First time preparing this with my brand new gaiwan, so it may or may not throw off my taste (I have no clue about that, this is my first time using a gaiwan).
Scent
-Before Steeping: Rich caramel scent, decadently rich. Extremely rich, almost overwhelming. There is a thick cloying sweetness scent to it.
-While Steeping: The typical black tea scent, blended with a cloying sweetness and marshmallow after-scent. The caramel scent is still there, richly in the foreground, intense and sweet.
-After Steeping: There is still a faint black tea scent, but that is mostly overshadowed by the reinforced intensity of the caramel, extremely sweet and cloying.
Taste and Overview:
At first taste it’s sweet. Very sweet. Just sweet, at the beginning at least. Right afterwards the intense caramel flavor shows itself to the world, rich and powerful, and just downright delicious. This shows itself well as a desert tea, cloyingly sweet and yummy. You can just taste the marshmallow in it throughout the drinking experience, which lends that nice marshmallow gooiness flavor into the mix. It’s just so good and rich it’s not even funny. Too rich, of course, for anything but a desert tea, but that’s alright. The aftertaste is mostly a sweet caramel flavor that just kind of hangs around for a little while, which is kind of annoying. After adding a little splash of almond milk, for added taste and creaminess, the flavor just soars and astounds. The nearly flavorless almond milk adds that lovely creaminess to the tea, and the very slight, barely-there, lingering taste of almonds hits it just right. I now have a flavor more akin to a caramel crème brulee or a caramel flan. That sweet syrupy caramel intensity blended just right with burnt cream and sugar. This tea is definitely awesome. I would drink again and again as a desert tea.
