A big thanks to darby for swapping this one! This is my first experience with Culinary Teas. :)
The smell was big and bold upon opening up the package.
“Hhhhhhhhhiiiiii, I’m Pumpkin Cream!”, it exclaimed as I pulled the chock-full, snack-sized bag out of the postal packaging.
I can tell I’m going to have to repackage her. (Yes, this tea is definitely female in my mind.) I’d hate for her to get overly friendly with my other less perfumey teas in my corner cupboard. Finding her a more suitable container to call her own, I dug up a nice canning jelly jar.
The smell is spicy, sweet and creamy – there’s definitely the smell of cinnamon sticks and whole cloves in there. I’d assume the sweet is maybe some vanilla and cream flavor. There’s also something that smells a little burnt – is that the smell of canned pumpkin?
Using dry tea leaf that wavers between 2 and 3 grams for 9 ounces of water, I wait until the infusion looks like a nice pumpkin-orange color – about 3 minutes and 45 seconds. The smell of the dry leaf transfers to my cup.
After waiting a few minutes, I try a taste. It sort of tastes like unsweetened pumpkin pie filling. The spices are well balanced and smooth. Yet the pumpkin flavoring is not dominated by them.
I did try this with a little simple syrup, but it seems to muddle the taste for some reason. I like this better pre-sweetener.
I look forward to playing around with this tea. The smell of the dry leaf scared me a little, leading me to not use as much leaf as I initially planned on. Next time I’ll try a little longer infusion with just a few more dry leaves.
