Ice Cream Cake

The beau has been dying to brew some of this up, so I figured we’d give it a go. The first thing I noticed was a lot of “scum” on the top, likely from the chocolate, sprinkles and freeze dried ice cream. Neat idea, but not so attractive in practice. However, I have had a couple DT teas like this, and I’m not worried. The smell is yummy but very sweet – sweet is where my fear comes in here. I rarely sweeten my tea, and it bothers me that this one has stevia built in.

This one is really sweet. Very sweet. Some sips I enjoyed, where most I felt like I was drowning in sugar. Not quite the tea for me, though the idea was interesting. I could sort of see where ice cream cake was coming from, but it was sweeter than ice cream, if that makes sense. When I think of ice cream cake, I think of Dairy Queen cakes, and yummy fudge crumble in the middle with vanilla on the top, chocolate on the bottom and whipped cream icing. MMMM! Also, I did get an alcohol smell from the dry leaf – what does that? Is that the stevia leaf? Personally, I find it a little unsettling, though I have no problem with alcohol. Just not quite my thing.

I really want to eat some ice cream right now. So, what am I going to do? Drink ice cream cake tea!

The dry leaves smell really weird. Like something sweet but in an artificial, chemically way. Uh oh. There’s a myriad of stuff in this tea, and I think that stuff is outnumbering the actual tea leaves, of which there doesn’t appear to be much. The brewed tea aroma is different but still weird. It’s turned towards a sweet cream, buttery smell but there’s still something artificial about it. Maybe this will be okay. The liquor is really dark like Salted Caramel was, but there’s also some floaties that are probably the dissolved remnants of sprinkles.

Time to try it! First sip without additions tastes sweet, slightly artificial like the aroma, but then the after taste tastes like ice cream! And I’m even getting a slightly bakey taste like there’s cake in here too. Hmm, this is an intriguing tea. The tea itself is completely masked by the flavorings, but it’s very creamy! I’m also getting a weird scritchy scratchy feeling in the back of my throat with each subsequent swallow. I think the freeze-dried ice cream in this blend was probably a mistake.

Have you ever eaten freeze-dried ice cream? Like the kind that comes in a bag and is always labeled astronaut food? It’s disgusting. Really. It’s really really terrible. I think that addition is probably what makes me not like this blend. You know what else this reminds me of? Non-dairy creamer. How can it be cream if there’s no dairy in it? That’s what this tea is like. It’s ice cream without the ice cream.

Also, I have to say that I have NO idea what people are talking about who compare this to a Neapolitan. There’s no strawberry flavor or milk/dark chocolate flavor. And rightly so since there’s only white chocolate in the ingredients and it doesn’t say anything about strawberry. But the lack of strawberry doesn’t make much of a difference to me. That’s not the dealbreaker anyway.

If you can get past that scratchy feeling in the back of your throat and the artificial tasting flavorings, then it’s not that bad. It’s drinkable, but I don’t think I’ll be buying any more once my sample runs out. It’s also not settling my craving for the real thing. Actually, I’m kind of getting a sore throat now. Maybe this stuff isn’t good for me…I don’t think I’ll finish the cup. Oh well. It was worth a shot! And that’s why you buy samples. ;)

Thank you TeaFairy for this big Sample

Everyone has been lovin this tea. I saved my big sample from TeaFairy for a sweet-tooth cravin day. One of those “I gotta have a candy bar right now” days when will power is gone…but TEA is plentiful. Oh yeah! Ice Cream Cake Tea!

All I have to say is…the reviews about the tea tasting like the name are all TRUE!
This tea is a great dessert! (It’s 2:30 though…when the sugar gremlins are out to get me)
I’ve foiled the plans of the sugar gremlins because this is creamy, cakey and exactly like the “I put the bowl in the microwave for a few seconds to melt it a bit” feel and flavor the kid in me loooves. I know that you can identify with that goopy ice cream cake melty in a bowl flavor too.

Sometimes, I think drinking tea is like playing dress-up. With each tea I can put on another character depending on the flavor and character of the tea. This one being young and playful…I feel like a kid again!

So good!

It’s not bad, but it’s not that good really…
well, I don’t find myself craving it. It smells out of this world sweet and delicious, but falls a little short on the taste spectrum for me.

