Decided this morning was a perfect time to try out the next Della Terra tea, and I settled on this one. The dry leaf was just SO enticing, I couldn’t resist the smell at all.
Initially, I thought the dry leaf smelled like Juicy Pear flavoured Jelly Belly candies, and I still get that smell from it. However, the longer I stood at the counter smelling the package, the more I was reminded of a different, albeit sort of similar, smell. When I was around 12 I had really, REALLY long hair and I didn’t take care of it that well so it always got tangled in ridiculous knots; we had a detangler spray that we used to douse my hair in to help with brushing it and the scent of the spray was “apple pear”, although it definitely smelled more like pear than apple to me. I think I even used to spray the stuff straight onto my skin and wear it as “perfume”. That is TOTALLY what this tea smells like; really fresh pear candy with slight apple notes. The smell of the black tea is totally drowned out.
I steeped a heaping teaspoon for my 6 oz. cup for around 5 minutes – I sort of lost track of time. The smell of the tea hot is a much lighter pear smell that still retains faint notes of apple. Also, you can finally catch a whiff of the black tea base.
I was really rushed on time, so I poured the cup I’d made into my metal water bottle, which got so hot as I was pouring that I actually lightly burnt my hand (another sign that I need to invest in a timolino). I left and caught my bus not even five minutes later.
I actually forgot about my tea for a really long time, which is sort of shameful. However, I was really busy at the mall distributing resumes, and then I stopped at DAVIDsTEA (dropped off a resume there, so fingers crossed) and restocked on Blueberry Jam and Tropicalia. I now have a full tin of both! And lastly, I went and had another job interview with Calendar Club (though this time for a different branch which would have a location closer to my house). So having all of that going on is enough to justify forgetting about my tea, right?
I finally got to drink it after my interview on the bus ride home, and by that time it was luke warm so I’m taking that into account with my overall rating, and noting that I need to make sure I have my next cup of this either as a hot tea or an iced tea; none of this halfway BS.
I was actually shocked by how muted the pear taste in this tea was, however. I mean, the dry leaf smells SO strongly that it completely covers the smell of the black base tea, but as I took my sips the most dominant flavour was definitely the black base. In fact, I found that you could only taste the pear at all in the first few moments of the sip, with some REALLY subtle apple notes. The black base DID taste good (actually it was really sweet, which I think I’m going to attribute to the little gold sugar balls in the dry leaf), but it’s not what I was expecting or wanting.
The only other pear tea I’ve had is DAVIDsTEA’s Cranberry Pear, so that’s what I’m comparing this to primarily. I liked that there was no tartness since this blend doesn’t have cranberries in it and overall I think both blends have a nice tasting black base – but I was missing the impact of the pear or the creaminess that Cranberry Pear has. So, ultimately, I THINK I like that one better.
Still, this was not a bad tea.
Oh, definitely encouraging you to get a timolino. One of the best purchases I’ve ever made.