Oh, and my ex and I started chatting a little bit again and it isn't too bad.

This weekend will be exciting. Today, I'm going to go watch Dunkirk with the family. My grandma was having some health problems last night and this morning, so hopefully she gets better soon. I was going to go to Freq.Fest.SF today, too, but the person I was going with had family things come up, so that's fine. Tomorrow, I'm going to a concert my friend is putting on, and the day after that, I'm hiking the Fire Trails at Berkeley with my dad. I feel like I need to do a lot more (instead of staying inside all the damn time) to not waste this summer, but it's hard when 1. you can't drive, 2. you're trying to save money because you're not getting work shifts, and 3. your friends are busy with their own plans or are out of town. I'm both excited for college, mainly because of meeting people and having new experiences, but at the same time, it's a bit scary (and sad) having to leave home and seeing everyone else move on.