Holy nostalgia bomb!
It’s certainly been a long while since I had a blend from Della Terra so thank you to Starfevre for passing this one along to me and letting me sort of relive that. I know I’ve had this one before in the past, but it’s been so long that I don’t really remember anything about it. I’m going to guess by my rating that I probably found it to be just about average, or slightly below. I wonder if I’ll still feel that way having now been exposed to so many other teas…
Steeped up, I will say that this still smells really nice despite definitely being old. To its credit, though, it was in a vacuum sealed bag that was totally unopened so I bet that helped preserve it a lot. Steeping aroma is actually very toasty, with sort of that aromatic orange ‘oil’ kind of undertone to it.
The flavour is… ok.
It’s surprisingly very toasty/roasty with almost more of a charred nut kind of flavour than any sort of orange or ‘brulee’ aspects. Not that they aren’t there though; the caramelized/burned sugar notes come through in the top notes and a bit in the body and they’re mostly nice but just a little bit bitter – like sugar that’s a second or two past the point of just being caramelized. The orange is more in the finish; it’s a touch pithy/orange peel like but mostly very nice and refreshing – I just think it’s weird with all of the roastyness.
Overall, I would have described the flavour as good. Not incredible, not off putting but adequate. It meets expectations in the simplest of ways. That said, I had an idea about half way through my cup that I decided to act on and it was a bit of a game changer: I added in a very small scoop of vanilla gelato and let that melt into the tea and man was that fucking tasty! It just sort of softened any bitterness/overly roasty aspects and added a creaminess to the whole cup that tied together some of those flavour notes that weren’t meshing as well. It was a simple choice that made a world of difference, and elevated the whole experience!