A little milk and sugar give it some body and do add to the creaminess of it. Unfortunately because of the amount of scum (delicious scum, but still scum haha), I don’t see as an iced tea. I could imagine little bits of stuff, bah. A teasac might help on that front – but then some flavour would be lost, and I don’t think it could stand to lose any more flavour.

Well, those are my thoughts! It’s tasty, but not spectacular – it’s certainly unique though!

Birthday cake is still my favorite, I should probably stock up before it’s gone.

Edit: on the topic of not cake, I’m doing a video game week on my blog. Anyone here play videos games while they drink tea? I’m an offender! But anyways I want to do an interview with you :D

Basically this tea makes me want to smash keys at random because I lose the ability to do anything else after taking a sip. OH. MY. GAAAAAAAAH.

It’s so creamy and I get a lot of strawberry and vanilla. That’s fine by me because like I used to love Neapolitan ice cream but I’d skip out on the chocolate when possible. omg I can’t even care about all the ~ artificial ~ flavors in here because it’s better than any ice cream cake I can go out and buy right now.

And 50g costs the same as a pint of my favorite ice cream sooooo TEA IT IS. Now I regret not getting 100g. I should just move to Canada already before I get questioned about why I get so many things from here, hahahaha.

Anyway it does remind me a lot of the Neapolitan Honeybush but it’s different in a good way, so I definitely see myself enjoying both.

I cannot wait to try this iced. In fact I may convince myself to stop drinking it for the time being so I can do so now instead of later. AHHH.

Is not a very happy camper right now. So I saw this tea and wanted to try it. Now I read some reviews that people said it had stevia in it. And I hate! stevia I don’t know just doesn’t settle well with me. So I tripple checked the ingredient list on there website to make sure it didnt. And it had no stevia in the ingredient list, so i thought they must have changed the ingredients so yay no stevia.

So couple days later the tea arrives I get all excited try this first. And what do I taste stevia! Look on the ingredients on the package and its different then the website! Its has stevia in it. I’m not going to rate this tea yet cause I dont know how I feel about it.

Its kinda sweet tea, but I get that stevia taste that I hated! in southern bell tea. Gah Ill try this again sometime soon but for now Darn you wrong ingredient list!!

This is the last of my sample and I was surprised I had not already reviewed this tea.

In appearance the tea is dark brown/black in small squiggly pieces mixed with small chocolate pieces, some sort of biscuit looking pieces, large vanilla pod chunks and an abundance of rainbow sprinkles. It’s a happy sort of mixture.

The blend has a dark cocoa and vanilla aroma with some strange chemical tang. Oohh that’s not good.

Once steeped the tea is dark brown in appearance and has a sweet and creamy vanilla candy scent that is somewhat artificial.

Well it’s naturally sweet and very vanilla candy like but it’s rather pleasing. It has a silky creaminess that is smooth and elegant with enough vanilla ice cream essence to remind me of childhood. The chocolate is there but more in the after taste and with a cocoa slightly sour and sweet kick.

It doesn’t quite taste like ice cream cake but it’s not a bad feat for a tea. It’s creamy, sweet, vanilla, thick, chocolatey and good to drink if your craving something naughty (like I am craving an actual ice cream cake now).

Still the artificial flavours and smell knock this down from being something I would order or trade for again.

This is one of those blends that I’m a little frightened of. I mean there’s just so much STUFF in it! Sprinkles, freeze-dried ice cream bits, I didn’t know what to think. Sounds like too much going on, but it has decent reviews so I was pleased to get a sample from Nicole. I’ll try any tea once! Except for maybe that bug butt tea from a while back.

This… actually tastes like cake! I cold brewed it and was surprised to smell the delicious scent of baked goods wafting up at me. It doesn’t remind me of Della Terra’s Pineapple Upside Down Cake though, which is the cakiest blend I have tried. This one is more… cake in a box cake. Not that there’s anything wrong with cake from a box! It just doesn’t have that rich brown sugar butteriness I was hoping for.

