French Roast

I quite enjoyed this! I got a sample at the NYC Coffee and Tea festival back in March and am only trying it. I’m not really a fan of coffee though so it probably wouldn’t satisfy a coffee drinker as a substitute. However, this is easy to enjoy purely on its on merits. It tastes roasty and robust. Probably not as robust as real coffee. Maybe. Eh, what do I know? It’s also a bit malty from the roasted barley. I had mine with a splash of almond milk and agave. delicious dessert drink. I looked into buying some but this stuff is pricy! I think I’ll stick with tea for now. :)

Catching up on advent calendar notes today! I definitely got too many this year, so I’ll be doing this for a while. I think three is what’s actually realistic for me to keep this fun and interesting rather than stressful and overwhelming. This year I got the Teeccino, Clipper, Dammann Freres, Kiani, Plum Deluxe (advent and Hanukkah sampler), DavidsTea herbal, TeaThoughts, and did the Steepster homemade advent. I only managed to stay mostly on track with 4 of them, and even then my notes aren’t all up to date. TeaThoughts is a constant, but I’ll have to be more thoughtful and selective about my other advents next year!

French Roast is day 22 of the Teeccino advent calendar. Apparently I HATED this blend ten years ago, describing it as tasting like “burnt chicory, with a hint of carob.” It’s still not my favorite Teeccino blend, but I’ve softened on it with time. It doesn’t have any astringency or bitterness, but it’s thick and has a pronounced chicory note that makes it clear that it’s not coffee. The blend is particularly disadvantaged because I accidentally mixed up my mug with another and drank some incredibly good coffee thinking that it was this tea, then went back to this tea – so the not-coffee-ness of the tea was very acutely obvious. It’s less of a big deal in the flavored blends because the flavoring takes center stage, and somehow the dark roast seems to have been a better dupe for coffee. On the up side, my tastes have changed in ten years and I now quite like chicory, so I’m adjusting my score (up from 12!) accordingly.

I would have guessed this had vanilla, but apparently it doesn’t. Ha maybe that’s my vanilla almond milk talking. This flavor is quite desserty and tasty! The base isn’t as harsh as in some of the other flavors. It’s straightforward, but smooth and tasty, especially as it cools to room temperature.

Teeccino Advent. Usually when I want a cup of coffee, I want a real cup of joe. This really does smell and taste like a good colombian dark roast, I like the other teeccino flavors with more sweetness from the dates, or the peppermint that nearly overpowers all the chicory flavors. I would drink this again, just don’t think I need it in my cupboard if there are other tastier flavors.

Sipdown (1954)!

Very, very roasty and very very dark. This is definitely the most “coffee like” in taste of all the Teeccino blends I’ve tried so far – but even still it retains that pleasant carob sweetness that pulls it back from being overly bitter and root-y in taste.

Earlier in the year, I snagged a box of Teeccino’s Dark Chocolate on an insane clearance sale and immediately fell in love with the just-like-eating-a-candy-bar thick chocolate goodness.

So, with a lucky-day $2 coupon from Natural Grocers, I decided to give a (cheap) trial run to their French Roast blend.

I am amazed—its color and texture remind me of the dark, stewed coffee my dad drank when he worked at the local post office when I was little. (He’d give me little sips just to watch me scrunch up my face.) I’ve never tasted a coffee-ier tea, and it’s decaf at that. This will be just lovely in a few weeks when there’s an honest-to-pete nip in the air.