English Toffee

A sad sipdown, but I really wanted to finish it up. Because it has dairy in it, I will not be buying more. However, it makes a killer latte.

This is fairly tasty. I definitely get the note of toffee. I noticed some said they didn’t. Maybe that’s because I added sugar or because they didn’t steep it long enough. The reviewer that said it tastes a bit like instant hot chocolate is also correct. I, however am liking this tea.

I brewed this once in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 4 minutes.

Cold Brew Sipdown (131)!

It’s been a good tea week: I’ve received a package from OMGsrsly with my August Uncommon loot, a Bluebird Tea Co. order, and a surprise package from VariaTEA! It’s been so long since I’ve sent stuff to my glorious tea twin, I need to get on that. Also, tea friends are just the best!

I’ve also been working through some DAVIDsTEA samples, including this one which has interested me since it was released. I’m a REALLY big fan of Tea Desire’s Caramel Pu’erh so mentally that’s what I’m comparing this to. Since I’m not in Saskatoon anymore, if I find this one better that’s a huge plus for me because I can restock it more conveniently; so there ARE some stakes here.

However, I found this one a bit weird from the get go. I mean, the dry leaf to me smells potently like that ‘instant hot chocolate’ that comes in tiny pre measured packets, though the Rolo flavour of that stuff specifically. That’s…

Well, not a deal breaker but not what I’m wanting either. And actually, it DOES taste like concentrated instant Rolo hot chocolate, but a little sweeter and a little more earthy. I mean, it’s smooth and enjoyable on the whole but I just can’t shake that comparison. I’m not a fan of that instant hot chocolate; for me, it just tastes cheap/low quality and because I’m not associating this tea with that flavour that means I think this tastes cheap/low quality. Boo…

Eehhhhhhhhh…. It smells great dry and steeped, but the flavor seems a bit weak in comparison. It kinda tastes like a slightly altered Chocolate Macaroon which makes me think that it may be better cold steeped. I’m picking up a little coconut and chocolate, which doesn’t seem very toffee like. Adding cream gives it a little more balance, but I still don’t get toffee. I wish I had picked up a sample size instead of 2oz. :/

I caved and picked up a bunch of tea with a friend yesterday and ended up with half an ounce of this guy. I was very wary of the fact that it was puerh based but with Davids a lot of their stuff doesn’t taste at all like the tea it started as and I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t really get caramel or toffee notes, but I did get a fantastic chocolatey base. I added a bit of milk and it was perfect. This would make a great latte, I’ll have to use this as a wake me up at work.

I only got 8g of this, as I had a toonie and wanted to keep it under that. This gave me about 2 servings. I initially had mixed feelings on this, as I thought it might be a little too artificial tasting, but I was kind of ok with that. I added milk with both steeps, and I really got that toffee flavour. Not much on the chocolate, as I think that mostly blended in with the pu erh base. I’ve always loved caramel and pu erh, so I didn’t think this would be any different. It is though. But not in a bad way. I think I still prefer some other caramel pu erh teas over this, but I did like this one a bit. I was actually going to get more today, but I ended up getting 3 green teas, and 2 more greens from Silk Road, so I gave this one a miss on the refill for now. But I will probably refill it soon.

The flavour of this tea is very subtle, and far weaker than the smell of the tea steeping would indicate. I tried oversteeping my tea leaves to see if the flavour could be strengthened, but that didn’t yield any results. If your water is too hot, it’s hard to taste any toffee; I let my second cup cool naturally before drinking; I added milk to my third cup to speed things along. This is not a bad tea, but it falls short in comparison to others I’ve tried.

I usually don’t like pu-erh. But I do like toffee, so I tried this as the cup of the day at David’s Tea today. Surprisingly, I liked it. I’d have it again, in fact.

I’ve got a question for you all – Has anyone had a green oil/scum/ring from this tea? I made a pot on the weekend at home and both our cups had green oil residue from the tea. The pot and mugs were clean, it was a sealed pouch, and I can’t figure out what ingredient would cause that. It still tasted good and I am alive so it probably wasn’t rancid but it was…kinda gross, and totally unexpected. I’ve had that with teas with chocolate chip and mint oils, but this has cacao nibs, doesn’t it?

I didn’t really get any chocolate taste in my sample of this one, I just got full-on toffee. Which was delicious, as I’m kind of tired of chocolate teas (unless it’s The Earl’s Valentine). This, to me, feels like a dessert tea, and I’m trying not to purchase dessert teas for a while because most of them are really, really sweet, so the sample of this was enough for now. Maybe in the future I’ll get some, if my craving for sweet teas come back.