I get why people read Neapolitan from this—I don’t get much in the way of chocolate, but there’s definitely vanilla and a hint of strawberry. Perhaps from the freeze dried ice cream? There’s also, um, stuff floating in my glass that I find a bit unnerving. Like when there’s a shaft of light and you see all the dust motes: first it’s pretty and then you have an “oh my god am I breathing that stuff?!” moment. I had that with this tea: there’s little “cake motes” from the sprinkles and whatnot that freaked me out for a minute there!

All in all a pretty unique and adventurous blend. Not something I’d reach for on a regular basis, but I was happy to try it! I guess now I have to hunt down the other DT cake teas and compare them…

I thought I’d get away from this one but last time I was in the store, the canister was sitting on the counter, twiddling its thumbs, waiting for me to smell it. I’m a sucker for flavoured blacks, so 10g it is.

To start, the dry leaf smells incredibly sweet. Creamy and sweet, but in a vague way. It doesn’t remind me of ice cream at all, just Diabetes.

I added a splash of milk and yeah, it tastes crazily sweet and creamy. Maaaybe it’s a little bit like vanilla ice cream, I can see that, but even more so, it’s like someone dumped a vat of icing on top of the ice cream, and I’m getting more of a, dare I say, toffee vanilla icing, but in a 95% pure sugar, 5% vanilla toffee way. Because it is so sugary sweet, it’s kind of bland. There’s nothing dynamic about it at all.

The tea scum leaves much to be desired too.

Dry Leaf Nose: Neapolitan ice cream

Liquor: Golden-brown colour, with a sweet ice cream aroma.

Flavour: Reminiscent of rich ice cream, with the tea playing a nice supporting role. Nice and sweet.

I’m too tired to review this properly.

Smells sweet, ice creamy, and delicious when dry, same deal when steeped.

Same delicious sweetness that the other cake teas had. Definitely getting strawberry ice cream (from neapolitan). Like both the others, it’s tempting to keep this in the cupboard in a small quantity for those days when sweet-ish teas won’t do. I truly think any of these three could kick a dessert craving. Chocolate Cake is probably my favourite though.

ETA: Apparently forgot to finish drinking this one last night, so drank the rest tonight (yes, probably a bad idea. Whatever. Anyhow – holy doodles is it sweet! Definitely still tasty though, haha. I also re-steeped it, and it tastes slightly of strawberry now, with a definite cakey flavour. Interesting; tasty.

ETA again: The third infusion has more flavour than I expected. But like everything else I’m logging today (Tuesday April 10), it tastes weak. I’d probably take the tea to this point again in the future; I think happier taste buds would enjoy it.

Okay, I’ve had this several times now and haven’t logged it because I couldn’t really figure out what I thought about it. It’s just kind of weird. It’s not bad, and it accomplishes some sort of ice creamy taste, but it’s odd. I don’t care for the carob in it, nor do I care for the stevia!

Anyway, when I put my hand into the chaotic tea corner, I grabbed this one. I need to use up what I have, so I went with it. But I wanted to change it up, so I basically made breakfast out of it by adding the most coconut milk I have ever added to a tea (Aroy-D, in a carton, from an Asian market; it’s the way to go for coconut milk). I have mostly concluded that I don’t like my cherished coconut milk in tea because the fat floats to the top and gets weird. But, I used a lot. And I already think that the coconut milk tastes like ice cream when it gets really thick. So, the texture rocked. And it was sweet and creamy and tasty.

But, there was the WORST bitter aftertaste on it. Yuck. I definitely find that I like stevia in food but can’t handle it in beverages. I’m going to have to try a super-creamy coconut milk latte with another tea because it showed great potential and also kept me full for hours!

Yesterday was not my day. I had a job interview that I was super nervous about (which went terribly, by the way. Almost comically so :P) so I was on edge all morning. I thought a cup of this might cheer me up with its sweet creamy deliciousness. I love how the vanilla really comes out and mingles with the very subtle chocolate and strawberry notes. I wasn’t too thrilled with the cake teas overall, but this one is so unique (and did I mention creeeamy?).

So after I get the leaves all ready in a tsac and have my lovely tea steeping away on the counter, I decided to do a few dishes while I waited. And of course with my supreme clumsiness I managed to knock over a glass bottle and helplessly watched as it shattered all over my kitchen. Sigh. So while I was cleaning up that doozy of a mess I ended up completely forgetting about my tea. By the time I got to it, it was terribly bitter and oversteeped. I tried to force some of it down since I’m almost out of Ice Cream Cake, but it wasn’t worth it.

