Vanilla Excellence

Okay, there’s no excuse for me not trying this by now. I bought it in July! And yet the Harrod’s sticker was still across the top of the bag. Sigh.

This is going to sound weird for a vanilla tea, but it smells like a fig newton cookie. It’s slightly fruitier as it starts to brew, but still, fig newton. I’m pretty sure I bought this because it smelled almost alarmingly vanilla-y, too.

Oh, but this is nice. This isn’t the kind of vanilla I was expecting at all. This isn’t sugar-cookie vanilla, but the darker, fruitier tasting stuff usually used in perfumes and rich desserts. Without milk it’s lovely, but when I add milk the flavors intensify even more and it’s almost like drinking custard. Oh my goodness, this is good.

This one is next on the list of older untried teas! I got this sample from a swap with NayLynn, I believe she included it as a bonus. Visually, it just looks like generic black tea leaves – there aren’t any additions. Dry scent is very muted (though I expected that since it’s been in a sample bag for a few months) though I can pick out vanilla.

Once steeped up, the tea smells of wood and vanilla with some vague fruity notes. It mostly tastes like a very woody black tea. I taste a tiny bit of vanilla along with a touch of strawberry. Overall, it’s pretty meh.

T&C TTB#13: Smells like vanilla. Tastes like a mish-mash of flavors. I suspect this was flavored by the other teas in the box. The base doesn’t seem all bad, but the flavor is indistinct and muddled.

T&C TTB

I haven’t sampled many vanilla teas so brewed a small sample of this from the TTB. This tea has a strong black tea base with a subtle vanilla flavor but might taste better with a rounded teaspoon scoop (maybe almost 1.5 teaspoon). I was really surprised how strong it tasted after just a 3 minute steep. I wish that I’d read the tasting notes before trying it because I think that adding creamer would’be elevated the flavor of vanilla.

Okay, this is the serving that I “snatched” from Traveling Tea Box & Cards organized by Nicole before I sent it to another person… sometime in February ;) So yeah, here it is, vanilla excellence.

I have nothing against vanilla flavor but at the same time it doesn’t make me overtly excited. I have also noticed that, with some exceptions (Butiki’s Caramel Vanilla Assam), it is not very well pulled off in teas. Especially when it is supposed to play the main and only role, like in the case of this tea.

This is pretty successful, though! Vanilla is present in both aroma and taste. Not forced, not artificial. It tastes just as if vanilla flavor was an inherent part of the base tea (which is some kind of black – Assam maybe?). I must say, however, that the base seems a little weak, but that could be due to me keeping a teaspoon of dry leaf in a way too big baggie for like 2 months now.

While this is not something I would care to keep in stock at all times, I think it would appeal strongly to staunch fans of vanilla teas.

T&C TTB 5/23

Thanks bluebelle for sharing this wonderful vanilla tea. I could see the cut up pieces of vanilla bean mixed with the black leaf. I brewed this up expecting it to just be an ordinary vanilla tea but it is not. It tasted nice without milk but with milk, decadent. Like bluebelle said it was like drinking a rich delicious custard.