Gingerbread Pancake Black Tea

Nice balance of spices, though I wish the pancake aspect were amped way up. I’d really just call it a gingerbread tea. Good with and without milk. It’s quite nice, but I would have loved some more bready/cakiness in the base. In my large mug of this, I only really tasted a maple/pancake note once. But it is distinctly gingerbread rather than just ginger or chai, so that aspect was done well.

Ok! So I immediately latted this one up. I pretty much always latte anything gingerbread, so this was no exception. I am a bit concerned by the smell from the bag. It smells… odd. I can’t place that olfactory note for the life of me, but it doesn’t smell like gingerbread.

Latte is made with Fairlife milk and 2 Splendas. I know fairlife isn’t as nice to latte with as almond milk, but my sugar has been acting up, so I had to switch. Also, I realize now that I underleafed this a bit. I can’t find my measuring spoon, so I tried to weigh it out, but then forgot to account for the larger cup size.

Latte is… mmm that’s good. I’m really getting the gingerbread flavor here, along with the pancake, although the pancake is more as an aftersip. The gingerbread hits you right away but the pancake lingers. It’s odd, there’s also a decent amount of spice here besides the gingerbread. Am I tasting clove in there? I swear I am. Well, a quick look at the package confirms the addition of cloves, so I’m not wrong. Good to know. There is a lovely tongue tingle involved with this one. I’m loving it.

Good stuff. It’s not perfect; I would have liked to have seen a more “in your face” pancake flavor, but that could just be me. It isn’t that the pancake is missing, it’s just not as prominent on the initial taste as I would like. (As I said, it’s a lingering flavor.) I would recommend this tea to anyone who wants a good gingerbread tea. I know we’re a bit out of gingerbread season now, but I didn’t get the box, so this is my first time trying this. Just all around yum. I only bought one pack of this, which I now regret; I see this going quickly.

Perhaps an unpopular opinion but I am slightly over pancake teas. I think I am jaded though because when I first tried 52 Teas Pancake tea, it was pure magic. Frank managed to liquefy a classic breakfast and all elements were present and it was incredible. Anne improved it by using a nicer black base and creating a number of fun variations. All are great and this is no exception but between 52 Teas and other companies making their own versions, I just find they aren’t that exciting anymore. Like I said…I think I’m jaded and miss the magic of that surprisingly accurate pancake flavour that you didn’t think was possible. I know it is possible now and while always impressive how accurate it is, I just don’t need that many pancakes in my life.

With that rant said, I will focus on this tea itself, which I pulled because gingerbread is classic Christmas and it just seemed festive and a 52 teas blend I hadn’t tried before. This, like so many others, definitely captures pancakes perfectly, right down to the mouthfeel. What sets this apart is the Ginger flavour. It’s not overly Ginger-y but present enough with other spices to really evoke the gingerbread. It’s nice but it’s a pancake tea at the end of the day and probably not one I will reach for often but for my own personal reasons and not due to the tea being bad in any way.

I didn’t have time to prepare tea before work yesterday, because it was one of those mornings, so instead I had to grab my water bottle out of the fridge that was filled with the remainder of the Caramel Vanilla Chai from Day 1 that I had prepared as an iced chai (yes, I still drink iced tea when there is snow on the ground, with the convenience of pre-preparing it being just one reason!) I will leave a footnote that prepared chilled as a latte with vanilla almond milk, the vanilla and caramel notes of that chai really came out and it was much sweeter, while it was much spicier when taken as a straight hot tea.

Today’s tea is Crisp Cranberry Soda, and I actually have an older packet of that from 2017 in my collection, and since I’ve been trying to sip down my old teas anyway, I decided to set a big ol’ liter mason jar of it to cold brew before work and keep the new, fresher packet. So more on that later after 8-24 hours of steeping in the fridge. Today I prepared yesterday’s tea from the advent calendar that I missed, Gingerbread Pancake Black Tea! It’s Treat Day at work today to hopefully a thermos of this will go nicely with the goodies in the breakroom.

The tea has a very sweet, candied ginger and molasses aroma… I’m almost getting something a bit nutty from the scent, as well. The flavor is reminding me if the Carrot Cake Pancake tea which was another of my favorites… I really like how the spices and maple compliment each other. It has a very warming effect from the ginger, but it isn’t spicy… the ginger has a sweet or candied sort of taste. I’m also picking up sweet cinnamon and an aftertaste of cloves. I’m getting more of a thick, syrupy, molasses flavor than the extremely sugary-sweet taste of maple, but it compliments the spices nicely. It’s a very tasty tea!

On the Third Day of Christmas . . . Of the four new teas that I created for the 12 Teas of Christmas, this is one of my four favorites. (Yeah, that’s what I said.) Seriously, though, I love this tea. Yummy gingerbread notes – plenty of spice! – and notes of pancake, as well as notes of maple-y goodness. So good!

Another sip down! It seems that the flavors have become much more pronounced since I last had this. Super mapley, and lots of subtly spicy ginger. This is making me super excited for the 52Teas advent this year!

During the process of tracking down all the physical samples and tins of “cake teas” from my stash for today/tomorrow I realized that I didn’t have this one in my steepster cupboard, so that was a little bit frustrating…

I had a mug today near the end of the work day though, and it was actually way nicer than I remembered it tasting – and it’s not like I was picturing being unpleasant, either. Nice and warming and gingery, but still with a depth and denseness to the flavour and almost a molasses-y twinge that I find VERY appropriate for gingerbread. Additionally it had a mellow sweetness throughout the sip, and a soft maple undertone. Everything just clicked.