Vanilla Berry Truffle

Thanks very much to the wonderful CAIT, I had a sample of this tea. I’d had it around for a while but have not been drinking much rooibos at all. Last night I wanted a hot drink, and decided to try this one.

Unlike other tasters, I thought that the taste was not off at all—at least not off for me. Maybe it’s the black current? I liked the fact that the rooibos did not stick out its head and start singing “I am sawdust, hear me roar”. Instead, it was a docile and quiet vehicle for a mild-mannered vanilla/current beverage.

I think that Art of Tea has done a better job than many places of formulating rooibos blends. For me, it’s tantamount to sticking the pill in cat food and hoping that the cat does not notice. Typically the cat glares daggers at me before he or she is within a room-full of the tainted food but every now and then there’s a cat who bravely (or naively) will eat the food and eat the pill and make life easy for everyone. Art of Tea seems to conceal rooibos like the bitter pill that must be adulterated.

But I ramble. This rooibos tea reminded me that they need not all be deadly.

There was something off about this tea.

The smell reminded me of medicine, for one. I think that it had to do with the fact that so many medicines are “berry” flavored and the vanilla aspect of this for me contained the alcohol-ish aspect of vanilla extract.

The taste was marginally better, though what I mainly got berry out of this and I wanted more vanilla. The vanilla taste that I got, when it occasionally decided to surface, gasping for breath in the sea of nondistinctive berry flavor, didn’t really taste like vanilla. It was more extract-like, to begin with, but even the creamier aspect of it wasn’t quite vanilla flavored. Looking at the list of ingredients, I think that it’s because this contained white chocolate [which I usually like, but am not sure how I feel about it in tea]. I also think that a lot of the medicinal taste came from an unfortunate combination/balancing of the hibiscus, the rooibos, and the currant that are all supposed to be in this tea.

Maybe I just got a bad spoonful. I’m hoping that’s part of it, because I couldn’t resist trying Caramelized Pear again and it wasn’t nearly as good the second time around – not as rich and caramel-tasting, mainly pear, and the rooibos was coming through that time around. I think it was mainly because I was getting kind of the dregs [I didn’t have any apple pieces in that one, though teaplz isn’t to blame as the sample she sent me was taken from a sample].

I apologize because I’m beginning to confuse myself here as I’m kind of behind on logging the new teas I’ve been trying. To put this into some semblance of order, I tried Vanilla Berry Truffle, was disappointed, then had Caramelized Pear a couple of days later and realized that it might be because I wasn’t getting a good array of physical components into the actual tea.

Though, re-reading teaplz’s log, she wasn’t terribly happy with this tea either. So…

I don’t know. I’m having a weird day. I’ve been having these moments where I get songs stuck in my head, and then I hear them over loud-speakers when I go out or to run errands [often muzaked]. It’s been making me feel like I’m on an extremely boring version of the Truman Show. And trying to transition from doing f***-all to studying is leaving me murky and smogged. My chi has been Los Angeles’d. Does any of this even make sense? What is a horse shoe? What does a horse shoe do? Are there any horse socks? Is anybody listening to me?

I wasn’t taken away by this tea, but it wasn’t horrible. It was bizarre and imbalanced, not unlike this review. It was yellow slanty-mouth on the Steepster sliding scale. So that’s where it’s going.

This one has been on my shopping WISH list for ever it seems! Thanks to LiberTEAs I was able to try it!

I’m not going to lie…I wanted to try this one because of the name! I’m not usually that way but there is an occasional tea that ‘gets my attention’ because of the name, specifically…this one was that tea! Or in this case TISANE.

Pros and Cons to this one tho!
PROS:

• Overall it’s an a nicely flavored rooibos.
• The amount of hibiscus is barely-there and I am very happy about that…I wouldn’t change it at all!
• The Vanilla Notes a creamy and smooth and contribute great to the overall taste of this.

Not a pro or a con, really, just an observation…
CURRANT. The primary flavor that I am tasting is CURRANT. It’s good and tasty and not overdone. So, because I am enjoying that aspect of the flavor I suppose it is a PRO but again you have to like currant.

CON:
I would love to taste more white chocolate! There isn’t enough White Chocolate at all! It’s very faint…I want more!!!!!! Lots more! What I can taste of it I do like but it’s teasing me! I want that taste magnified greatly!

Not that it’s a CON but I would love to see – with the addition of more White Chocolate – what this would taste like with some caramel in it!

Also…it does have that stereotypical rooibos taste to it!

The PROs do outweigh the CONs and I think this is a great starting point and they are on to something here but I really want more white chocolate!!!! HEY! Did I mention I want more white chocolate!?

Overall…still tasty and I would certainly drink it again!

This one took a little while to grow on me, but now as I am nearly finished with the cup, I am finding that I quite enjoyed it. It has a nice, creamy taste and body. I like the black currant… the white chocolate… and even the hibiscus here isn’t bad.

I like!

I received this sample as part of a FB Contest so I feel a bit remiss in not bragging it up a bit. I do see where the others found this slightly medicinal taste to the cup. The berry when paired with the rooibos base gives off this note that is akin to cherry Nyquil. Further, the vanilla was not quite as prominent in the flavor profile as I would have liked. I was able to remedy both of these issues by stirring in a splash of french vanilla creamer. This largely squelched the medicinal notes and added that vanilla component that I was hoping for. Art of Tea has several other blends that I enjoy and I don’t see myself becoming compelled to order this one again. (Cinnamon Fig, Carmelized Pear, Classic Black to name a few).

