The dry leaf aroma is overwhelming. It smells cloyingly sweet. There are lots of scents in here: lemon peel, cardamom, coriander, cinnamon. I’m not sure what to think. The leaves also look dirty. By that I mean that there is a lot of flavoring dust in here. There’s chunks of things you’d expect to see in chunk form: cardamom pods, coriander seeds, bits of lemon peel, and the leaves themselves. But what’s all this granular sand looking stuff? Some of it is sugar, clearly, but is all of it sugar? That’s a lot of sugar! Note: If you buy this tea, shake the tin/bag before measuring out the leaf. DAVIDsTEA recommends doing this to help distribute the flavoring evenly.
The brewed tea aroma is spot on French toast. I can smell the egg and the cinnamon. This is promising! One of my favorite parts of 52teas’ French Toast with Cardamom Maple Syrup tea is that you can actually smell and taste the egg, which is what gives it that distinctive French toast flavor. Without the egg, it becomes plain old bread.
First sip! Hmm, the flavor is overwhelming. There’s a lot going on in this cup! It tastes like French toast made in a lab instead of a kitchen. There’s a bit of artificiality that I’ve come to expect in DAVIDsTEA blends. But it’s not all bad. It’s actually quite good, although I think it could use some maple syrup. That’s not to say it needs sweetener. It’s quite sweet on its own. In fact, I wish they wouldn’t have added so much sugar. But it’s missing that maple flavor component of real French toast.
I added a tiny dollop of maple syrup and skim milk. It’s much more to my liking now. But I have to say that 52teas’ version is significantly more natural tasting and therefore significantly yummier. I really need more of that one. This one strikes me as a good latte tea. I think its artificial abundance could be tempered with lots of milk. Plus, who doesn’t love creamy lattes?
I tried a second infusion for seven minutes. There’s much less flavor, which is actually an improvement. But now I think it’s a tad too weak. Maybe I’ll try a two minute steep followed by a five minute steep next time. I think it might turn out better if the first steep is shorter.
My last comment is about the skinny tin that this tea came in. It is so cute! It’s much smaller than I expected considering they stuffed a full 50g in here. It takes up no space in my cupboard at all! I love small cute tins. I’m not sure I’ll be able to reuse it though because the tea was put directly into the tin. There’s no barrier between the leaves and the metal. So I think this tin might smell like cardamom and coconut sugar forever. But when I’m done with the tea, I’ll try washing it out with vinegar and water to see if I can get the aroma out.
The final verdict? This tea is good not great. I’ll enjoy what I have, but it certainly won’t be replacing 52teas’ version in my cupboard and I won’t be buying more.
The skinny tins are really cute!