A brisk mint runs straight through this one — spearmint and peppermint over a malty Ceylon base, with a citrus edge and a smooth finish that trails into something almost coffee-like. The peppermint plant itself has an odd backstory: legend credits Hades with its creation, but botanically it is a natural cross between spearmint and watermint. The black tea side comes from Sri Lanka, known in the trade as Ceylon tea. Sri Lanka wasn't always a tea island — through most of the 19th century it grew coffee, until a plant disease wiped out the crop in 1869 and growers turned to tea instead. That switch turned into one of the country's defining industries.
On its own, peppermint tea has no caffeine at all. The Ceylon black tea base is where this blend gets its lift, and an average 8-ounce cup comes out to roughly 45 mg — enough to notice in the morning without overdoing it. Peppermint has long been drunk as a digestive aid, and black tea carries its own reputation as a source of minerals like magnesium and manganese, though neither should be read as medical advice.
To brew it, use about five grams of leaf per cup with water just off the boil, at 100°C, and steep for three to five minutes — the tasting notes above assume closer to four. Some drinkers add extra mint leaf for a sharper edge, others drop in a lemon slice for the citrus notes already present in the cup, and it holds up fine with nothing added at all.
