Cherry Vanilla Cola Black Tea

The success of the coconut cream pie inspired me to try one of the other ones I bought from the forgotten 52teas order. I’m not surprised I ordered this one and it was sort of screaming to me. Here’s the thing.

I. Love. Cherry. Cola.
Favourite soda (after orange) FTW.

Unfortunately it’s not something we can usually get here. I don’t know if you can over there on the other side of the water. I know you have Dr Pepper which to me is very similar, but also not available in Denmark unless you’re really lucky. We had it for a couple of years recently, but it was taken off the market again. Apparently it didn’t sell well enough. (I fear Mountain Dew has gone the same tragic way, because I can’t find that anymore either). Recently we’ve had a limited edition cherry cola from coca-cola which was yummy, but alas, that one seems to also have run its course. In my deprivation of proper cherry cola or similar beverage, I’ve found that I can make a relatively good substitute with ordinary cola and cherry cordial. It’s not the same, but it works okay.

What all this means is that I have VERY high expectations of this one. So high, that I’m likely to be disappointed. Anything below a clean 100 on this is not good enough. The question just is exactly how disappointed am I going to get?

The leaves actually do smell a bit like cola and something that I’m willing to call cherry-like. There is however also a note which to my own surprise I can only describe as vaguely menthol-like. This is worrysome.

After steeping, the tea has pretty much the same smell, only hot. The mentholness is sticking out a bit more here, which is a little odd to me because menthol (along with mints) is usually a cool sort of flavour.

Hmm… Flat cola with dusty vanilla. I can’t find any cherry outside of the smell. Something sour-ish, kind of citrus-soapy-like. So, yes, I did get disappointed. It’s just a question of how much.

This does require an amount of experimentation, but for a first experience, I cannot in good consciousness give it more than 65-ish.

Cherry Vanilla Cola tea soda! This is too good, it’s too bad I don’t have much of this left. I steeped a teaspoon of leaves in my gaiwan because all my measuring cups were being washed, lol and I figured it was the closest I had to 2-3oz. Steeped it for 3 minutes, poured it in a cup, paid no attention to the amount of agave going in, added ice and topped it off with seltzer water.

I have some Coke Zero in my fridge because I’ve been mixing it with a little orange juice (this is actually amazing, thanks Germany), and that soda has nothing on this tea with some carbonation. It tastes like soda, but it’s still got that black tea flavor to it.

I tried adding club soda to it before but it really needs to have a concentrated steep for it to really, really work. I can’t believe it took me until now to do this.

This tea became mine in a swap with silvermage2000. I was curious about this one after reading others tasting notes, but it wasn’t available any longer. I’m so happy to get to sample some…well, more than some, almost a near full pouch!

The dry leaves of this tea smell just like cola. They even have an effervescent scent to them, I don’t know how tea can posess this, let alone the leaves, but it is so cool!

I brewed this for 3:30 mintutes at boiling. I think this may have been a tad long, or maybe I just need a little sweetner, because it is quite potent. There is something in the flavor of this tea that makes it tingle on my tongue. It really does have many similarities to cherry vanilla cola. I taste a sarsaparilla note in the tea, maybe that is part of the natural cola flavoring? Something reminds me of the sarsaparilla flavoring in the Root Beer Float tea that was made not too long ago. Yum!

This tea is great, I can’t wait to try it iced!

Tried this out today to see how it compares to cuba libre. I think i like it. haha i want to try this out as a cold brew but it’s not too shabby. Another 52 tea i split with kittenna so yay for small quantities of tea to drink through :)

Thanks to momo for this tea! it’s your box of samples I’m trying to make progress on at the moment – poked through the box last night and discovered like 15 teas I hadn’t tried! Most of them ones that I had specifically requested, too!

I don’t recall what the dry tea smelled like, but brewed up, there’s a definite and distinct cola aroma. Not coke or pepsi, just generic cola. Doesn’t smell too bad; I think I’m still a bit scarred from DavidsTea’s Cherry Cola, which is why I’m feeling apprehensive about trying this one.

