Cappuccino Caramel Crunch

I received this and a Strawberry Kiwi Fusion sample from Della Terra Teas on Friday after winning their Facebook giveaway recently. Amazingly, the tea arrived in Nova Scotia only a week after they sent it, which is a Canada Post miracle. Unfortunately there was some serious smell contamination from a bonus sample of Chocolate Chai Puerh they threw in, so I left the three teas to air out over the weekend. All that aside, Thank you to Della Terra teas for the samples! Winning things is always exciting!

I wanted a cup of hot chocolate today as it is sub-Arctic at work, but I couldn’t find any anywhere. Drat! So, I turned to this one as a good substitute, with less calories. Win! I gave it about 8 minutes to steep, which yielded a dark amber liquor, with the aroma of a rooibos based cappuccino. It does smell like cappuccino (coffee, sweet, cream) but the rooibos aroma is very present too. There is a bit of a bitter note at the end that is more reminiscent of coffee, but I’m hoping that isn’t included in the flavour (I hate coffee but tend to enjoy sweet frou frou cappuccinos the odd time I get them).

The first sips are a bit thin and a bit bitter. Not bitter in the way that tea can be, but more a hint of roasted coffee. I am a little surprised at the flavour, though I don’t know why because it tasted like it smells. Maybe I somehow anticipated the taste of a cappuccino, which would be hard to do without adding all the fat and sugar! :) I wish this had a touch more caramel flavour as that is the real selling point for me. There were a couple little squares in there which I can’t seem to find now so I assume they melted in? Either that or they disappeared!

Cumulatively, I enjoyed this, but it didn’t present the depth of flavour I was hoping for. Maybe if I doubled up on ‘leaf’ it would be a different story, but I’m worried about emphasising the dark bitter note too much. I’m such a wuss. Anyway, brilliant in theory but not quite for me in practice. Thanks again, Della Terra Teas!

This was a free sample included in my recent DT order! I thought it was really generous of them, since I only ordered 2 teas and it was during their 50% off Halloween sale to boot. The timing happened to be perfect though—I had a rather rough day and needed something comforting and dessert-y that wouldn’t keep me up all night. Well, it’s 4 in the morning, so I guess I mean won’t keep me up until morning!

While I’m not the biggest fan of rooibos, I don’t mind it in fruity blends (for example, it doesn’t bother me at all DT’s their Black Cat or Blueberry Cream!), and with dessert teas I can handle it with milk and sugar. Though this time, I actually added dulce de leche instead, which will give the desired sweet/creamy effect while also amping up the caramel notes.

This is pretty much just what you’d expect—nice, warming cappuccino and espresso notes with a backing sweet caramel. I found the coffee element to be a lot stronger than the caramel when I tasted it sans dulce, though after it was obviously a lot stronger. It’s got a very light quality, almost foamy. The rooibos is present but not enough to make me put down the cup thankfully. Just what I needed tonight!

As I was brewing this up last night, I could smell the rooibos quite heavily. Medicinal and icky, which resulted in me avoiding drinking it until now, when I drank cold tea out of a mug by my bed. I actually couldn’t figure out which tea I was drinking at first, but process of elimination clearly identified it as this one. Thankfully, the rooibos has been tamed, and the result is a reasonably pleasant cup of tea that mostly tastes like a variant of Creme Caramel Rooibos. I really can’t pick up on any cappuccino flavour whatosever.

Overall, not as bad as I expected, but not Della Terra’s finest tea. Winter Nog is a far superior rooibos, in my opinion!

Cappuccino, caramel and rooibos just seem like they should go together! Yum! I received this in my ‘try me’ pack, and I didn’t see too many caramel cubes in my half an ounce sample. I think the caramel cubes that WERE there fell into my infuser. The little cubes are interesting! I love the cappuccino flavor — I don’t think I’ve had that in a tea yet. Sadly, the caramel flavor was a bit lacking. I would LOVE this blend if it tasted more like caramel. Like I said, it’s a perfect trio of flavors!

Oh man…so this is caffeine free, which is bad new bears for me since it’s delicious! and can be an evening tea for me as i try not to drink too much caffeine in the evening even though it doesn’t affect me.

So first off…the smell…oh man the smell. See I looooove lattes and cappacinos and caramel machiatos and this…this smells divine! I’m sure if Ian was here he’d be asking me why i was making coffee when i have 5 pounds of tee to drink!

So, on to the taste. I steeped it for the 5 mins, and I’m thinking next time i’ll up the time a bit and/or add a bit extra to the mix. It’s a little light on the flavour for me but that’s also likely because of the smell, which has me expecting full on coffee haha I’m also tempted to add a wee bit of milk or cream to this just to see what happens…but another time. I may just need to take advantage of the sale (free 2oz!) going on this weekend with della terra…course then i need a plan for sneaking it into the house as well haha. Maybe this one gets sent to work… Really a nice tee for anyone who loves that caramel/cappacino type flavor. The roiboos doesn’t even phase me :)

I do not get teas that want to taste like coffee! This was okay but left some meh after taste. The caramel wasn’t very pronounced to me either. I am a huge fan of flavored rooibos! This one just wasn’t for me so much.

I received this tea from a Della Terra’s Facebook contest! I selected this tea as it sounded interesting to try a cappuccino rooibos, even though I’m not big into rooibos.

Last night I barely slept. I got a gi burn on my elbow and hurt my back in brazilian jiu jitsu so it was hard to sleep. Waking up, my back feels much better, but I’m very tired. I should of reached for a mate or black tea, but the coffee smells of this tea called out to me. I probably need to follow this up with something with caffeine, but whatever, more tea!

DRY: Sweet, coffee and caramel – yum! A good amount of those cute caramel squares in this tea.

STEEPED: Smells creamy and coffee like. Brown colour.
Annoyingly, the sample pack I got cites a 3 minute steep time, which I did. I get onto Steepster and Della Terra’s website and it cites a steep time of 5 minutes. DOH

TASTE: Light slight rooibos taste with a background of cappuccino. Aftertaste of sweetness.

COMMENTS: This is really light tea, I think the 5 minute steep time would be more accurate. I’d steep up more but I should really have something with caffeine before I fall over or end up going back to sleep. Actually, crawling back into bed sounds like a good idea.

However, the rooibos and coffee combo is pretty good. The sweetness of the tea blends in with that weird rooibos flavor. Very yum! This might make an interesting iced latte…

Della Terra has not failed me yet. I love how smooth and caramel-y this is. A nice caffeine free treat before bed.

It’s alright. Caramel and rooibos. World keeps turning…

This blend sounded obscure and while I am not a fan of coffee or it’s forms (cappuccino, latte etc) I just had to try it.

Opening the packet all I could smell was rooibos and nothing more, all I could see was rooibos with yellow petals and a few small chunks of what looked like fudge.

5 minutes later once steeped the tea has certainly picked up some sweet caramel scent with a touch of vanilla.

Alright a few mouthfuls in and I can conclude a few things.

1 – Does it taste like cappuccino? No
2 – What does it taste like? Rooibos with a little vanilla and sweetener. The rooibos tastes somewhat toasted.

I feel it would be more befitting to be called Rooibos Caramel Crunch as personally that is what it tastes more of. Reading other reviews people say they can taste and smell cappuccino or something coffee like so maybe it’s just me but I can’t detect anything like that. Perhaps it varies cup to cup? For me it’s just a bit too rooibos heavy to make it enjoyable but it is drinkable.

Overall I am disappointed.

At first, it does smell like cappuccino. The flavour is more like caramel than anything coffee. While I do like caramel rooibos, I was hoping that it was a little more like coffee.