Oh look, a vanilla black! My obsession with vanilla these days is hardly a secret, is it? Actually, it’s one that has been going on for a fairly long time now. I can’t even remember what set it off. I suspect it was the awesome vanilla bean Nilgiri that Chi of Tea had and which was sold out when I had decided to buy a large quantity of it. (Does anybody know what’s going on with Chi of Tea these days? There has been radio silence on that front for a long time now.) Anyway, that particular vanilla black seems to have ruined me for all others, and now I can’t find the perfect one.
Auggy has sent me this candidate, and from the aroma of the leaves and the cup after brewing, it’s a serious contender. It’s a little bit coconut-y sweet, and it has that smell that feels tough and leathery. Like the skin of the pod itself rather than just the grains on the inside. The smell that reminds me of a certain sort of sweets that actually has nothing at all to do with vanilla as far as I know. In the cup, it smells all creamy too.
So the aroma is exactly what I’m looking for in the perfect vanilla black.
OMG HOW EXCITING!!! Could it really be the Perfect One?
The first sip was definitely vanilla flavoured, and the vanilla tasted right too. It even tasted milky grey, which is a good sign. But then… that was it. The vanilla flavour is everything that I’m looking for, but the base is really where everything falls like a house of cards. There doesn’t really seem to be much body to it. I can barely taste that it’s a black tea, but I can’t say anything at all about it, because it’s only so faintly there under the vanilla, and the flavouring doesn’t even seem to be that overwhelmingly strong. I should really really like to find this flavouring on a slightly more forceful base. I don’t know which tea this one is made on, but it just doesn’t seem to be asserting itself.
The first time I had it was in the large pot that I share with Husband (I think. I must have forgotten to get his opinion), and then tried again in the medium sized pot for the same result. Yesterday I had it in the smallest pot and it was a little bit better, but not really enough to make that much of a difference.
Still, I’ll rate it pretty high, because the flavouring of it is spot on. It’s just not the perfect base.
