Vanilla Oolong

I’m on a quest to find a vanilla tea that I really enjoy. Vanilla is one of my favorite flavors in any instance where I can choose a flavor, always, and I want this to apply to tea as well. From DavidsTea to Tazo to Celestial Seasonings to Southern Season, no tea source seems to get the flavor I want across. Unfortunately, this isn’t The One, but it’s better than most.

The leaves smell mostly woodsy with a bit of a vanilla undertone – bean, not flavoring. They’re not much to look at or smell, and are a bit smaller in general than I like my teas to be. I’m running through a sampler box, though, so this may have more to do with my dipping out of a small bag than a properly sized one. Brewing it in my new ingenuiTEA pot, I don’t have much comment to make on the scent when steeping.

The liquor’s a pretty, dark amber, not unlike the peach oolong from the same sampler set. I strongly suspect they’re made of the same tea base. The flavor profile puts the fairly creamy vanilla up front with a woodsy aftertaste from the oolong, both weaker than I’m looking for. The flavor’s more spot on than any other vanilla tea I’ve tried – especially compared to the most recent contender, DavidsTea’s awful vanilla oolong offering – but still not the in-your-face sweet treat I’m seeking.
-Cash

Not crazy about this. The vanilla was much too strong for the subtle flavor of an oolong. I don’t think it is a good match. The vanilla also had a very artificial smell to it.

Completely horrible! I don’t recommend this tea as it felt like I put ashes in my mouth.

Sample from a TTB. I was going to add milk, but I tried it first without, and I’m glad I did. The vanilla is pretty authentic and nice. The base tea brings a bit of a toasty flavor to round it out. I enjoy how desserty this one turns out. I don’t usually like oolong, so I was surprised by all the negative reviews.

Backlog & Sipdown

Notes (1/5/22): I didn’t really like the tea base. The vanilla in the tea and creamer added was the only thing keeping me from dumping out the cup.

Exactly what I was expecting. A subtle oolong, so subtle the vanilla overpowers any of it’s flavours. Plus a nice vanilla taste. It will make nice alternative to their Creme Black tea which follows a similar formula with the flavor overtaking the tea. I buy straight oolong and other teas from China, so that is why I like this without any character from the tea leaves.

Very similar to Adagio’s Vanilla Green, the Vanilla Oolong was similarly synthetic and unpleasant. I still could not finish the cup, but it was slightly less unpleasant than the Vanilla Green.

I really enjoyed this one. It was the first Adagio oolong I’ve had. I tend to dislike their black teas, so I was a little nervous – but this was a nice solid, if basic, oolong. The vanilla wasn’t overpowering but was definitely present. I actually think I agree with the person who said there was something coconutty about it, but I think it’s more like an added dimension to the vanilla flavor than an actual coconut taste. Also, vanilla in tea makes me taste chocolate, which is probably just a sign of something wrong with me, but hey. I taste chocolate in this one. This was an enjoyable tea – it may not have blown my socks off, but sometimes I actually just want something nice and simple.

I was hoping to like this much more than I did. The dry leaf and the infused liquor smelled strongly of vanilla but it felt like it lacked something. Although it was not at all bitter my guess is that adding a bit of sugar would complement the vanilla. It probably wouldn’t take much and would make it more satisfying. I’ll likely give that a try the next time I try this.

I am having another go at this Vanilla Oolong this morning, this time accented with about 1 tsp leftover Vanilla Chai that I was trying to use up. The combination seemed promising (or at least not revolting), so I’m going with it. I just need to be really careful with the added sweetener on these flavored oolongs. They are such a light, subtle flavor already, that it’s really easy to over-sweeten them and make them grossly cloying.

In fact, this oolong might be too light and subtle to combine with a chai, as really all I’m tasting is chai. It’s still a lovely, pleasant drink, but I"ll remember in the future to drink this one straight or, if I have to, combined with other similarly light, flavored oolongs. I do love to combine my tea flavors, but in this case, constraint is called for.