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Backlog 1/67

What clever name do we have here for “Try all the backlogged teas you have received samples of!”? I have received an immense amount of tea lately and as much lovely as that is, I need to start catching up. I counted earlier, and I have 67 teas that I currently “need to try”, whether I’ve never had them before or if I just need to try them a second time to give them another chance or what have you.
I probably have 20 or so more teas than that total in my cupboard… Including all the samples I know I like and want more of and the teas I have an actual long-term amount of.

That said, today I’m trying Vanilla Bean Cacao because it’s been sitting on my kitchen table with the others I received from Cameron B., Mandy and Cheri and my sister said it smells delicious and demanded we try it next. I added Stephen Hockman’s enormous pile of tea to the “need to try” today. My goodness, Stephen! Thank you for all the tea. Yours is on the way!

I can’t wait to try all these. Everything sounds delicious. I especially can’t wait to try the mystery tea with the Chinese letters. :D

SO! Vanilla Bean Cacao. Wow… no one has reviewed this before? Weird.
Okay. So it looks weird! IT looks like… flaked bark or crushed acorns or crushed dry leaves. Really weird looking tea. :D IT smells strange, good? Like Vanilla, chocolate and something else… a sweet woody scent I can’t name. Maybe I’m just inventing that because of how it looks. It’s a very SUPER sweet smell tho. Almost too sweet.

It was a herbal so I usually go about 8 minutes, but I went 6 because the tea had all settled to the bottom of my gravity steeper by then so I figured it was about right. I can say the smell once it gets wet is weird. SUPER weird. More Woody than before and maybe more …. I dunno, like raw cacao rather than chocolate. Maybe?

The first sip is sweet (I sweetened it with regular sugar) with a nice rich vanilla and chocolate flavor. It is a nice full flavor, very sweet all the way around. A bigger drink makes me feel that it would be better with a touch of milk.

I may go add milk to this.

Okay, added milk and had to add a bit more sugar to avoid the milk overpowering the flavor. Somehow, another tsp of sugar plus a bit of milk = now I can taste the flavors of this tea better than I could before. I don’t know. It just brought the flavors out.

This is very tasty. It’s almost too sweet for my tastes. (I know I added more sugar, but it really needed it. Before that, the flavor VANISHED into the milk and I didn’t even add much milk.)

I like it. I don’t think I’d go seek it out specifically because it’s entirely too sweet when you get it to the point where the flavor appears, but I do think I’d drink it again if offered a cup. It’s nice. Just maybe not quite my cuppa tea.

I will be totally honest and say I can’t remember which person this one came from (apologies!) but whoever sent it, thank you for the experience! This is not a bad tea!