Was nervous about this one after seeing Cameron B’s review, but I actually didn’t mind it. I definitely have had better caramel teas (and even better caramel oolongs), but to me there wasn’t really anything super offensive about this one.
It was certainly a sweet tea, but personally I’m of the opinion that anything calling itself a caramel tea blend probably should be sweet since, well, caramel is sweet and that’s a key component to the flavour. I know monk fruit is definitely not for everyone, but I actually appreciated its usage here. Monk fruit has a very naturally “brown tasting” sweetness that makes it a much more complimentary sweetener addition for anything spiced (like this blend is) or with more of those ‘brown type flavours’ such as baked goods, maple, or in this case caramel. In fact, because Magic Hour doesn’t use things like caramel pieces in their blends, I imagine that the monk fruit in this tea is probably actually doing a lot of the heavy lifting with conveying the taste of caramel. Sure, there’s probably a caramel flavour mixed in with the natural flavour extracts but I don’t think that alone would have been enough to convey as much “richness” as I think Magic Hour was probably aiming for – especially because natural caramel flavours are already sort of “thin” tasting compared to their artificial counterparts and Magic Hour is all organic blends so they would have been restricted in the total percentage of flavouring that could have gone into the blend which maintaining that organic status…
That’s a roundabout way of saying I didn’t personally find the monk fruit cloying in this cup and thought the overall caramel profile was decently solid. What I did kind of mind was the “pumpkin spice”. The cinnamon was fine, but everything else felt like a distraction that was kind of muddying up the clarity of flavours. Also the black currants; I felt like they added a bit too much of a noticeable fruity undertone.