Backlogging from yesterday.

It’s difficult to even remember a lot about this one, since I was drinking it while I was packaging up some teaswaps for Auggy and takgoti. I was more concerned about the ratio of tea to bag, and how I was going to fit everything in a box, than I was about the flavor of this one.

Anyway, it’s a rooibos blend, and it actually smells very pretty when you stick your nose in it. There’s a strong berry scent, but underneath those berry tones is a warm, comforting twinge of vanilla. The entire tea looks very pretty as well, with the red of the rooibos contrasting against the deeper reds of the currants and hibiscus, and the white shavings of white chocolate.

So I steeped this one up, and the flavor is a bit disappointing. The tart, berry flavors completely overwhelm the vanilla here. The only thing that works out well is that I think the vanilla does tame down a lot of the tartness, and allows for flavor elements like hibiscus to be muted (which is always a plus, in my opinion). The white chocolate, I couldn’t taste, and the rooibos has its typically woodsy-sweet flavor. None of it is particularly aggressive or assertive. If anything, the blend is a bit bland.

But the tea wasn’t bad enough to distract me from the wonderfulness of getting prepared to share tea with some awesome ladies, so I guess that’s a point in its favor!

Thank you meghann M for sending this and a few other blends to try. Thank you very much. Luckily the roobios is not extremely strong which makes me happy and I can taste the currant and abit of hibiscue to with alittle vanilla and mabe abit of white chocolate. I believe that this blend is fairly good but on the almost too tart side with the hibiscus. Meaning this is good but would not become a favorite. Thanks for giving me the chance to try this.

Had a cup of this today while watching a movie and eating some popcorn. Due to the popcorn and a very long day I will more fully review this later but I can say this – it’s yummy!

My second Art of Tea dessert sampler tea. Backlogging from last night. (I got sleepy)
I feel I should say something about my experience ordering the sampler. I have to say I’m very impressed with the turn around time – I ordered it on Monday and received it on Friday. I also got a personalized e-mail telling me that it was processing – which was kind of neat. Painless, easy, and pretty fast. No complaints here!

Except about the tea of course. Due to my whole kisiel experiences, i was kind of worried about a repeat with this tea, especially since it was berry flavored and the specific kisiel taste I was getting was raspberry. At first, I thought that that is exactly what had happened, but I quickly realized that it was a more consistent and straightforward berry flavor. For a while, that is all I was getting out of this tea. Then, as I got deeper into the cup, I started to get vanilla. And my second cup was also much more vanilla-y. Is it possible for vanilla taste to sink to the bottom? I didn’t get any chocolate at all out of it, but then I think white chocolate, since it contains no cocoa solids, has a much milder taste than normal chocolate (I still love it though!) and I could see it easily getting lost within all of the other stuff in here.

In terms of the blend, I am once again impressed by the way the flavors seem to meld with the underlying rooibos. As with the chocolate monkey, the rooibos is present, but only to provide a foundation for the flavors to rest on. Still, the tea doesn’t quite live up to it’s own hype.

Steep Information:
Amount: 1.5 tsp
Additives: none
Water: filtered, boiling, 6 oz
Tool: Mesh basket strainer in cup
Steep Time: a little over 7 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: vanilla, chocolate, sweet-woody (rooibos)
Steeped Tea Smell: berry, hint of vanilla
Flavor: smack me in the face berry! no vanilla, no chocolate, no rooibos (WTH?)
Body: Full
Aftertaste: berry
Liquor: cloudy dark reddish-brown

Swap thanks to Meghann M!

Well, luckily I didn’t buy it, because although it is a nice berry rooibos, in fact I can barely taste the rooibos, I would be disappointed at the missing vanilla and chocolate flavors. Mind you I enjoy the flavor of rooibos so it might be slight but not noticeable to me.

Post-Steep Additives: none

Resteep: 10 min, sad and weak, dumped out

Rating: 2/4 leaves

images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/03/art-of-tea-loose-leaf-rooibos-tea_31.html

I feel a little bad about logging all of these tasting notes when I can’t really taste the tea, but it’s kind of useful for me to remind myself that this tea is really good with a great big dollop of honey: it’s very smooth and sweet, and the sour berry scent from the dry leaves is completely gone leaving only an interesting tang.

(As you may have gathered by now, I got myself the Art of Tea Dessert Sampler off of the steepster select a while ago and am working my way through it!)

Thank you LiberTeas for a taste of this! I brewed it for a hot drink with cream. I added a little sugar.

It just isn’t me. I like hibiscus if it’s iced. I couldn’t taste the red tea as well. I tasted a little white chocolate, and I am not the biggest fan of it. I love black currant, but I prefer it iced, too. I don’t think I would like this tea iced, either. The flavors together just weren’t for me.

I got this in a Dessert Sampler pack from Art of Tea, and I have come to the conclusion that it’s a quick second to the Caramelized Pear (definitely the best of all the ones in the set). If you’re going to have a snack with it, pick up some Ginger Cookie Thins from Trader Joe’s. It really brings out the flavor of the white chocolate pieces in the tea. This tea seems to be missing something crucial— like a spice to really bring out the flavor. Without it it seems sweetly bland, like a lower-end rooibos with a touch of honey or something.

The citrus is really distant, even though this has hibiscus and black currant in it. What is a plus is that it’s smooth and full. All in all, it’s a nice base tea, but really needs to be paired with something.