Apples & Molasses

The smell coming from this package is just heavenly. Just a few nights ago, I made cornbread and told my wife I wish we had some molasses. It was her first time having cornbread….how do you Yankees survive without cornbread?

The scent brewed up is the gorgeous molasses with apple and just a hint of mustiness.

The flavor is very dusty and musty at first, but then mellows into a yummy baked apple. It’s very yummy. It’s a dark sweetness and it does remind me of molasses.

It’s delicious, but if the mustiness is through the whole bag, it’s not something I’d restock.

I overleafed this slightly and the results are much better than last time. There’s a kick of molasses that I didn’t get in the last cup, but this time around it’s equal to and maybe even stronger than the apple. This is a really delicious cup that manages not to be too sweet! Bumping the rating up.

This tea smells so cozy, like the earliest hints of holidays on the way. I wasn’t as impressed by the flavor. It’s good at first, but a quarter way through the cup I began to lose interest as the flavored-tea characteristics started to gang up on me. I am finicky about flavored teas and a lot of them are only good to me while still very hot (luke-warm dessert teas are the worst) and usually only for half a cup before they become too much of a good thing.

My husband, on the other hand, likes this one a lot (he rates it around 95). I was worried about brewing it for him because he hasn’t liked many black teas yet (flavored or not), but this was an exception.

Holy tea, Batman! I’ve been waiting for several things to arrive in the mail and today nearly everything was delivered at once. A swap finally came in along with my black Friday Della Terra order. I am literally swamped with tea, but this is a good thing!

I could not decide which tea to make first, but this tea smelled heavenly. The dry smell is balanced with apple, molasses, and spices. I was a bit hesitant to purchase this tea due to some of the reviews, but am glad I did. While it is not a strong tea, it is nice and cozy. The apple is very present with a hint of spice and a roundness from the molasses. I took this with sweetener and a touch of cream to bring out of the flavors. The cream along with sweetener definitely helped bring out some of the other flavors. Overall, I am happy with this tea and am glad I purchased it. One tea down, a ton more to go! :-)

This was supposed to be saved for my b-day, which is in about a week. But since I went to a Harvest Fair today, it was time for more seasonal tea.

It smells kinda like the pie tea, which is pretty good. I think it’s the cloves. The flavour is sweet and apple, though the spices aren’t as strong brewed. Good, and I might end up using some as bread flavouring.

It’s a warm apple cider. Quite tasty without anything in it. I’m now on the hunt for the perfect way to sweeten it. Either straight sugar or agave, maybe

I’ve heard such great things about Della Terra here on Steepster that I’ve really been wanting to try out some of their teas. So I was excited to find this one when I was sorting through my sample box. I must have received it in a swap (not sure from who) and forgotten about it. I’m a bit sad I never tried this in the fall, because it strikes me as the perfect autumn tea. But it’s still quite enjoyable in the dead of winter! It has a very natural baked apple flavor with a bit of sweetness from the molasses and just a hint of spiciness to give it depth. A great introduction to this company!

Now this is a fall tea! I should of really tried it months ago! Oh well. I highly recommend sweetening this tea as there is much more going on – baked apple flavor, malty black base, light spice and a warm molasses flavor adding lots of comfort food and snuggling by the fireplace feels.

I like the molasses as it is a unique concept, but I still rather have DTT’s more stronger teas like their Pineapple Upside Down Cake tea.

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/apples-molasses-black-tea-della-terra-teas-oolong-owl-tea-review/

Sipdown (179/185)!

I think, on the whole, I expected too much of this blend because of my typical adoration of Della Terra’s black teas because I’m finding this one to be really flat and mediocre which is making me feel especially disheartened despite this not actually really being a bad tea.

The black base is definitely strong and it’s just a tiny bit bitter – but not in a horribly awful or undrinkable way. I actually really can’t taste any apple despite seeing rather large pieces of it in the leaf I used: mostly I taste the “molasses”; I put that in quotations because I consider molasses to be a very commanding flavour as well as a very full, rich one and this flavour while being similar to molasses is really gentle and soft.

I feel like, if this was a soda, it’d be “Molasses Light”, the ’low calorie" version of “Molasses” that tastes like lower quality too. Definitely not the right blend for a molasses lover such as myself.

But oh well; thanks anyway for the sample VariaTEA – now I know that, and otherwise I probably would have kept wondering…

Della Terra you got this one right! How pleasant a flavor this tea has! Truly it does have hints of molasses flavor. Makes me want to bake an apple pie or something. It is good hot and surprisingly I also liked it cold. I’ll have to try this again with some honey.