After the Buttered Cinnamon Raisin Toast I decided to try some of this. It was still sealed, though it’s an old package.
I really didn’t get much of a smell of bacon or maple out of the dry leaf. Steeped, I certainly get something like maple. It’s a sort of a caramel-y smell. But not anything that smells like bacon. I’d sort of expected to be hit over the head with bacon.
But interestingly, as the tea gets cooler, something like bacon does come out in the aroma. A bit of a smoked meat smell, but sweet because of the influence of the maple.
And yeah, the same happens with the flavor. It really is maple bacon, but it doesn’t become obvious until the tea gets cooler.
I have to award all sorts of points for pulling off this flavor in a way that isn’t a generic lapsangy smoked jerky flavor. I may even like the flavor better than the raisin toast because it’s lacking the artificial note I experienced with the buttered cinnamon raisin toast.
But unless something happens in repeat tastings to change my initial feeling about this, it isn’t something I could drink beyond this packet. I’m having some sort of taste-related cognitive dissonance thing going on in my head as I drink this that makes the experience of it disconcerting in a way that isn’t entirely pleasurable and I’m feeling it in my stomach.
