A sample from VariaTEA. I surprised myself with this one, because I’m not usually a decaf kind of girl. If I want caffiene free tea in the evening, I usually got for a herbal. Last night I really, really wanted black tea, but I knew it was a bad idea. Then I remembered this one!
The smell of the dry leaf is A-MA-ZING. It reminds me of Starbuck’s Vanilla Nut Latte! It’s scented strongly of vanilla, with a nutty background note. I gave it about three minutes in boiling water. It brewed up pretty dark, so I added a good slug of milk.
It tastes almost as wonderful as it smells. Not quite, because probably very few things actually do, particularly when it comes to flavoured black tea. It’s better than I thought it was going to be, though. There’s a nice, creamy vanilla flavour, not too overpoweringly sweet, and a toasty nuttiness…hazelnut, I think. It’s a really delicious and well balanced combination, and it stands up well against the black base. I can taste “tea” quite strongly, but as it mostly confines itself to the aftertaste, it doesn’t interfere too much with the initial flavour of the sip, which is all vanilla-nut loveliness. A really nice evening treat — just the thing! Many thanks to VariaTea for sharing this one with me :)