Salted Caramel

Saturday! I’m not working you for once!

To celebrate I bought plane tickets to Hawaii. Those are expensive – but our vacation there is in September and I finally got a pretty good deal on them. I wish we could go now!

But, since I can’t, and it’s raining, I picked this tea to enjoy. I looooove salted caramel. Salted caramel tea, gluten free donuts, and a lazy weekend. And plenty of books to read – I just finished “The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells” by Andrew Sean Greer and it was one of the best stories I’ve read in a long time. If you have any recommendations for me, I’d love to hear them!

EDIT: Um, and for the tea review – this actually tastes really caramelly today, but I added 3 tsp. leaf to the 500 ml water in my Breville. Normally I have this as a hot chocolate because that was the only way I got a noticeable caramel flavor, but I must have been underleafing before. Still not so much the salt, but the caramel is lovely and accentuated nicely with a bit of milk. One of the best cups of this I’ve had so far!

Yummmmmmm. I still like this one, yes yes I do. Burnt caramel deliciousness. My stomach’s grumping a bit right now about how all it’s getting is flavoured water when it really wants something with substance, so that’s affecting my enjoyment of this tea, but I do so love the flavour. Thanks to Sil’s pregnant friend for letting me have some more of this :D

The scene- my kitchen.
The players- Me, and DAVIDs Salted Caramel tea.
(a kettle whistles, ROSEHIPS picks it off the burner, scalds a yellow tea pot, and then steeps a basket of Salted Caramel tea)
Me: Alright, set the timer.
(she sets a timer, and wanders around aimlessly until it dings. She removes the steeper basket, managing not to burn her fingertips. Much. Sits down with the yellow tea pot, and a polka dot cup)
Me: Alright tea, lets do this.
(She sips. She frowns, and takes another sip. Puzzlement.
Me: Why is this never quite what I expected it to be? Wherefor art thou, salt? At least thou art devoid of coffee flavor today.
(The tea says nothing, only sits and lets off steam. Rosehips picks up her cup again)
Me: Well, try try again.
(end scene)

So, this Salted Caramel chocolate bar? Fabulous. I can see the granules of fleur de sel in the bar, and that caramel really pops through. It’s on the sweet side, to be honest, as it burns the back of the throat a little bit, but that’s why it’s wonderful in small quantities. Would I get more? Hell yeah, but I should behave and not do so for a while. Let’s hope they’ll keep this one around for a little longer.

My classes start today at noon, and my textbooks arrived today at around 11 from Amazon, What great luck! I decided to grab this black tea today, as I got up a little earlier and I’m sure I will drink a full pot of it before my caffeine cut off time.

I love the caramel taste in this tea, but I’m not sure if I can taste the saltiness. The finish on the sip isn’t that typical sweetness that I associate with caramel, but more of a dryness that might be associated with salt. So maybe that’s where the salt comes in for me? That might be a stretch. Overall this is a nice tea, not something I would need stocked year round, but certainly one that I would pick up in a sample size in Fall and Winter, for when I am craving these types of dessert teas the most.

Off to school for me…well, online school that is.

Backlog: I’m done with this one. It was an interesting experiment, but it was also so damn difficult to make this one pop they way I’d like.

The dry leaf aroma = ecstasty! O-M-G! Seriously, this is what ecstasy smells like. It’s not good, it’s not fantastic, it’s ecstasy! In layman’s terms, it smells like caramel hot off the stove. Mmm, caramel toffee with a bit of sea salt. I can totally get that from the aroma. Oh, I can’t wait to brew this up!!

The package of my sample says to steep this for 4-7 minutes. Seven minutes is a little long for a first steep, so I’m going with 4 minutes. Wow, the aroma of the brewed tea is exactly like the dry leaf! It also brewed up really dark and opaque. Ah, my mouth is watering! I just want to drink this right now!!! The whole room has been flooded by this tea’s aroma. My fiancé even asked if I was making food, haha! Why can’t you just cool off faster?!!

