Pumpkin Seed Brittle

This tea smells like the inside of a candle store at the end of November. I appreciate the pumpkin seeds in the mix, but this is pumpkin spice all the way. It doesn’t taste nutty or like pumpkin, and I don’t get the salty caramelized toffee flavor I would expect from brittle. This is an older tea though, so perhaps that’s it.

Tea Advent Calendar – Day 4

I was excited to see another AQTT blend in the calendar today, as they’re one of my favorite companies! However, I didn’t love my first cup of this one. I definitely get the pumpkin flavor, but nothing that reminds me of brittle…no nuttiness or sweetness that I can detect. Others have definitely picked up on those flavors in their tasting notes though, so I’m not giving up on this one! Shae sent a very generous sample, so I’m going to try different steeping parameters and may also add a bit of honey to my next cup to see if I can get that caramel flavor to pop.

Sipdown (270)

The smell of this one reminded me of DAVIDsTEA Pumpkin Chai. I think the mix of pumpkin, caramel, and spice had my mind drifting to Pumpkin Chai. Also, both have the little pumpkin sprinkles. Anyways, tastewise, this is a lot nuttier than Pumpkin Chai and with a lot more spice. It’s nice enough but AQ2T has a very particular spice blend with a lot of their Fall/Winter teas and it is not my favorite. That spice blend is present here as well which makes this feel familiar and a bit boring. I like the nuttiness though.

In other news, my new obsession is candles. Since I have my own apartment with no little animals running around who might get hurt, I burn them often and they just make things cozier and delightful. I told my friend this and she said between my love of tea, reading, and no candles, she thinks I should have been a librarian. Alas, just like my tea collection, I can see my love of candles getting out of hand if I am not careful. MUST. RESIST. THE. URGE. TO. SPEND!

Made a return to this one today, because I’m starting to feel just a little bit autumnal. Today is cooler than it’s been for a while, and so I think that’s inspired a huge degree of wishful thinking – at least as far as tea goes!

I really enjoy this one. It captures the spirit of its name perfectly, with a prominent, distinctive pumpkin seed flavour and an undertone of hard caramel. I’ve got enough left for one more cup, but after that I know I’m going to feel especially bereft. I hope this makes a return for autumn this year!

2021 Sipdown 45/365!

Another tea that has been at my MIL’s place for quite a while (I think I need to replenish the options there after these two sipdowns!) This tea was an unexpected delight when I finally got around to opening it – a rich black tea with caramel/butterscotchy notes and a kind of praline flavour. Really quite satisfying for an after supper treat.

Another from variaTEA. I’ll hold my rating on this one as i goofed on the steeping paramters since i wanted to try this as a latte later. I’ve never had pumpkin seed brittle..but there’s a nutiness from this one and a little bit of pumpkin coming through.

Iced Tea Sipdown (614)!

I’m glad I found this tea and pulled it out to sip on now; with Halloween only a few days away this feels like a really appropriate time to be revisiting this tea. Having it iced was interesting because it’s definitely more of a spicy and savory profile. The taste is just super overwhelmingly spicy with a heck of a lot of clove, allspice, cinnamon, and ginger. However, there’s also a molasses and caramel sort of sweetness to the undertone and then top notes which are more earthy and seemingly “unrefined”. Plus, of course, the overarching tasting of roasted pumpkin seeds – which are a little nutty.

I’d have enjoyed it all on its own, but I decided to drink it with a Caramel Brulee flavour “rock sugar straw” also – and that just added a little bit of extra sweetness which did help to balance the spices a little bit, and highlight a little more of those nuttier elements in the blend.

It was a very pleasant, on seasonally on the nose, sipdown!

At first glance, this is your typical AQ2T sweet dessert tea, with a dash of fall scent and spice. Salty-sweet caramel brittle flavour is delivered (strongly) as promised, followed by the oily-nut quality of pumpkin seeds. The spices remind me of those fall candles or what you’d find in one of those pumpkin muffins- something cinnamon-nutmegy, mixed into icing, that lingers as an aftertaste.

My main complaint is some of that spicing/flavouring comes across as a bitter powdery texture midsip.

Not sure that I love it, but it is a tasty seasonal cup! The loose blend is also delightfully festive, with green pumpkin seeds and orange pumpkin sprinkles.

(2017 blend)