My experience with this tea sounds pretty similar to everyone else’s. I find vanilla, caramel and grenadine a slightly odd combination – it’s like there are two halves to the flavour that don’t quite come together. Dry, there wasn’t much scent to this tea. It’s vaguely sweet, but that’s about all I was able to detect. It’s similar when brewed, except the faintest notes of vanilla and strawberry are detectable upon concentration. Mostly, though, the scent is of normal black tea.
The first sip surprised me by being a lot more astringent than I expected. I don’t think I overdid the brew time on this one, although it’s possible I overleafed the tiniest bit. I’ll try and remedy that next time. I can taste the caramel and vanilla in the initial sip, although they’re not strong, and they’re kind of overtaken by the bitterness of the base tea. The grenadine only really comes out in the aftertaste, and is rather like strawberry ice cream syrup. It’s very sweet, maybe a little too sweet, and somehow it just doesn’t fit with a tea that’s otherwise quite dry and flavoured more with creamy tastes than fruity.
Overall, I’d say this tea isn’t really for me. I like the idea of it, but maybe not this exact expression. I’m looking forward to trying my Mariage Freres Marco Polo, though!
