Ok, I may have lied to VariaTEA and told her I was taking a tea break. I honestly planned to, though! Except, last cup I had was like two hours ago, so that’s break enough, right?
Anyway, I took the pouch of this on vacation with me in the hopes I’d finally sack up and try a cup. I made it for practically every member of my family, but was too nervous to have a cup myself. Thing is, I’ve been a vegetarian for nearly 10 years – that’s more than half my lifetime! In that time, not once have I had a vegetarian bacon equivalent so what makes me really nervous is that not only do I have no clue what actual bacon is supposed to taste like, I have zero clue what vegetarian bacon is supposed to be like either…
But regardless of that, I’m growing a pair and taking the plunge now.
So – for preparation I went with 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf in 8 oz. of boiling water, steeped for four minutes. Dry, this does smell sweet so that could be the maple. There’s also a savory and sort of salty generic “meat” type smell, which I suppose would be the bacon. Steeped up, I definitely get more maple than I do in the dry leaf, and then a slightly more mild and less stomach churning savory meat kinda smell.
Gulp.
Ok, taste wise this isn’t really as bad as I thought it would be. Mind you, I don’t really have any conclusive idea on what bacon tastes like – let alone what a bacon tea should taste like. Anyway, there’s the distinct taste of the black base that Frank uses, and then a sweet maple kind of taste which is obviously the maple. However, there’s also a very salty/savory flavour that I’m sure if intended to be the bacon. It has a kind of smoke like quality to it – and in there aftertaste I definitely do get more of a “meaty” kind of taste.
So overall, I’m glad I tried this – I don’t think I had as much reason to be fearful as I thought I did. Ultimately this isn’t bad, it’s just highly unusual and somewhat foreign in taste to me. I don’t think I’m going to reach for this often if ever as something to “just drink” but it’s a great novelty tea and I could see myself making some up for myself if I had family or friends coming over as a weird and unusual tea for them to try.
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So reading your description of the taste is very similar to mine. haha this is actually hilarious.
Also, I did not use your break wisely because rather than drinking many cups, I decided to package Cavo’s teas. And that took quite a while because I somehow managed to lose my banana pudding tea.
So reading your description of the taste is very similar to mine. haha this is actually hilarious.
Also, I did not use your break wisely because rather than drinking many cups, I decided to package Cavo’s teas. And that took quite a while because I somehow managed to lose my banana pudding tea.