NinaVampi shared this one with me, along with a few other vanilla flavoured things. Vanilla and green tea struck me as a funny combination. It wasn’t one I would ever have come up with on my own. Vanilla is simply something I associate with darker teas.
The aroma of the dry leaf surprised me. It didn’t really smell like just green tea and vanilla. In fact I couldn’t really find either super easily. I thought it smelled much more strongly like brown sugar.
I love brown sugar. It’s so much more rich in flavour than ordinary sugar, and it’s excellent when used in baking where it gives an almost caramel-y flavour. You should have tasted the apple crumble I made the other which had lots of brown sugar in it.
Brown sugar. Not a bad thing to smell like. I hadn’t seen it coming in this tea at all, but there it was. Loud and clear.
Interesting, thought I. I wonder how a tea sweetened with brown sugar would behave, thought I. The latter in spite of the fact that I never ever sweeten my tea ever. Then I wondered how coffee would turn out if sweetened with brown sugar as opposed to ordinary white, because I do sweeten coffee if I can. I haven’t tried that yet, though. I might.
Anyway, after steeping the aroma has sorted itself out and is no longer brown sugar-y in the least. Not even a little bit. I can’t work out if I think that’s a disappointment or not, considering how it seemed such an outsider note to begin with. Now it actually smells like green tea and vanilla, and as I suspected, it’s a most peculiar combination. It smells a bit creamy too and very very familiar.
I am certain that I’ve never had a green vanilla flavoured anything before, at least not when counting back to a time where I can actually remember what my experience with it would be, so this is something that really made the little wheels and cogs turn in my head until finally it came to me.
I used to have a rhubarb flavoured green tea from AC Perchs. This one smells very like that one. I can’t remember if the rhubarb one had vanilla in it as well, but I’m almost certain that it must have. This aroma has developed into something almost as pink and bubble-gum-y as that rhubarb green.
I liked that one, so this is a heartening discovery.
And then comes the actual taste. Well, it’s most definitely green tea, although I can’t tell which sort. I get a sort of yellowish colour from it, so I would guess that it might be Chinese. Japanese greens tend to feel more dark green, and I have no idea of colours for other green tea producing regions. Quite vegetal and somewhat butter-y, but other than that I can’t really decipher it. It’s just so… basic, really.
As for the vanilla, it’s… not there. There’s something vaguely dusty in the flavour, but it’s not very distinct and it might as well just be a floral note in the base tea itself. There is a certain sweetness involved but again that might as well just be naturally occurring in the base. I get no vanilla in the sip and I get nothing in the aftertaste as well.
Actually, I’m finding myself sitting here and missing the very pink rhubarb note that I remember from aforementioned rhubarb tea.
I’m marking it low, not because the flavour wasn’t pleasant, but because it doesn’t deliver what it promises.
