Feliz Cumpleaños

I just received my order of samples from BourgeaTea today (as if I need to sample more teas… LOL) and this is the first of the samples that I decided to try.

YUM! It does have a cake-y kind of taste in the background, slightly malty with a lovely vanilla overtone. Sweet and tasty. The black tea offers a sturdy background flavor, rich and flavorful, slightly astringent. It is not bitter, but, it tasted like it was almost there. I steeped it for 2 1/2 minutes, and that seems like that is the best time frame to steep this one in a Breville, as I suspect that if it were steeped any longer than that it would be bitter. But as it is, it’s rather nice.

I like this … a lovely tea to celebrate one’s un-birthday!

Ok! Another sample from LiberTEAS! I’m doing this review “blind”, meaning that I have no idea what the flavouring is supposed to be here, if the tea is flavoured beyond the smattering of sprinkles that are obvious. I think it’s kind of fun to try and figure things out before looking at what it’s actually supposed to be.

The aroma of this tea reminds me a great deal of DavidsTea’s Birthday Cake, although that one is a rooibos and this is a black. It’s an almost sickly sweet sort of aroma (which I find appealing, haha), and I can just barely catch a hint of the black base. I don’t know whether it’s the sprinkles that give the tea the sweet aroma, or flavouring.

Even at only three minutes of steeping (ok, 3:07, but who’s counting!), I’m getting a bitter flavour at the end of the sip. I can taste some sweetness, but it’s quite mild, and a bit overshadowed by this strange bitterness. Blech. This tea definitely has nothing on DT’s cake teas. They’re not even in the same league. I might add some milk and sugar here just to make it palatable, but this definitely is one flavoured black I don’t feel the need to have again.

Ok, cheating now and reading some notes… of course I would read that LiberTEAS found it to be verging on bitter with a 2.5 minute infusion! Haha. Maybe next time I try it it will be better. I am definitely getting vanilla-y and possible maple-y notes; as I said, it is reminiscent of Birthday Cake, which has those same flavours, but the change in base tea alters the flavours a bit, which are then further overshadowed by bitterness. Ah well. Not bad, but not a tea I’d choose for myself :)

I have typically avoided teas with sprinkles because I thought they would be gross. I actually didn’t find this to be gross but it didn’t knock my socks off either. The black tea is somewhat mild and flirts with bitterness. It is accompanied by a tasty caramel flavor that has vanilla undertones. I also tasted notes of maple and butterscotch at hotter temps. I suspect this might be good iced. The sprinkles melt during the infusion process this essentially comes pre-sweetened. They added the perfect amount of sweetness though.