I had the pleasure of trying this tea first in the Zoomdweebies shop in KS and it is delicious when they make it into a tea latte!
They have the tea latte recipe available so I don’t think I’m giving away anything when I say I went home and tried it on my own with sweetened condensed milk and that is the crux of their tea latte recipe.
With the full tea latte recipe the latte feels lighter than a normal Sbux tea latte and the flavor of the tea seems more developed too. Wow can Frank brew… trust me I had two!
At home making the full amount of latte mix is nice but then you feel the need to drink the whole thing… which ends up being a party type amount…. not I want a bit of tea now amount… so I tried this tea just adding the sweetened condensed milk and boy is that yummy. Actually I’ve discovered that sweetened condensed milk is FANTASTIC with a lot of different dessert type tea and I really suggest playing around with it as a tea modifier. The only flavor I don’t think it works well with so far is chocolate…. but I’ll be experimenting more with that later…
Using normal tea condiments I find that I am using more sugar than I usually do to try to mimick the tea latte flavor. Unfortunately I think I’m walking into this tea biased having had my first taste of it with the tea latte instead of my normal experimenting. I’m finding that three teaspoons of sugar in a two teaspoon of tea pot is the right ratio to about even up the flavor with what I was expecting and then of course some milk.
The tea base is a little astringent tasting if you don’t add enough sugar which is something I have not noticed with the other 52 teas blends so I’m probably again biased because of the tea latte.
Coconut is present and lightly awesome. Not over bearing or a punch in the face and it is accented well with the vanilla creamy flavor. This is a tea that I’m not enjoying with out milk as it seems to lose a depth without it and I also can’t enjoy this one with just milk and no sugar. Again it seems to lose a level without using both. Actually without sugar it almost has a woody black tea quality. Not smokey woody but that potato starchy woody round flavor. Interesting but I’m spoiled with this tea now and only want it light and sweet.
I’m happy this is a permanently available tea. I know that seems to go against the 52teas mantra but this one is that banging good… especially as a tea latte.
Glad you enjoy it! Reading all these 52teas tasting notes makes me wish my mandarin matcha would hurry up and get here.:(