Birthday Party

I actually sipped this one last night, but wasn’t somewhere I could jot down tasting notes. So this’ my second cup. The smell is classic vanilla frosting, creamy and buttery. Nothing chocolatey about it. In fact, I also bought Cozy Cocoa, which has a very distinct alcohol-based chocolate flavouring in its scent, and there’s not a whiff of that here, so I’m doubting they added any chocolate flavouring at all.

Taste-wise… I just finished eating dinner, so I can’t say I’m going to give the best description. Vanilla, a sort of tonka flavour? An alcoholic flavouring-oil like taste, that leaves a mouthfeel that does sort of add to the ‘vanilla frosting’ bit. I can’t say I’m getting any chocolate, still… Although a lot of liquid chocolate flavourings do have a largely ‘boozy chocolates’ taste to them. There’s an astringency at the back of my throat that’s also probably from the flavouring oil.

I AM a sucker for any cakey vanilla sweet flavouring in tea. This is fairly generic but pleasant, minus the bitter note. Maybe four minutes for these teas in the future. I’ll probably do a second note when I’ve got a clearer palate.

I’m not really big on sprinkles in tea, but I can appreciate that they make a lot of sense for a Birthday Cake inspired blend such as this one – and I do like the clean and simple visual of the tea as well; it really makes the multi coloured decorettes pop quite nicely.

This is advertised as a chocolate cake slathered in vanilla icing – and while I struggle to get the “chocolate” part of that description I do think that fondant/doughy sort of vanilla note appropriate for this concept comes through quite clearly. It’s not my favourite – I don’t like that doughy vanilla taste in most teas just in general – but I get the appeal and, again, appreciate the simplicity of it. The base is a bit rough for me, and leaned more astringent than I would have preferred – but I think with more care you could steep this better to minimize that quality.

Overall, this isn’t an exciting tea for me. I think the Birthday Cake concept has been done so much now that it’s nearly impossible to bring anything new to the table with it. I also think nicer vanilla black teas exist – however there’s nothing off about this one either, and it would make for a very approachable “sweet” profile that doesn’t push too hard into the sweet realm to the point where you get sick of it quite quickly.

Perfectly average and fine.