Vanilla Bean

Amazing, authentic vanilla aroma + nice black tea base = yum! I usually need to add sugar to basic black tea, but I found the sugar wrecked this one. Plain is best, lets the vanilla shine. Very pricey for tea ($12CAN a box), so won’t buy it often.

Very mellow taste. The vanilla smell is light, but really delightful to wake up to. Not my favorite, but enjoyable!

I thought it was a mellow black tea with a vanilla aroma and finish. I drank it with a little bit of honey and enjoyed cup after cup…nice blend.

So my birthday just passed last week, and my sister got me three boxes of Mighty Leaf Tea Pouches. Basically, loose leaf tea in a nice silk pouch. Yes, I do prefer the true loose leaf tea, but hey…whose going to complain about some new teas to try? So this was the first black tea I’ve had in a while, and I was really looking forward to it. The box only had steep time directions (4 minutes), so I let the water come to a complete boil. The aroma only has the slightest hint of vanilla smell. Its very pleasant, but not overpowering by any means. When the tea first hits the tongue, the vanilla taste really isn’t there, but it shows up a few seconds after the initial sip. The aftertaste is sweet and satisfying, and leaves me wanting another taste. Overall, this is a very tasteful and relaxing tea. Good first impression of Mighty Leaf.

Today was a rather draggy day, and I decided to treat myself to an XL cup of tea from Good Earth Cafe at the university. Spending $2.50 (plus GST) for a single tea bag and a bunch of hot water isn’t usually my cup of tea, so to speak… but some days you just need the tea.
I had had the Vanilla Bean on a previous occassion and hadn’t been greatly impressed. It always seems to call to me… like it ought to be Earl Grey gone vanilla instead of bergamot. Regretfully, it never turns out this way. I’m not sure if it’s that the tea isn’t black enough, or if it’s one of those teas that just needs a splash of milk to wake it up. Today it just didn’t do it for me. And had a sort of strange plastic-like taste to it (I was sipping from the edge of my cup, not the plastic travel lid).
After my experience with this species of Mighty Leaf, I don’t think I would ever feel inclined to spend the upwards twelve dollars for 15 bags. Reading reviews of other ML teas, it seems that they do make some enjoyable ones. Vanilla Bean would appear to be the lemon.

My current I-just-arrived-at-work-and-need-to-wake-up tea. No milk, no sugar. (I never take milk or sugar.)

Random tea bag I snagged from somebody somewhere. Had very early and in a rush. I don’t remember much.

Sweet, smooth taste with plenty of vanilla, whether from vanilla bean or flavoring, I don’t know. It was like a malty-cocoa-vanilla marshmallow that smoothed over the brighter taste of red fruits. The taste took me by delightful surprise but then I realized how thin the brew actually was. Mellow black tea to ease my way into a sleep-deprived morning.

I bought a lot of this tea but it is one that I have had to experiment with a lot to be able to drink this. It gets bitter rather quickly and it is not one you can drink without milk. This is one that is unforgiving to my lazy forgetful tea drinking.
I had this hot brewed with rice milk. It was actually surprisingly delightful today for the first time. I could really taste the vanilla. I do not usually drink my tea with sweeteners but the rice milk does have some natural sweetness to it which might have been the reason that it was palatable today. I did add about 3/4 cup of rice milk to 8 oz of tea. It is a lot more what I would normally drink.

This is my first time trying a vanilla flavored tea, and it may very well be the last. Way, way too strong and completely overpowers the tea. The smell itself was hard to deal with. I grudgingly finished it as I don’t like to waste tea, but I will not be having it again. And, while the bag satchels are totally adorable (the hand-stitching is super cute), the string absorbs the tea and drives it to drip out of the cup. I don’t know if this was due to user error (am I supposed to take the bag out once it’s steeped? I usually don’t…) but it was annoying to have to keep a tissue nearby to soak up the drippage.

Edit: I’m upping my rating, slightly. As the tea began to cool and I drank larger gulps, it did seem to become more palatable. Still, I don’t think I’ll be getting it again.

Making myself a cup of this on my break from Spinzilla spinning. As always, drinking it with milk, since I think that enhances and supports the vanilla flavor, which is in line with what I’m looking for right now: a nice, comforting, reliable cup to relax with, since I still have a long way to go today before the to-do list feels like I’ve done it justice.