Mauve

I agree with Cameron that the green tea base is very much drowned out by all the strong herbs in this tea, though I do think it’s maybe adding a bit of body and astringency that they would have lacked otherwise. In particular, I think that’s helpful given how sweet the combination of mint and fennel reads. For that to not come off as terribly cloying I think it needs some of the texture and coarseness of the green tea. Perhaps that’s incidental though, and not what Chroma actually had in mind with this tea.

I say that because my best guess is that they were going for some type of riff on a Moroccan Mint. To be fair, I have no real reason to assume that – it’s just that the dual combination of mint (spearmint reads more strongly here, IMO) and the suggestion to make it iced/cold brewed gives me strong “upgraded Moroccan Mint” vibes. So, totally just conjecture on my part.

Anyway, it was fine – but definitely not my favourite from Chroma.

I was so excited to get my haul from Chroma Tea! I blame Ali, as known as LuckyMe, for pointing out that it’s an extension of Verdant… I ended up getting one of everything, except for the three blends that were out of stock (sadly, some of the ones I was most interested in). I didn’t have a strong feeling of what to start with, so I chose this one partially because I was in the mood for a green tea, and partially because they seem have this same blend in three different variations – green, shou, and herbal. So I figured I would start with one of them to make it easier to spread them out and not be drinking multiple in a row.

Anyway, too much rambling! This is a Laoshan green base with peppermint, spearmint, tulsi, burdock, and fennel. I like all of those things, so sounds right up my alley. To be honest though, I don’t really taste the green tea here? I guess there’s a nutty undertone. I get the somewhat musty, earthy burdock at the beginning of the sip, and then it transitions to mint. I guess the tulsi is probably in there too, but it’s a bit difficult to extricate that flavor from the strong mint. The fennel is extremely subtle, I catch a hint of it at the end of some sips but not others.

I will say, for my first Chroma blend, I’m a little disappointed in this one. To me, the mint is too strong and it’s overpowering the other flavors. And this is extremely subjective, but to me this doesn’t fit the color choice of mauve. The other two similar blends are very close shades of pastel minty green, which makes a lot more sense to me.