Finally, it’s not too hot to sip and it is LEGEN-wait for it-DARY!!!!! AHHHHH!!!! THIS IS INCREDIBLE!!! It doesn’t even need milk or sugar! I can drink this straight! Wow!!! I can’t believe how extraordinary this is!! Like eating a caramel toffee and then drinking a great black tea! Oh so sweet and delicious! If it were Christmas, I’d call this a Christmas miracle!

I didn’t actually see coconut flakes in the blend nor do I smell or taste it. If coconut’s in there, it must be toasted coconut flakes because everything in the dry leaf mix is brown or golden. Nor is the salt individually identifiable. I think the coconut and salt in this tea just contribute to the overall rich, buttery, awesome flavor.

Even the aftertaste is ecstasy! There’s no astringency and maybe just the tiniest hint of bitterness as it begins to cool. But I’m very sensitive to bitterness, so I don’t think most people would notice this. And honestly, it doesn’t bother me in the least. Second steep for 8 minutes, and this time I added skim milk and Truvia right away. Now it’s a much sweeter caramel tea and much more liquid candy-like. But just like with Love Tea #7, the first cup is my favorite.

This is just the perfect caramel tea! This is what I wanted the caramel tea from ESP Emporium I recently purchased to be. Perfection!! Right here! In my cup! Yesss!!!

I feel like so many new teas I’ve tried have been getting extremely high ratings from me lately. But this tea truly does deserve it. DAVIDsTEA is quickly becoming my new favorite tea company! Everything I’ve tried is a hit! These people know what they’re doing! I’m definitely going to have to order more of this when my sample is gone!

Yum, I’ve been craving this tea all week. Having it tonight to celebrate my guy being home from up north finally! Ahh I can finally relax :) this tea have a nice caramel flavor mixing with the black tea. I get a hint of salt in the aftertaste, which is nice. I enjoy this blend because it’s not a signature overly sugary DavidsTea dessert blend, it’s far more subtle and the base actually is present in the flavor. Light yet rich. Good for before bed and listening to zen music. Ugh, can’t believe it’s only Tuesday…can’t wait for the weekend, I just want to relax and drink tea and stay warm! See previous notes on this tea :)

So, I’m currently watching an episode of Bones (the one that aired last night) called “Carrot in the Kudzu” and while typing the name of this blend into the search bar I typed in “Salted Carrot” and it took me an embarrassingly slow time to figure out why the search results were not yielding the correct type.

Also, my kitchen smells AMAZING; there are brownies going in the over and they just smell so divine! I had a thought while making them, though and I’d like to pose it to people here on Steepster: Do you think you could infuse cooking oil with tea through cold brewing it? And then, how concentrated do you think it would have to be to really affect the flavour of what you’re baking? I was considering making something like an “Earl Grey Brownie” or maybe something more caramel flavoured, like this blend perhaps.

Anyway; short steep time for this blend is key! And thankfully, I nailed it. There’s a lovely “burnt caramel/brown sugar” flavour along with the black tea and none of the massive amounts of bitterness that comes with this blend when you oversteep it. Also no salt – but I’m not complaining on that front.

The little “salt floaties” are maybe a bit annoying though; I can sort of feel their presence in the mouthfeel.

I got my little birdie! He’s sitting in his cage all comfy while we listen to Lykke Li and I drink this. I already got him to get on my finger and eat some millet while I held it. He oddly seems more uncomfortable with the cage than me, so I broke that rule. I haven’t decided on a name yet because I can’t figure him out till he starts acting more like himself again.

But I am leaning towards Seb or Sebastian, though at this point he might be a Kimi.

So I haven’t had this tea for a bit, and I do love salted caramel so it was time for some again. It actually reminds me more of toffee than caramel. But it’s still got that burnt sugar type flavor. I definitely love it, it’s hard to get such a sweet, creamy flavor without adding milk or sugar. I added neither and it still tastes so good.

I really want a latte with this but unfortunately my small size saucepan got messed up by stupid candle wax. So when I go to buy my dear little bird a radio tomorrow, I will get one of them too and fix this want.

I just wish there was an easier way to add salt. I guess the latte might be the answer, especially if there was a caramel sauce on top…