French Canadian Maple

Thank you to LiberTeas for day three of the 12 days of Christmas Swap! This was only one of the three teas given. What a lovely tea! At first sip it reminded me of Della Terra’s 8 Candles and while its not exactly the same IF Della Terra should no longer offer 8 Candles after the holidays it may just be my substitute! The aroma is spot on for it!
It has a malty yet marshmallow like flavor.
Maple, vanilla, notes, VERY good!
Thank you again LiberTeas and what a cute way to package your teas for your day!

As usual, I am a day late on my tasting for the 12 days of Christmas swap! This is one of the 3 Day 3 teas from Liberteas, sadly the only one I’ve had a chance to try thus far. It’s been a busy week—my boyfriend is in the hospital so much of my time has been spend traveling & visiting. I actually brought Day 4 with me today but the water they gave me was icky and tasted like coffee :/ So I am going to cold brew it and the French Vanilla from Day 3 to bring to him tomorrow.

Anyway, this tea! I love maple and this is scrumptious. It’s not a heavy, rich maple but quite light without losing that inherent maple texture. It’s not quite as maple-y as the Tea Guys blend so it’s quite nice for an afternoon tea, not something that has to be relegated to dessert status. It’s a bit malty too with some caramel notes, perhaps a hint of vanilla? Nicely complex, especially given how overwhelming maple can be!

Thank you to LiberTeas for tea #2 of day three of the 12 days of Christmas Swap! This is really tasty! The maple in this is really nice and not artificial at all. This is so delicious!

Another THANK YOU to Liberteas for this one!

It’s malty, candy-caramelly, rich, sweet, creamy-smooth,and comfy and cozy! I really like this! I think Maple Flavored teas are wonderful but this has that little extra something tied into one!

Wooooo!

Oh my goodness this is SO GOOD. That’s exactly what I exclaimed after I took my first sip. It’s a good thing nobody else is home now, because I get teased enough about how much of a tea nerd I am, me doing a happy dance over delicious tea (Tealicious Tea?) would only instigate more of it. Not that I mind, really, the way I see it is that they just don’t know what they’re missing.

This is so warm and cozy and delicious. The maple flavoring is PERFECT… strong and sweet but, it doesn’t overwhelm the Ceylon tea base which is pleasant and mild in flavor. This is the kind of tea that would be a good weekend breakfast tea … not really “invigorating” but instead the kind that you want to curl up with and really savor.

So very very good.

Many thanks to LiberTEAS for coordinating the 12 Days of Christmas swap and sending three wonderful teas for the third day! Yesterday was busy, busy, busy for me. My boys and I picked up sister one and her husband to go meet sister two and her family an hour away at their city’s annual Christkindle/Christmas Market. They used to have lots of vendors with booths from their sister city in Germany, but they’ve scaled back in the last two or three years and there were only two booths from Germany and half a dozen others with local artists, vendors and baked goods.

We were hoping to find a Christmas pyramid for sister two’s husband but were disappointed (luckily I had found one online that she liked and I ordered it late last night and I got notification that it shipped this morning from PA, so should be here in plenty of time). Funny side story about that, apparently in my tired state I enter my maiden name for shipping an billing, but I believe my correct name for the credit card. Sigh.

We had a very nice time taking part in the kids activities. We went for a “train” ride (really a tram/tractor with nice cars) the conductor was wild, doing donuts on the paths along the lock and Rowan, his cousins and even mom and dad were smiling and laughing. They also had a “toboggan” chute, plastic slides that could seat three, down three soapy slides. The boys also had fun playing with marbles inside the museum at the lock (featuring Akron made toys, ceramic, tires, blimps and other industries). I also had a really nice local lager, dark sweet and tasty!

Then we went out to eat at an “Irish” sports bar called Barley House. We bit disappointed with that one, but twas good company. I drove everyone home and as it got dark everyone in the car but me fell asleep, I dropped off sister one and her husband and they took a half an hour nap. Stopped home for the husband to use the bathroom, grab some things for Rowan (he stayed asleep in the car with the door cracked open and brew this tea which I really should have had for breakfast, but I was feeling odd and dehydrated when I woke up,perhaps from matcha overload.

This is a very nice blend, not as mapley as I would have thought but well balanced, smooth with a nice sweetness and it didn’t get astringent. I steeped it a second time and offered a sip to my husband who then asked if it was marshmallow flavored, he loves marshmallows, me not so much, but luckily I didn’t make the association ;)

Then it was off to see The Hobbit, which I had some issues with but was overall good. I may write a review after we see it in 3D but I don’t think this is the place for it. I’ve rambled enough in this note anyway!

Mmm maple! Thank you Liberteas for this 3rd tea for the third day of Christmas! I’m really craving pancakes after trying this tea…seriously I want to pour it on my pancakes it tastes so yummy. I’m just going to go have a moment with my tea over there for a moment…

one tea of 3 from Day 3 of The 12 Days of Christmas
Mapley oh maple… Canadian at that.

This is yummy! Freakin love this. It’s so mapley good. I accidentally over steeped it & had to add a bit of milk. But it was still sooooo delicious.

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http://instagr.am/p/TTZ_9EMGar/

I’m going to start out by saying that the smell of the dry tealeaves is strong. And it is NOT the artificial maple smell so many Canadians are used to in buying their fake Doesn’t Actually Contain Any Maple syrup (because as well all know, the ones that ACTUALLY contain maple are USELESSLY expensive and usually reserved for the tourists, while packaged in nice maple leaf-shaped bottles; they’re also a fraction of a size of the two-litre “Pancake Syrup” you can usually buy [which, at least, doesn’t even TRY to claim that it contains any maple]).

This is MAPLE. MAPLEMAPLEMAPLE. I passed it around for smells and got some “woah strong”s (although most were a good “woah strong”, because it is delicious, delicious maple). I realize I’m not really sure if I can smell the actual tea used, but there is a ‘down to earth’ness to the smell which I think may be the tea smell mixing in perfectly with the maple smell.

I walked over to grab my steeped tea and didn’t even need to lean down to smell it—sniffed the wet tea leaves, and the smell was good and strong. The tea itself—mmmm. This tea, I predict, would make a very good breakfast tea. Especially for people who need to cut some sugar and starch out of their diet and need to stay away from pancakes and maple syrup.

I’m really hoping the taste is as evident and wonderful as it smells. The taste usually has to be pretty strong for me to really like it, and most flavoured teas I end up drinking, the taste is too weak for my personal preference. Pleasepleaseplease…

Just tasting the tea. Astringent, a tad bitter even though I only steeped for five minutes. There’s a maple aftertaste. I’m thinking I should have steeped this at a slightly lower temperature (that can be could for flavoured blacks, I’ve been told).

I let it cool a bit, and that definitely made a difference. The maple lingers all through the taste, and I would like to commend the very nice base black tea, because it is quite nice (and the bitter has faded mostly with the heat). I think next time, a lower temperature for a slightly weaker tea taste to see if I can taste the maple more.

The maple that I CAN taste is delicious. Yum. Noting, though, that this tea is not sweet. It’s just maple, not any sort of maple sweetness. Although now that I think about it, I bet the maple taste may come out more with sugar. Maybe even milk (the black tea used seems like it should be able to stand up to both). But I didn’t add any myself. Maybe next time.