So with my day starting out like that, and then with the interview going so terribly bad, I was in a bit of a funk yesterday. I hope today cuts me a break :)

Nom. Nom nom nom nom nom. Gah, I was so excited for this tea and it lived up to the hype. I’m not one for milk in my tea, but a touch of rice milk in these cake teas takes them to a whole new delicious level. Even without the milk, it’s creamy and the sips are different! On one sip I get chocolate and on the next I get strawberry…oh my goodness, I have missed strawberry ice cream. This is a beautiful tea I can’t wait to stock up on.

Thank you Amanda for this sample!

This smells really sweet right out of the bag. There’s a pretty mix of sprinkles and small pearls of what I’d guess is the freeze-dried ice cream.

3 tsp in 6 oz boiling water for about 3:35. The resulting liquid is halved – one for trying hot, the other over ice. Both versions look dirty. There’s sediment at the bottom that looks to be vanilla bean seeds and floaty stuff at the top, kind of looks like the top of lake water.

Brewed, the liquor still smells sweet. It tastes sweet as well. (I didn’t add sweetener to the cup.) This tastes similar to liquified ice cream with a vanilla bent.

The cold version is less tasty for some reason. I don’t think I over iced it, but I’m finding the flavor a little lost. I _(shamefully) added more sugar to the iced version which helped it out in the flavor department. Will probably get this, but in a small size and especially for the winter.

Thanks again for sharing Amanda!

Colour: light brown
Smell: dry—amazing, brewed—still smells great
Taste: I think this tastes more like neopolitan ice cream than ice cream cake. Like others have mentioned, I am especially getting the strawberry ice cream taste from it. I don’t think I could drink this everyday, but nice for a sweet treat.

It does leave a scum on the cup though, and leaves lots of little particles in the bottom of the cup. That is a little off-putting.

I was very excited when this tea came out because I love love love freeze dried ice cream. I added milk to my cup. While steeping I can smell the ice cream and the general sweetness, although it smells slightly artificial. The taste is pleasant and very sweet. It’s not a tea I would drink every day but its a nice treat once in awhile. The only issue I have is that it leaves behind a lot of residue in my infuser!

Thanks Emilie for swapping with me and sending this to me!

If you follow me you know I am by no means a tea purist. If it’s got a dessert-like name it’s probably going to make its way into my mug and belly.

Storms knocked out our power for nearly 24 hours and took work’s power with it for nearly 48 hours. Unfortunately work got power back early enough this morning to make us all come in but not early enough for the AC to work until at least halfway through the day. Did I mention there’s also an excessive heat warning today? So yea. Ice cream tea? Sounds fantastic and would have sounded better had I thought to brew it and ice it.

I did make the critical mistake of sweetening this tea because I sweeten all my teas. With this one though, I don’t believe it necessary. Never one to let a little extra sugar dissuade me I will persevere even though it’s currently a little too sweet, even for me.

I can see where people are coming from with the neopolitan ice cream comparisons as I do get a hint of strawberry somehow. Very smooth and creamy taste. I’m not getting the cake notes but I may have squelched them with the extra sugar.

I’m guessing this will rebrew well too.

In the bag, this smells like Starburst to me. I was really excited for that taste. I drank this yesterday, so my memory isn’t completely accurate but I just remember a sort of general sweet taste, and nothing spectacular. I’ll wait until I can give a proper reveiw to rate it though.

Enough people have reviewed this one already that I won’t get into the details of the tea itself so much as my reactions to it. Dry it looks really cute with the sprinkles and that in there. When I pulled the infuser though I regretted all that cute stuff since it left a ring of . . . melted fake ice cream maybe? . . . around the entire thing. The tea also had that slightly creamy floaty thing that Lime Gelato and Southern Belle were known for.

Tastewise it is a really nice sweet creamy tea. I got a vanilla cream from it, and was surprised that when I added some sugar I actually lost some of the flavour. I didn’t add milk but I suspect that for me this one is best sipped black. It isn’t one that I’m going to rush out to stock up on, especially since it left residue at the bottom of my cup, but I definitely enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to.