Weeping Angel Tea

Teabox Tuesday! Another sample from the Discovery Teabox, so thank you to Skysamurai for organizing and all participants for sharing! I’m trying to work through all the old 52Teas blend samples I took from the box first. This one is from 2012, and apparently it’s supposed to be a “buttered toffee caramel corn” flavored black tea, but I’m not getting any of that from sniffing the leaf, so perhaps this one has been hit the hardest from age (7 years? Ya I would expect as much!). But I’m a huge Doctor Who fan, so I was happy to see a Doctor Who themed blend regardless.

Had to take this one to work after a rushed and stressful morning getting into the office, since all this stupid snow froze my car door shut so I couldn’t defrost and was 15 minutes late (granted, at least I have a car to defrost now… well… sort of. I don’t exactly properly own it yet, even though I’ve paid for it. My family couldn’t find the Title anywhere, and when your grandma has just but put into longterm care for severe dementia, there is no way she is going to know where that Title is. We’ve paid the ridiculous $93 duplicate fee from the state of Oregon, but it’ll take up to 5 weeks to receive it. Ooooooooooooooooooooh unnecessary paperwork…)

I’m definitely not picking up anything caramelly in the flavor anymore. There is a sweetness to the flavor compared to a plain black tea, but I’d say it tastes mostly like a subtle burnt sugar flavor, leaning towards the ghost of something toffee-like, with an odd hint of a sort of cherry/marzipan note. And I’m still getting that dry metallic/alcohol taste toward the end of the sip, exactly the same as I got from the Candy Corn tea yesterday, so that is either my tastebuds reacting to a certain brand of flavorings that was used on these really old 52Teas blends, or simply something that is coming out from the age of the tea itself.

Of the ones I’ve tried so far, this one seems to have held up the worst flavorwise compared to the description, but I’m still happy to have something warm to revitalize my fingers and tummy after Icegate this morning with the car. (Sadly my toes still haven’t bounced back yet). I would love to see more Doctor Who-inspired blends in general (and not Adagio custom blends… I’m just not really a fan of those). They make my geeky soul happy.

Discovery TTB #13

Pretty sure this is another old sample, as the caramel flavor has almost completely faded. It just tastes like a rather bland, smooth black tea. Not leaving a rating, since I’m pretty sure the flavorlessness is due to age and not a poor blend.

Sipping on this while munching some chia pudding. It’s a lot tastier than I remember it being! I suppose the folks who swear by aging (curing? I’m not sure what the correct tea terminology would be) their 52teas blends are on to something. This has been sitting in my cupboard for well over a year, and now it lacks the woody astringency that I wasn’t too fond of when I first tried it. Now I’m getting sweet, toasty caramel. Really quite nice.

I received this in a swap from DeleriumFrogs. Thank you for sharing this with me.

I am hit or miss with 52 Teas black tea. I think I finally figured out the trick. A much shorter steep time. This one was a hit with me. It was a decent caramel tea that was a delicious morning cup!

thanks so much Janelle for a bit of this one! Always happy to try ANY tea. Unfortunately, I’ve tried enough of these 52Teas blends with this base.. and with this one I’m just getting the base I really don’t like. No other flavors. Caramel butter toffee popcorn? Nope. So I’m just going to now reveal what this particular base tastes like to me (since maybe they will stop using it): cardboard. I think someone else said construction paper and I nodded my head in agreement. 52Teas puts amazing work in their teas, and I wish they wouldn’t waste it on this black tea base. I think I’m going to stop trying with this particular base, BUT there are some other black tea bases that 52 uses, like their assam that I still love. I don’t even feel nice posting this tasting note, since maybe it tastes better to everyone else and just not my tastebuds. When it’s the nice flavors and the black tea base I don’t like, it’s manageable, but not if it’s just the black tea base I can taste.

First off let me say that the Weeping Angels are the most terrifying Doctor Who creation ever. They also have nothing to do with caramel popcorn – they’d be less freaky if they did.

I’ve not been particularly interested in purchasing this tea – I like actual caramel popcorn but as a tea flavour it doesn’t hold as much of an appeal. And maybe I’m justified in that – the flavour of the tea strikes me as a little bit wussy although it might just need a longer steep, or as some people have suggested added sweetener. I am getting something that’s sort of popcorn-like in taste along with a vague sweetness that might be caramel, but the flavours don’t really seem to pop.

So overall I’m underwhelmed but I’ve got enough left in the pouch to experiment with. The rating may or may not go up. And before I forget….

DON’T BLINK

Ok, this tea for sure deserves high praise, it’s sweet yet not too sweet. I mean it’s the perfect flavoured black tea.