I’m going to start out by saying that the smell of the dry tealeaves is strong. And it is NOT the artificial maple smell so many Canadians are used to in buying their fake Doesn’t Actually Contain Any Maple syrup (because as well all know, the ones that ACTUALLY contain maple are USELESSLY expensive and usually reserved for the tourists, while packaged in nice maple leaf-shaped bottles; they’re also a fraction of a size of the two-litre “Pancake Syrup” you can usually buy [which, at least, doesn’t even TRY to claim that it contains any maple]).
This is MAPLE. MAPLEMAPLEMAPLE. I passed it around for smells and got some “woah strong”s (although most were a good “woah strong”, because it is delicious, delicious maple). I realize I’m not really sure if I can smell the actual tea used, but there is a ‘down to earth’ness to the smell which I think may be the tea smell mixing in perfectly with the maple smell.
I walked over to grab my steeped tea and didn’t even need to lean down to smell it—sniffed the wet tea leaves, and the smell was good and strong. The tea itself—mmmm. This tea, I predict, would make a very good breakfast tea. Especially for people who need to cut some sugar and starch out of their diet and need to stay away from pancakes and maple syrup.
I’m really hoping the taste is as evident and wonderful as it smells. The taste usually has to be pretty strong for me to really like it, and most flavoured teas I end up drinking, the taste is too weak for my personal preference. Pleasepleaseplease…
Just tasting the tea. Astringent, a tad bitter even though I only steeped for five minutes. There’s a maple aftertaste. I’m thinking I should have steeped this at a slightly lower temperature (that can be could for flavoured blacks, I’ve been told).
I let it cool a bit, and that definitely made a difference. The maple lingers all through the taste, and I would like to commend the very nice base black tea, because it is quite nice (and the bitter has faded mostly with the heat). I think next time, a lower temperature for a slightly weaker tea taste to see if I can taste the maple more.
The maple that I CAN taste is delicious. Yum. Noting, though, that this tea is not sweet. It’s just maple, not any sort of maple sweetness. Although now that I think about it, I bet the maple taste may come out more with sugar. Maybe even milk (the black tea used seems like it should be able to stand up to both). But I didn’t add any myself. Maybe next time.
