I can’t say that any of the new malt shop teas had me excited but they were sampling this tea at my local Davids Tea store today so I decided to give it a try. Honestly I didn’t care that much for the plain tea, there’s a nice vanilla lemongrass flavour at the start but then the stevia hits and it’s just too much sweetness for me. I realize that stevia isn’t an artificial sweetener but to me it still tastes wrong and I can always tell when it’s been used in place of sugar in something, regardless of the amount used. My take on sweeteners in tea is that I’d rather have natural sugar or honey and add it myself, that way I can control the amount that goes in.
I commented on this to the salesperson (who knows me by name – obviously I spend too much time there) and she recommended trying it as a latté. She’s made some good recommendations before so I decided to give it a shot and I was pleasantly surprised. The steamed milk dampens that weird too-sweet taste and allows a rich, creamy vanilla flavour to come out.
I would rate the plain tea as 65/100 and the latté version as 80/100.
I guess I know how I’ll be making the last of the sample I got. Plain this is just way too cloying.