Finally trying the second scariest tea from last year’s 12 Teas of Christmas – Pancake Black. (That leaves me with Buttered Popcorn. Shudder). The dry aroma has something sweet about it, but it’s more brown sugar than maple. I know it’ll be bitter because that’s how the old tea base was and I swear I can smell that in the dry leaf. I’m not picking up on much more than those two notes, at the mo.
After a 2.5 minute steep, I have a bitter smelling brew. I still get a sense of that sweetness but the bitterness is dominating the aroma. I am willing to sweeten this if necessary, but I don’t like to sweeten my tea if I can help it. The tea should stand on it’s own, ideally. Nothing saying pancake in the aroma, but this IS an old sample and there is properly a lack of quality from the time and storage.
First sips are not bad. There is a sweetness right off the bat that is more like Aunt Jemima’s butter syrup than maple syrup but it’s actually pretty nice. I am not picking up on the bitterness like I expected and that sweetness is really lingering. Still no pancake, but I’m digging the ‘butter flavoured syrup’ vibe. My grandmother’s table always has that stuff and real maple syrup so I’ve become pretty clear on the difference. When I want syrup, I want the real stuff but there is a fond place in my heart for the fake. Especially if you pair it with boxed pancake mix – pancakes from scratch need strawberry jam or real syrup but I love the lazy stuff too!
Basically, this tea makes me want pancakes now… Thumbs up for sweetness, down for lack of pancake flavour. I’ll give this a solid middle of the road rating – it wasn’t nearly as scary as it seemed! I’m not sweetening it, but if I had steeped it any longer I would have had to. Whew!