However, I’m glad I did! This is actually really tasty! It’s by far the most authentically cola-flavoured tea I’ve had (ok, maybe that’s not exactly a category in which I’ve tried any/many other teas, but the flavour is very believable in this blend). I can’t say that I’m really getting the cherry.. it actually almost tastes a little more like Vanilla Coke to me. That said, I’m not a pop person at all, and it’s entirely possibly that I haven’t even ever tried Cherry Coke (I think I might have once, back in grade school, actually). It’s not even that I don’t like the flavour of pop though, I just dislike carbonation for whatever reason. So I’m the type that likes flat pop, yep! (And another reason I hate beer… not only is the taste bad, but it’s carbonated!)

Anyhow, I’m really enjoying this tea! I kept the infusion time quite low in case the base felt like getting bitter on me, and it worked like a charm. Zero bitter. Perhaps I should drop all 52teas blacks to 2:15 from 2:30.

So yes. Thanks to momo again for letting me try this, and a bazillion other teas which I’ve sucked at getting around to trying!

I love pop flavoured things. But for some reason I have a hard time drinking carbonation, it just doesn’t go down my esophagus well. So I often do not choose to drink pop, or I will “press” it by adding water.

This dry tea smells exactly like those sour cola gummy candies. Mmmm. I bought this to make iced or cold, but I wanted to try it hot as well. Without sweetener it tasted quite flat. Not flat as in flat carbonation, but the taste was flat – if that makes sense. I added some rock sugar and that made the taste more dynamic. You can taste cola, sour cherry, and slight vanilla. It does have a taste of flat soda. To me it doesn’t taste like there is even much black tea in it. There were also full sized cherries mixed in with the tea, which is a bonus.

As I find with most 52 teas blends, the taste becomes stronger and more distinct as it cools.

Look forward to making this one iced.

Another tea I ganked from the Travelling Teabox. I’m always up for something new and different so I was eager to try what I consider to be one of Frank’s odder teas flavours (not counting the Tuna Melt, lol).

The tea smells like cola – it’s more like a Dr. Pepper scent than a Coco-Cola scent IMO, but it’s surprisingly authentic. Unfortunately the taste…really isn’t. It might just be the age of the sample but mostly what I’m getting is the (rather bitter) black tea base interspersed with a bit of faint, sweetish cola flavour and maybe a hint of vanilla. This tea tastes like it needs milk, but I don’t think the flavourings would be agreeable to that – maybe some agave nectar?

I’ve got enough for one or two more cups so I’ll mess around with it a bit and see if I can’t get it to taste better.

ANGRBODA very kindly sent me a generous portion of this tea. I had not had any since it was first released and I like it more than most people here do. The cherry taste is a bit muted, I agree. But there’s something about the “cola” taste that I love. Indeed, I’ve been known to wear cola fragrance: L’Aromarine Cola Eau de Toilette is the best inexpensive scent I have. This tea tastes like the liquid scent.

There are a bunch of complex notes vying for attention here, I think, which is why it might not seem utterly successful as a cherry tea or as a vanilla tea or as a cola tea, but I like the mix very much.

I brewed this tea up and allowed it to take a chill in the fridge – it makes a really good iced tea! Even my hubby (the non-tea-drinker) likes it! I did add some sweetener to it just to keep the flavors perky, but I don’t think that it’s overpoweringly sweet at all. Just very pleasantly sweet, and very tasty.

The aroma is one of the most remarkable aspects of this tea, it really SMELLS just like one of those old time soda fountain colas. The cherry flavor is strong, the vanilla flavor softens it nicely… and the tea flavor is neither overwhelmed by the flavors, nor does it overwhelm them.

It’s weird… but it works.

I am going to rate this one this time, because I have roughly about a half a gallon left of this tea, and I don’t know that it will last… and I want to rate it before I’m out of it.

Sipdown! Used the last of my bag of this as a cold brew. Today is my first day back at work this week after being in the Processfix workshop since Tuesday. I think I have about a thousand emails. And three days of interview paperwork to deal with. I’m counting myself lucky that I don’t have a headache already. At least I have this to sip on to cheer me up (and I’m meeting a friend for lunch in a few minutes).

Strangely, this time I’m getting more flavour than I did previously, even though I didn’t use anywhere near as much leaf. I wouldn’t say I got vanilla or cherry, per se, but definitely cola. It’s a nice enough cup to sip on throughout the day, but it’s probably not something I’d ever restock. I like the idea of it, but the flavour just didn’t live up to my expectations. It’s tastes better hot, but I prefer to drink this cold. There’s a confusion opinion for you! AT least it’s Friday.