Man Teas

Damn, I can’t get over how they managed to capture the pork-y element in the dry leaf aroma—not just smoke and salt, which are pretty easy to do, but actual hammy flavor, to the point I can taste it in my mouth (and it’s making my mouth water!) just from smelling the leaves.

Brews up quite dark, and the smokiness intensifies. It’s almost a savory tea, but then sweetness comes back at the end and lingers in the mouth after the swallow. You do have to be on board with smoke, meat/umami, and salt elements. I’m not sure how regularly I’d be in the mood to drink this tea, but uniqueness aside it’s really well done and exactly the elements listed in the name. I especially appreciate that the maple aroma and flavor is actual, real maple syrup, not the sad stuff at the supermarket—smelling this tea transports me to being a kid and touring the big cabins in the snow where they’d make maple syrup, the overwhelming smoky maple steam. Pretty awesome.

The dry leaf is sprinkled with red bits of imitation bacon and smells of maple smoked bacon with a hint of something almost alcoholic. It smells of burning leaves with a hint of bacon or perhaps more cured ham, a hint of something sweet, and alcohol (later on it kind of deveops into that type of vanilla note found in some whiskeys). The first flavour note was of a slightly cocoa flavoured tea base followed by charred , smoked food notes than a hint of sweetness. It does capture a taste of maple smoked bacon, it doesn’t really taste like maple syrup. The bacon flavour is not overpowering. It reminds me of early fall mornings at my cousins cottage, when the woodstove is burning and I am enjoying a warm beverage in solitude and absorbing my surroundings. Not something I would crave everyday, but it does evoke some fantastic memories and it was certainly an ntersting tea to try. Thanks Rachel for the chance to try this tea.

I made a cup of this tea because I was craving lapsang souchong. I had already had a cup of lapsang today so I decided to go with this because it was something a bit different. I added some maple butter to it, because I apparently have no maple syrup in the fridge (or its in there and I just can’t find it – who knows). It was pretty good. Gave it a sweet and maple taste to it. Worked well with the smokey bacon taste. However, I had it in the afternoon and I think it is more of a breakfast/morning type tea. I just didn’t find it as enjoyable in the afternoon. But in saying that, my usual pattern is lighter teas/herbals in the afternoon. Crazy how your body can tell the change in routine.

Mmmmmmmmm, bacon. I could not pass this tea up. I love bacon. I was a bit skeptical because bacon is so good, I didn’t think it could be replicated in a tea. Two things I love, bacon and tea together. Frank is a genius!
Upon first smelling the tea, I was thrown off. I didn’t think it smelled like bacon at all. But after I scooped some out of the package and took a deep smell, there is a hint of bacon. It is smokey, and slightly sweet.
I can strongly taste the lapsang souchon in this tea. There is a slight sweet and salty taste to the tea. I would not say that it tastes exactly like bacon, but it definitely has a hint of baconish taste.
I had company over when I brewed this tea, and it was split 50/50 for wether the tea smelled and tasted like bacon. Interestingly enough, all the males said yup thats bacon, the females didn’t think it was anywhere near bacon. (Hmmmm, man teas).
Although not blown away with this bacon tea, I am satisfied that I tried it and I have some in the cupboard as an interesting conversation starter.

Holy guacamole. The first time I tried this, I almost spat it out. Not because I didn’t like it, but because its actual bacon-ness caught me off guard. The first cup I drank had a pinch of salt and maple syrup, the second had sugar. Both were delicious! My favourite thing about this is its smokiness. Yum!

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I’m not entirely sure how to feel about this tea. At first smell, I thought I’d opened up the wrong bag, because the dry tea smelled quite heavily of chocolate. After re-checking that it was, in fact, maple bacon, I set out to brew. This brewed up relatively dark, for tea, and smelled heavily of coffee at first – not bacon or maple at all, at least for me.

At first pure sip, this just tasted like a run-of-the-mill strong black tea, but the suggestions made to add sweetener and salt really helped. Not sure if I’m getting maple or just plain sweetness, but the salt helped the bacon out a lot – maybe a salt-rimmed glass would be even better? Though I do have a salty palate, so maybe that’s going overboard.

The texture of the brew is wonderful, though… Its got that slight thickness usually reserved for coconut teas, and is an easy drink.

My husband got me two pouches of this for my Christmas stocking and said he hoped I liked it since I had a lot of it. No worries there! I took one sip of this at work today and imed him with, ‘holy hell, chocolate bacon tea might be the best thing evah!" So yea, I think it’s fair to say I’m a fan.

I sweeten all my teas with brown sugar splenda so I think I’m missing out a bit on the bacon taste which I’ll try to remedy with the pinch of salt suggestion from another reviewer and a bit less sugar. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to go sugarless although my waistline would probably thank me.

Thanks Frank! And I second the request for the chocolate covered potato chip tea!

Many thanks tattooed_tea for this 6th Day of many Christmas teas. I’m waiting on my husband to wrap up the last of his gifts and then head off to celebrations two of many between now and tomorrow. :) All I have to say about this tea is IT’S BACON! Yummy bacon! Like KeenTeaThyme mentioned it has it all minus the crunch. But for me it doesn’t take away from the awesome flavor or experience of this tea. Thank you again for including it in the batch of teas!

Back on the 6th day of christmas we were sent a few teas for our breakfast themed tea day :) I held off trying a few of them so now i’m playing catch up. So i love bacon…back a few years ago it was not unheard of for me to cook an entire package and eat it in one day (with my other half).

I’m not sure this tea is for me…it’s been sitting in front of me as based on the smell i haven’t been able to pick it up to drink it. There’s a weird underlying smell to the smokiness, that makes me want to clear my nostrils when i inhale.

Ok… first sip! this IS liquid bacon! I’m actually pretty impressed with how much this is just BACON. I’m not getting much in the way of the maple but it’s pretty good if you’re looking for a bacon tea.

That being said, this isn’t a tea for me…but i can’t hold that against the tea! Thank you tattooed_tea!

Since I don’t care for the tea for Day 8 of the Christmas exchange, I decided to try another from Day 6. This time it’s one I’ve been wanting to try anyway! Love when that works out. :)

Hmm. Bacon. Love how this one smells – both dry and as it’s steeping. I’m a bit apprehensive about trying it, because I’m a total bacon lover and what if it’s no good? I’m going to want bacon…

But I tried it … and it’s delicious! I really feel like I’m eating bacon, sans crunch. I can taste a bit of the maple, which helps cut the smoky bacon flavor.

A coworker just asked me where I got a BLT! That’s how fragrant this is!

I do crave “real” bacon…but let’s be honest. I always do. ;)

This is awesome as only Frank @52Teas could do! :)

Wow! Thank you tattooed_tea for sending us this feast of tea for the Sixth Day of Christmas! This is one of five teas, all of them breakfast themed! Since I had already grabbed some strong Sage Derby cheese and Almond Nut Thins I figured the bacon would be best and I quickly scrambled an egg to go with.

When I first sipped this I wasn’t sure. Smoky, sure but what else? But this has started to really round itself out, I can taste the sweet maple, I can even imagine the grease from bacon, this may sound weird or gross but I’m impressed. But this tea has more to it than just the food it’s inspired by.

This tea evokes a scene, the bacon is cooking in a smoky cabin or perhaps over a campfire. This is freaking lumberjack tea! And it reminds me of pu’erh in this way, bringing up sensory memories and the smoke is quite complex.

I definitely want to blend this with Pancake Breakfast, but I think I shall steep this a second time, try the pancake on it’s own and save a teaspoon of each to share with my sister. Sadly because of the smoke, I don’t think the husband could appreciate it. But I say YUM!

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Thank you to Amanda for sending me a sample of this. I have been anxiously awaiting to try this one. Bacon…yes please. Opening the bag there is a nice candy like aroma that fills the air. I noticed that it is the very much like some of the other black tea blends from 52/Manteas. So the aroma is good. The maple comes through pretty well. I think better than it did when I received a sample of the pancake breakfast. The black tea is bright but not too astringent. Sigh Where’s the bacon? I’m not tasting the bacon come through and that is a little disappointing. It’s almost like The Great Bacon shortage hoax of 2013. Which I think was just a ploy for people to eat more bacon. It worked…at least for this guy. I really wanted to love this one. I like it. I just wish that I could taste the bacon.

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I’ve been holding on to this, afraid to try it. Finally I got the courage to tonight, only to be disappointed.

I’m not getting anything. I added maple syrup and salt and it didn’t help at all. I mean, now it tastes more like maple but I wanted the bacon alongside it!

I guess I have to steep it longer? I went with about 4 min, 15 seconds. It’s not even smoky to me. Oddly more than anything, it tastes like chocolate. It definitely smells like breakfast, though. I’ll have to play around with it again.

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I am still not tired of this tea. It’s even good to dunk chocolate chip cookies in!
(I just used the last of my maple syrup to sweeten it though. Time to buy more!)

Thanks so much to Azzrian for this sample! I totally agree, this is more sweet pepper than hot! and I don’t know what, but something else was amiss. Maybe it was me, but I don’t think so…
This one didn’t speak to me as tasty at all. The first of many misses today. But you know what? I didn’t mind for some reason. I was in a mood to experiment :)

Thank you Kristaleyn for this sample!! and Azzrian? I think I got some from both of you :)

Unfortunately though, this tea is not for me. I could barely finish a few sips, let alone the cup. Forget a second steep!
Something about this tea just makes me ill. Not in an allergy way. More in a can’t handle the flavour sortof tummy protest.
Now bear in mind… I don’t like smoked ham. Yep, bacon and I… we’ve never gotten along.
Even with milk and sugar this wasn’t palatable :(
So I won’t rate this. I can’t decide what would be a fair rating…
and I am super grateful to have tried this. You win some you lose some right?

Another very generous sample from Azzrian. Thank you!

In a past log, I gave MarketSpice’s Seattle Spicy Chai a fairly favorable rating. It was really an eye-opening experience for me. One, simply due to the level of spicyness in that tea. Two, it was the first really spicy tea I had ever tried. I had a few masala chais before that had ginger and peppercorn in them, but never anything that really made me say WOW, SPICY! So it was very eye opening. It was almost like a punch in the face ;)

So I gave it a very high rating. Maybe it was naive, but it felt right at the time.

This blows it out of the water. Like fishing-with-dynamite kind of out of the water. The flavor on this tea is astounding. The cayenne pepper really takes a front seat in the class, puts its hand up and just starts BEGGING to be called on. Its fantastic. The chocolate notes follow shortly after, and are very malty and smooth, especially compared to other teas I’ve had with chocolate in them. The ginger and cardamom peek in just after that, and its all finished off by a soft spoken almond/cherry affair.

On a somewhat interesting personal note, my taste buds have always had issues with almond/cherry flavoring, they’re basically indistinguishable to me for some reason. This makes most things that are supposed to taste like almonds taste TERRIBLE, and most things that are supposed to taste like cherry be, well, fairly tame rather than overly fruity. This blend plays a similar trick, but the cherry-ness that I pick up (both scent and taste) work well with the other flavors, mainly the chocolate. Rounds out the whole experience quite well.

Another interesting trick… with the Seattle Spicy Chai… the peppercorn flavor really… you really get used to it fairly quick, and the spicy isn’t as spicy once you get a few sips into the cup. The cayenne, while maybe not as big of a shock to begin with, doesn’t lose any of it’s potency. It stays just as powerful all the way through (or at least through the eight or so ounces I’ve drank so far). Plus, because it’s more long-lasting than upfront, Missy enjoys it more. Bonus!

This is totally going to replace Seattle Spicy Chai as the spicy tea I keep in my cupboard. Thanks again for this sample Azz, it really is wonderful!

Ok, I’m only trying this one because of my curiousity about 52teas’ blends and the generosity of Azzrian! It’s not something I would typically pick out myself…

The dry tea looks so much like coffee! I suppose that’s because it’s CTC, but it’s really odd. And consequently, requires a filter with teensy weensy holes, or alternately, a disposable filterbag, which is what I went with. There isn’t toooooo much smell to the dry tea. It smells kind of like a… black tea. And perhaps has picked up the slightest hint of Mayan Chocolate Chai in its aroma. Highly doubt it will be present in the tea though.

I’m really hoping I didn’t oversteep this one… used a level teaspoon’s worth in a regular mug, and 95C water for just over 3 minutes… and it smelled POTENT. The aroma actually reminds me strongly of Red Rose, an association I’m only making because of recently having drank some Red Rose. Had I not, I probably would have recognized it as a familiar smell and been frustrated at not being able to place it!

The flavour is definitely not as strong as I anticipated. It really just tastes like a “standard black tea”, which I would use to describe any black tea I had prior to 2012. There is some astringency, and a hint of bitterness – I probably could have used a bit less tea and dropped the infusion time to 2:30 and been a touch happier, but it’s not bad. I am not really caring for this one plain though, it’s just too boring-black-tea-like. It really does taste like a bagged tea. So, I’m sure it will be great once I add some milk and sugar, and I’ll be able to finish it off that way, but not a tea I’d purchase myself!