Caramel-Toffee

first I’m VERY sorry for the onslaught of tea logging with just photos! i just got back from holiday and i documented all of the tea i drank and really want to get them logged before normal life catches back up with me and i forget the details. i will add tasting notes later but for now the pictures do a lot to help me remember what tea i had and what the experience was like.

this tea is one i purchased in bulk so it was an opened bag and i felt like i could enjoy it while traveling. i LOVED EVERY SINGLE CUP I BREWED! this was a great purchase. in fact visiting this store was probably my favorite. the place was so beautiful. (my boyfriend said it reminded him of harry potter) and the customer service was lovely. tea places have a tendency to be uptight settings. and i have a tendency to be anti authority. so it’s always a strange balance that is struck between me and my surroundings. add to that the fact that i barely speak any french and you get a strange dynamic. the customer service people at the store were professional but super helpful and friendly. i definitely wanted to go back and buy more. …i just couldn’t fit any more tea in my travel bags.

i will add another note.
this is the most saddest thing ever.
but when i left the states i had bad bad allergies.
and they went away when i got to Paris, however my sinuses themselves were still slightly infected and irritated.
those who are prone to sinus infections already know what this means…
I COULDN’T SMELL ANYTHING MY ENTIRE TIME IN PARIS! all the tea shops! all the pastries! all the fine beers and brewery’s in Brussels! i couldn’t smell any of it!!
it was a special kind of hell at times, but i made due. and made my boyfriend smell teas and tell me what they made him think of. haha he was at a loss but tried his best. and i am so grateful.

here is a cup i brewed in Hamburg
http://instagram.com/p/YRv-jpoc6V/

thank you shmiracles I had this one about a zillion years ago today. It is divine! I absolutely love this one! the black base is nice, and smooth and just serves to complement the wonderful buttery caramel goodness that is this cup of tea. i really have nothing more to say than this week has been full of delicious!

Oh my oh my. Dammann, I love you so. This tea is just so delicious.

First off, thanks to Shmiracles for sending me some of this. I had initially wanted just a sample of the Mariage Macaron tea, but she offered a sample of this one and I am SO GLAD I took her up on it. I should have known!

Dry, this tea smelled like caramel heaven. Once its steeped up it also smells like caramel heaven, but also a little nutty and a teensy bit fruity, almost like a caramel apple? Don’t know where that is coming from, since there isn’t any apple in this blend. I think there must be some fruity note in the base tea that is coming through.

The tea is suuuper smooth, sweet, and rich. It tastes like caramel in the sip, but the real treat comes immediately afterward when I could be convinced I just ate a sweet, buttery piece of toffee. I do get a hint of a fruity note still, but it is exceedingly light and it works with the richness somehow. This is one of those delicious cups of tea where I want another cup immediately after the first one is gone. Love you, DF!

This tea smells yummy! I tried it first without any sweetener, and then added a little bit of raw sugar and found that this brought out the caramel-y goodness. This would also be very good as a latte with some steamed, frothed milk… but I don’t really feel like getting out my frother, so I think I’ll just drink it as is… it’s really good this way.

It’s hard for me to drink another caramel tea without comparing it to my Sweet Caramel o’Mine, because, well… I really like my Sweet Caramel O’Mine. :) But to be fair, I will try to leave that bias at the door.

This is a very good tea. The black tea base is smooth and rich. It is a non-assuming kind of black tea, that is, it doesn’t try to overwhelm the flavor of the caramel toffee. I love the buttery notes here. It reminds me a lot of a piece of… well, caramel toffee! Once upon a time, I used to make my own (when I didn’t have kids and a lot of other responsibilities that kept me from doing things like that) and this reminds me of that fresh, buttery toffee.

Tomorrow is my son’s birthday and I although I took the day off of work, I was scurrying around pretty much all day making preparations and it was every bit as stressful as going into the office. I considered taking a nap when I got home, but instead, it appears I will be drinking tea.

I got some cool little tea storage cans, and I decided that ritually transferring my Dammann Freres teas that Doulton so lovingly packed up after our buying fandango into these little tins would give me a great opportunity to sniff all of them and decide what one to taste next. I had to peel her labels off and stick them onto the tins (this one has a lion on it, my totem animal or at least one of them) because they’re so adorable. Anyway, this one called to me. It has an amazing, amazing smell coming out of the dry leaves. It’s a thick, rich, caramel that you can almost see melted and dripping over ice cream. Yum!

The aroma of the tea has a milder caramel smell, and the tea’s own rich, dreamy aroma comes out as well. Rich is a word I think I’ll be using a lot here. Just a warning.

I love the way this tastes. It’s… rich. It’s sweet, but not too sweet. It’s deep. It’s a seamless blend with the tea. It’s smooth. It has that French black tea blend thing going on that makes you want to take a spoon to the leaves. They seem as though they’d melt on your tongue like mousse. (Though I wouldn’t try this at home, or anywhere for that matter.)

A good, comforting choice to punctuate a hectic day before the hectic evening picking up kids, getting them fed, getting homework done, etc. starts.