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From the queue, written April 2nd 2014

Another sample that Anna shared with me. I’m less concerned about this one than other Anna – sample, because it’s one that I’ve been interested in long before Anna was on Steepster. For some reason this makes a difference. Highly illogical, I know, but it does make a difference in my head. You’d think that Anna, being my taste opposite, liking this would make my interest cool, but it seems to have not registered at all. It must be because it’s a vanilla tea and all vanilla blacks are by definition lovely.

I do, however, seem to recall being warned at one time ( Cteresa, was it you?) that this one was A Bit Different to other vanilla blacks, but I don’t know in what way it’s supposed to be so. (Or was that a completely different French vanilla blend…? I’m confused now!)

Anyway, the aroma is quite subtle on the vanilla and I’m getting a lot of the base. It smells like a fairly strong base with a great deal of malty, grainy notes to it. The vanilla is there, giving it sweetness, but it does not smell saturated by vanilla. This is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you.

It is indeed a quite strong base. It tastes a little non-descript to me. A little default tea-ish. I don’t think this is a fault of the base. I think these things just happen sometimes in the flavouring process. As if the add flavouring alters some of the natural notes and mutes them. Still, it’s fairly strong and tastes suitable for the morning hours even though it’s flavoured. (Lately I’ve found myself paying attention to the time of days when choosing a tea to drink. I’d never do a herbal or a flavoured first thing in the morning, for example, unless I had already been awake for a little while. Never cared about that before. I’d still happily have a morning tea in the afternoon though.)

The vanilla is very subtle. I get it mostly in the background. At no point, when just taking a mouthful do I think ‘oh vanilla’, but then when I’ve had it in my mouth for the short while it takes me to put the cup down and before I swallow, that’s when I get a good deal of vanilla. So it’s there but it’s hidden. It’s the sort of thing like that drawing of a toad and then when you turn the picture 90 degrees, it turns into a drawing of a horse’s head. When you first look at it, you can’t see the horse, but as soon as you’ve found the horse, it’s never just a toad again. It’s like that with the vanilla. Until you find it, it’s elusive. But once you’ve discovered it, there’s actually rather a lot of it.

My cup had cooled a little way beyond drinkable temperature, so if I’d had it when it was slightly warmer, my impression might have been different. I find that if I sip a tea while it’s piping hot I can’t taste plock all, so it’s possible that this is actually even more subtle than I think it is. I’ve got half the sample Anna gave me left, so I can test it. But Luna was being a WILD kitty with a capital WILD, so I spent some time playing with her to help her burn off some of all that energy. A toy on a string tied to an old wooden cooking spoon = Cat fishing rod. Great fun for all participants! :D

This is not how I prefer my vanilla black. I like a completely saturated vanilla tea. Which is peculiar because it goes against how I otherwise prefer my flavoured blacks. It’s still a lovely tea, though. (Yes, by definition. ;)

Addition, written May 8th 2014

I had the rest of this sample while watching the first Eurovision semifinal on Tuesday, and I had much the same experience with it as above, so it seems a pretty consistent blend and it was a very suitable to treat while watching the show. Although I cannot for the life of me understand the outcome of the semifinal! How could Iceland qualify, but Portugal didn’t??? Portugal had a totally jolly and fun salsa-y song and Iceland’s song was just… Well, it wasn’t that good. Of my own six favourites, only three qualified and the look on my face when they had announced all ten was a bit like this: O.O And Armenia’s song is a bookmaker favourite because… why, exactly? At least my absolute favourite so far that I hope will win (Netherlands) qualified. I’m going to watch the second semifinal tonight if I can stay awake for it. Hopefully that one will be less shocking. The hosts all have that dreadful Danish accent to their English, though. I hope I don’t sound like that. I’ve told Husband to lie to me if I do.