Gina Amaretta

I have to thank Rachel for sending me a bit of this tea. I really love this tea!

bittersweet, robust, and delicious!

I’m off to write a review for this tea on the Tea Review Blog!

This lost a few points. It tastes different today. The amaretto is too strong and lingers on the tongue uncomfortably long. I wonder what happened. Maybe I used too much tea or hit a very concentrated flavor spot. Whatever, it is it was way to overwhelming.

Well I’m normally not much for flavored black teas, particularly those with caffeine in them (which I try to avoid), but this smelled so good in the sample K sent that I just had to make it this morning, when the weather is making me groggier than usual. It’s absolutely delicious in the bag- not the usual rank artificial amaretto. Brewed, this actually makes a really satisfying cup of tea without the bitterness that black tea can impart. It’s important not to oversteep it, but correctly brewed it has a soothing mildness and nutty sweetness that I really like. It’s great with a little milk- unsweetened vanilla almond milk in my case. I dig this one- for a black tea ;) Nice and relaxing, despite the caffeine.

I’ve had a love of Amaretto/Almond flavored black teas for as long as I can remember. It’s so hard to find a good one though. This TeaGschwender tea is really really good. The almond flavor is not overpowering, but is more of a background flavor enhancing the black tea. The black tea tastes like a ceylon. It can get a little bitter if you over brew it.

I had a happy accident happen to me: I accidentally knocked over my cup sitting on my bedside table and got this tea all over my carpet and the hard to reach areas between the bed frame and the baseboard moulding. So, areas that… let’s just say I should probably clean a little more regularly than I do.

Why was it a happy accident?

A) This tea smells amazing. It’s literally the best and now it’s over everything;
B) the mug also knocked over my lavender oil (that was on my bed table too?), which also smells amazing and pairs surprisingly well with amaretto;
C) there was still plenty of the delicious tea remaining in the cup; and
D) bedroom cleaning and de-cluttering occurred! Huzzah tea!

The almond is more mild than I expected, but the black tea is rich enough that I decided to not mute it by adding milk. The almond has that sweet amaretto quality to it. I’m sure it was stronger when it was fresh, but even now, this one seems pretty high quality.

Sipdown no. 2 of 2021 (no. 622 total).

I did not really intend to sip this one down. I thought it was a different Tea Gschwedebalaboop tea that I had rated lower. So there was some confusion, but also I think I had almond on the brain from the Brioche substitute discussion.

I stand by my original assessment — not a substitute for Brioche. It’s not sweet enough, and not pastry enough for that. Though it is more of a pure almond flavor, which also has a place in the flavor pantheon. With age, it is less alcohol like and more just nut like.

Look at me, on a sipdown roll in 2021!