Out of all the Christmas samples I received from 52 teas, this was the one I was most excited to try. Actually no, I take that back-I was most excited about banana pudding, and that excitement was warranted after all.
But I was also excited about this one, not so much because I’m necessarily crazy about root beer itself, although I like it quite a bit, but more so because I was hoping to basically have a wintergreen flavoured tea. The unmistakable smell of root beer wafts up as soon as you open the package, and as another reviewer said, you can actually smell the fizz. Like I felt as though had I breathed a bit deeper, some fizz might accidentally go up my nose and make me sneeze LOL.
Brewed, this lost the fizzy smell, but retained the smell of root beer, with a vanilla undertone. To be honest, I found the taste a bit underwhelming, although again, that could also be because I was hoping for what might perhaps be an entirely different flavour profile. It’s hard to say that the tea tasted like root beer, because without the fizz I can’t imagine many things tasting like pop, but it did sort of generate a root beer-like after-taste, if that makes sense. The flavours pop a bit more as the tea cools, and the presence of the vanilla is always a redeeming feature in pretty much any tea, as far as I’m concerned.
Bottom line: I am so happy to have tried this tea, and will use up the rest for a second cup or offer it to Mr. Keychange, but I don’t think I’ll be ordering this one for myself. For what it was trying to imitate, however, I think it did an excellent job.
