Vanilla Black Tea

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I don’t seem to be a huge fan of vanilla black teas. I like vanilla as a flavor, but I feel like I need something more. To be fair, dessert teas in general don’t seem to be my jam, with some exceptions.

This does seem like a nice vanilla black though. The base tea is flavorful but not bitter, and has some nice raisiny, cocoa-y notes to it. The vanilla is boozy, slightly creamy, a touch floral. It brings out the woody notes in the base tea as well.

I’m sure this would be lovely with milk too, if I were so inclined. But since this isn’t really my cuppa tea, I’m just glad it have it finished off. :)

2021 sipdown no. 40

Nearly done these teas from Cameron!

This one is exactly what it says — a very vanilla black.

Another TTB tea. This is a sipdown because I gave the rest of this to a friend who gave me a bunch of teas to add to the teabox.

This is a really solid black tea with deliciously creamy vanilla notes. The base itself has flavours of raisin and malt, maybe even cocoa. I’m impressed. Normally vanilla teas just aren’t quite what I’m hoping for, but this one is very good, and made even better with a splash of vanilla soy milk.

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Thank you for the share Evol Ving Ness for the share. This is a really nice vanilla black tea. Smooth. Sweet. Creamy. Vanilla. No muss. No fuss. Just a nice vanilla black. Nothing too Earth-shattering but still enjoyable.

Thanks Evol!

This one was way too astringent for me. The vanilla bean and strong cherry undertone of the black tea were pretty nice, but the astringency coupled with the vanilla turned it into something like molasses. It is naturally sweet and the chocolate notes really aren’t too off, it’s just too strong. A splash of milk did tone it down nicely though.

I know I just reviewed this tea yesterday , but I saved the leaves from yesterday and brewed them up this morning. I wanted to resteep yesterday but I ended up out of the house most of the day.

I was surprised to taste this today and find that it was just as good as yesterday. That deserves an increase in rating!

I adore this one. I may have said this more than once. This may be the only tea in my relatively short tea life that I’ve gone through three times a hundred grams of, and I tend to steep this one twice.

The secret of this tea, in my humble opinion, is to slightly under leaf and to steep fast, like two or two and a half minutes. Any more leaf or added steeping time and you are looking at more astringency than is pleasant.

This one also takes milk nicely though I tend to drink it black and unsweetened.

All in all, such a win.

Sample from Evol Ving Ness and while i’ve had this one before ages ago it was nice to revisit it. I still prefer the subtle differences that you find with fancy french vanilla teas. On the other hand, this one is certainly more readily available to have. thanks a bunch evol!

Strong vanilla fragrance from dry leaves and steeped.
Good vanilla flavour with creamy mouth feel, bitter chocolate note that gets less bitter as the cup cools. Hot, this lacks a full mouth flavour, but that also improves as the cup cools.

Much less chocolate in this one, than the other vanilla blacks I’ve had recently, but a very nice choice for a straight up vanilla black tea. Thanks Lindsay!

The dry leaf of this tea smells of vanilla custard and chocolate and is composed of large pieces of broken leaf orange pekoe and occasional short pieces of vanilla bean. The leaves are thin and tightly folded blades.

I breweed this tea for the recommended 3 minutes at 95°C. The tea brews up to a rich golden red with a gold ring around the edge of the cup. It smells of vanilla custard with a warm sweet vanilla note behind it with a touch of caramel and cream, a hint of malt and tarter fruit is peaking out behind the vanilla.

The first sip is a blend of a cooler vanilla taste, a bit like that found in good ice cream, mixed and balanced with a light bitterness from malt. It leaves a cooling sensation in the mouth. Underneath is a faintly vegetal note mixed with slightly tart stone fruit. There is a hint of an almost eucalyptus note and there is a caramel note up front that mixes with the vanilla. Best drunk slowly to fully appreciate the warm vanilla notes dissipating in the mouth and opening up first through malt, fruit and ahint of wood and cocoa, then finalling to a cooling eucalyptus. The vanilla is up front in the flavour and is distinct. Their are hints of it in the aftertaste but the aftertaste is more a blend of fruit, eucalyptus and bitter malt tones with the vanilla to temper them and smooth them out. Quite a nice vanilla tea. The vanilla is quite natural tasting and distinct, but does not overpower the tea itself which is quite robust. I could easily restock this in the future.