Tea Snobbery Top Ten: Plantation Mint (#9)

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Oh, there it is. That head cold that's been suggesting that it might pay me a visit showed up in full force this evening. Grab the vitamin C, Zicam, chicken soup, and Puffs, it's time to fight! Another thing that's soothing when I have a cold is tea, and by coincidence here's one of my favorite good-for-a-cold teas on today's countdown of my favorite tea flavors. #9: Plantation Mint There are a couple of recurring themes in the tea countdown. One is Bigelow, the tea manufacturer. The other is mint flavors in the tea. Let me start with a bittersweet story about this tea. The outer foil wrapper has a very minty smell to it. When my mom was in ICU I stuck one of these tea bags under her nose. She reacted to it, opened her eyes, and for a few minutes we had Mom "back" after over a week of comatose-like "nothing" following a brain aneurysm. She opened her eyes, seemed to recognize us, reacted with positive facial expressions when I held my phone to her ear while her sister talked to her, gave the slightest indication of a squeeze of our hands, and even seemed to be trying to mouth "I love you" when we said it. The next day, she was back in the coma-like state, and a week later she was gone. But we had one last time with her to tell her "goodbye," and I'll always be grateful to the minty smell of Plantation Mint's wrapper for that. But there's another reason I drink it, besides the sentimentality and the fact that I think of my mom every time I smell the wrapper. It's a good tea. The smell of the wrapper is a little misleading, because the tea itself doesn't have an overpowering mint flavor to it, like you're drinking hot peppermint extract. Instead, the flavor is refreshing, especially cold in the summer. I love it in the winter, too, good and hot. In fact, I've been known to use Plantation Mint tea to mix with hot chocolate mix for a "mint cocoa" effect. Now that I have a cold, it's also good for a gentle push against the sore throat and the clogged nose. Plantation Mint is another flavor that's readily available in supermarkets with a good tea selection. Plantation Mint From Bigelow Tea Well, I don't have a plantation mint song, but here's "Plantation Harbor" by Joe Vitale, best-known for co-writing "Rocky Mountain Way" with Joe Walsh: