Cotton Candy Black Tea

I’m having cotton candy for breakfast. Or at least I’m trying to pretend that I am.

My package unexpectedly arrived yesterday and this went straight into my iced tea jug to cold steep overnight. I must say that the lovely black tea base is definitely an appealing Darjeeling. But honestly, dry, this little concoction smells more floral than candy-ish.

The smell of the steeped tea is very faint too. Basically like a sweetened Darjeeling. I’m already on to my second glass of this and so far, and just like its smell, it tastes like a vaguely sweet black tea. But just like how perfumes need a bit of aging and soaps need a bit of curing perhaps I should let this gel for a little while longer and try make another jug of this in a few days? I’m also curious as to how a cotton candy tea would taste hot.

For now I’m going to rate it based on these initial impressions but if/when I come back to this tea next week and reevaluate it, let’s hope the rating will go up!

Thanks Sil! This one smells pretty great. I had enough for two brews: one hot and one cold. The hot tea was enjoyable. It had q nice cotton candy sweetness to it. But the cold brew is where it’s at. The flavor comes out a bit more. The black tea base is the dominant flavor and the sweet cotton candy lingers in the after taste. It’s quite delicious :)

I had this as a sample from the Christmas calendar and it reminds me of the cotton candy suckers :D

I used 1.25 tablespoons of dry leaf for 375 ml of water.

The dry leaf smells overwhelmingly like freshly spun cotton candy.

The brewed tea has a definite cotton candy aroma which is overpowered by the scent of black tea.

Too much astringency from the black tea base. I might have to experiment with the infusion parameters. A delightful cotton candy flavour is present in the background- it seems quite authentic as well.

As the tea cools I am getting a lemony taste from the black tea base. The bitterness backs off a little bit but the cup is slightly too bitter to enjoy.

As the tea cools further, the bitterness backs off even more. I’m starting to detect a creamy taste. There is still a bit of a bitter edge but it is quite enjoyable.

Second infusion at 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Lighter tasting but there is still enough cotton candy sugary taste to make it an enjoyable experience. There is only a slight bitterness that I experienced in the first cup.

This tea would not likely do well past the second infusion.

I might try only 1 tablespoon for 375 ml of water in the future.

So Christmas came in January this year, because the wonderful Kasumi sent me her 12 Days of Christmas along with so many other wonderful samples that I’m dying of excitement and I want to try everything all in one go. But I’m being a good girl and starting with Day 1, which is Cotton Candy Black Tea.

Dry, it smells exactly like cotton candy! Yummmm.

Brewed and tasted hot, it’s quite sweet, but not that sickly cloying sweet you get with a lot of flavoured black teas that use too much stevia right in the leaves. (I prefer to add my own stevia if needed — definitely don’t with this!)

As it cools down a smidge the sweetness has mellowed a bit. I love it~

First tea in the 12 Days of X-mas sample pack. I missed out on this tea during its initial run so it made a nice treat to come home too after a grueling shift at work. It really does taste like cotton candy especially as the tea cools off and it’s sweet enough naturally that there’s no sugar required. I also noticed an interesting undertone that reminds me a bit of caramel.

A good start to what are sure to be twelve awesome days! ;)

So glad Steepster is working again this afternoon. Wrote this in the morning:

YAY! The 12 days before Christmas is finally here which means…52Teas 12 Days of Christmas!!!

Did you know that the actual 12 days of Christmas are the 12 days after Christmas that lead to Epiphany? It’s the day we celebrate the arrival of the wise men as well as the baptism of Jesus. Pretty cool.

But anywho, the tea for Day 1 is Cotton Candy black tea :) Cotton Candy is my favorite fair food and can’t get enough of it. My family did Thanksgiving at Golden Coral this year and they now have cotton candy. Sadly, they didn’t make much of it. I joked (maybe) that my whole dinner was going to be cotton candy. This definitely tastes like cotton candy. I added sugar because cotton candy is spun sugar :) YUM! Taking some to my friend Kim this morning. Sharing this tea was my Christmas gift for her. She’s on Steepster now! She’s a beautiful writer so I can’t wait to see what she has to say about the teas she tastes.

Lucky Charms marshmallows in a cup! I nearly fainted when trying this. My addiction to Lucky Charms marshmallows makes life rough; whenever I see a box of LC I have to run for the hills or otherwise buy 20 boxes and fish out the marshmallows. But thanks to Frank and this ingenious blend, I can get my fix at home in a cup. You have saved my life, 52 teas ;)

(good for 2 steeps, wonderful hot and iced)

Ok my new favorite tea company has to be 52 Teas. Frank, I wish all tea companies had your flavoring flare. As silly and gimmicky as Cotton Candy Tea sounds, it desearves much respect and praise. A fantastic black base and real cotton candy flavor. Wonderful. Thank you LiberTEAS for adding this to the pack I bought from you.

Sample I recieved in a swap. Backlogging this tasting from yesterday, and making the rest of this tea right now. Addition comments not a part of yesterdays tasting will be at the end under “Update”. This one came from Alphakitty. Sipdown!!

Dry: This shoots me right back to when I was a kid. We went to a couple of fairs every year and I was always getting cotton candy and fried dough (Oooh. Now I’m thinking fried dough tea!). This smells like pink cotton candy (and also a little like Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum…hmmm); sweet and fun (yes, you can smell fun).

Brewed: A little of the black tea base has seeped into the scent, but it’s still incredibly sweet and cotton candy smelling!

Taste: Hmmm. I don’t know if this is traslating for me in the taste. I’m getting a rooibos flavor, which is totally strange! Maybe the tea sample picked up on another sample in the package? I am getting a slight sweetness, and it does taste faintly of cotton candy. The aftertaste is definately cotton candy (yay). I am picking up the black tea base, too, and it’s slightly astringent. I think I’m going to wait for this one to cool down a bit, and take it from there.
-Once cooled down, this tea definately gets better. The astringency is gone, and the cotton candy, sweet flavor picks up. The aftertaste is still the most cotton candy-esque, but I’m digging this one cold. Next brew I’m going to add sugar and see if that helps it hot.

UPDATE: Sugar is definately a friend of this one. It brings the cotton candy flavor out to a good level, so long as you don’t add too much. I’m still slightly getting that strange rooibos-like taste (maybe my taste-buds are just translating something in this tea into rooibos) but it isn’t as powerful. The black tea base is nice and subtle (no astringency). I’m liking this one a lot more today.

Overall, not bad. I don’t think it’s a favorite, but it was pretty good. Thank you, Alphakitty, for sending this one my way. I’m glad I got to taste it! =)

UPDATE #2: I put what I had left from this past steeping in the fridge for a bit – the cotton candy/sweet flavor really popped after that. Changing this from a 74 rating to a 78 to reflect this nice change.

Frank you’ve done it again. I was sad when I missed out on the first run(s) of this but the money simply wasn’t there.

Since this was the “1st tea of Christmas” i opened the pouch and took a deep wiff before I looked to see what it was. It smelled exactly like if you added my favorite perfume to tea (bpals Boo—Eerie billows of spun sugar, fluttering white cotton, and sheets of cream). I wasn’t quite sure how well this would translate to tea but I have faith in Frank so I brewed it
up and took a sip. Heven.

I loved his boo-berry cotton candy and I’m all ready rationing it so it’s not surprise. It isn’t perfumy tasting at all like some flavored teas are. It’s sweet and fluffy. The black tea base is delicious. I don’t know if I’ve had any of Franks black tea blends since he switched but regardless I aprove. It would be a good tea even without the flavoring.

Excuse me while I go refill my cup…

I am drinking this iced. I steeped it for 3 minutes with water 195°-200°F and then put the pitcher in the refrigerator overnight. I used similar steeping parameters that I’ve come to like for other 52Teas products, but given the new base, I may experiment with that for future steepings.

This tea tastes really good. The base is really bright and smooth with a touch of astringency. I definitely taste some fruity Darjeeling in there. I thought the dry leaf smell was a little off-putting (unusual for 52Teas), but once brewed it was entirely enticing. The main flavor is a sweet, bright black tea with an amazing caramelized sugar aftertaste.

As for rating this tea, I swing from thinking it’s good to amazingly great depending on my mood.

Yay, I can finally post my tasting note on this tea! I had it about a week and a half ago. Roughest. Day. Ever.
Got up early for a doctors appointment. Found out my MRI showed a small brain tumor. Apparently it’s not cancer and won’t kill me, but they aren’t really sure what to do with me and I have to see a bunch of specialists. Then that afternoon I had a stats final, and I’m pretty bad at stats and despite studying I anticipated only getting like 65%. After the news I got that morning, my mind was elsewhere and I went in and bombed it.
Walked home really bummed afterwards, and found my 12 Days box in the mailbox. I thought “Finally, something good!” I decided to tear into that sucker and drink the first tea.
Cotton Candy Black! YES! That was one I’d been dying to try! Steeped up a cup of that. The aroma was wonderfully sweet and cotton candyish. The black base was strong and present (I steeped for 5 minutes, next time I’d do 4). Over the black base was the sweet cotton candy flavouring. This one is very much like I imagined it would be, and it’s fantastic!
A little sweetener is great in this because it brings the cotton candy flavoring to life.
I think this would be really good iced as well.

Thanks to tattooed_tea for the generous sample of this goodness!

As soon as I opened my swap package I was hit in the face with a delicious cotton candy scent. Yum! It smelled even better when I opened the bag itself; sweet, creamy spun sugar! I was so excited to try it.

I did a hot steep for four mins and then stuck it right in the fridge. Most of the reviews I had read said that the cotton candy flavour comes out more as it cools, so I figured I might as well try it iced for my first cup.

I tried it straight first, but ended up adding the tiniest bit of agave. That really brought the sweetness out and made it perfect! The first thing I tasted was the smooth black tea base, followed by the unmistakeable cotton candy-ness. It’s tasty and refreshing, but I wish the flavouring were a little stronger. Especially because the hint of it that I got was so so good.

I had been wanting to try this for so long, I’m really glad I finally got to! Cotton candy is my favourite flavour and it’s really bang on in this. I wish it were still available, I’d like to be able to have it on hand for cravings! Next I’m going to give it a try hot with milk and sugar and see how that compares.

The dry notes are strictly Cotton Candy, with a hint of a strange smell I can’t place. Once steeped & hot it smells like a black tea with a hint of cotton candy. I added a bit of honey, because it is black & I felt it would be too bitter without. Once iced it tasted like cotton candy with a slight black tea taste. As it eventually reached room temperature again it became a little too bitter to enjoy.
Overall I really enjoyed this tea iced, but don’t think I would like it hot. To me certain teas should just be enjoyed either iced or hot. Some work both ways.

On the first day of Christmas, 52Teas gave to me…Cotton Candy!

I opened this after a long, hard, totally tea-deficient day at work. It smells amazing — that’s the first thing I have to say. I’ve never tried any 52Teas before, but it’s truly out of this world. Sweet, sugary, maybe slightly alcoholic smelling. I’m at the fair already. The next thing I’m struck by is how pretty it is. The flower petals are blue, pink and yellow among the tea leaves, and it looks so adorable.

Now, to brew. Since it’s my first experience with one of these, I gave it 2.5 minutes in boiling water. It seems to brew slowly, and takes a while to colour. At first, I wasn’t sure if I’d want milk in it, but I added a splash in the end.

Last — and most important — the taste. I’ve been looking for a flavoured black tea that lives up to the promise of its name for a long time. Finally, I’ve found it. This is the fairground in a cup. It actually tastes exactly like cotton candy, and just as it smells. The black base doesn’t at all overpower the flavour, but just makes it so I know I’m drinking something substantial.

I was becoming a little disillusioned with flavoured blacks, but I might have just found my nirvana, Goodness, how great. This tea is truly something else. If they’re all this good, it really will feel like christmas every day!

Steep Information:
Amount: 2 tsp
Water: 12oz boiling
Tool: kati loose tea system 12oz
Steep Time: a little over 2 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: sweet, berry, black tea
Steeped Tea Smell: black tea
Flavor:black tea, slightly berry sweet
Body: Full
Aftertaste: black tea
Liquor: dark brown

not sure what I was expecting, much better with sugar but still just a sweet berry black…

Post-Steep Additives: rock sugar

Rating: 2/4 leaves

Blog: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2012/08/52teas-loose-leaf-black-tea-cotton.html

This smells exactly like cotton candy in the bag.. omg… The cotton candy flavor isn’t overpowering on the initial taste, but it comes out even more as an after taste. Though it is very sweet on its own, a little bit of sweetener really enhances that cotton candy taste. Second steep seems to lose most of the cotton candy flavor. Overall, I want more of this!!

backlogging from yesterday…

Yay the time is finally here! I have to say I didn’t want to like this one. I don’t usually fall in love with black teas and I’ve never really enjoyed cotton candy. However, I couldn’t help but enjoy it. The sweetness cut off the astringency from the black base while the base helped to balance the sweetness. The result was delicious! Can’t wait to try the rest of them

This is the rest of my trade from Novi, who sent me basically a full package of this, which I wasn’t expecting. Hopefully I’ll like it better than the peach debacle of earlier this morning. It certainly smells nice. I haven’t had cotton candy in ages, but it vaguely brings about reminiscent memories of baseball games and parking lot fairs when I was younger and also the circus when I was much younger.

Interestingly enough, I don’t actually like this. It was a bit of okay when it was hot, I could get the aftertaste of a bit of cotton candy, although the ‘front’ of the sip tasted just like tea. When I let it cool down, a strange bitterness came out and smothered the sweetness, even though I had put extra sweetener in this besides, and made the whole pot just very unpleasant to drink.