Another new tea – one of two released with the New Year’s collection this year.
I think I like this one!? That doesn’t sound confidant, I know, but to be honest despite having had it like a half dozen times I honestly don’t know if I exactly enjoy it or not.
It’s cool though visually, at least! Much like the OG Glitter & Gold blend, this tea shimmers in the cup when you brew it – but the shimmers are gold! It’s really gimmicky, but I actually kind of love it. There’s just something very fun and magical about it, and it drove me to buy like 100g of it to have on hand purely to have a tea on hand that has that sort of “wow” visual for whenever I might have company over and want to steep something impressive. The shimmer comes from an edible/food grade “luster powder” that’s mixed into white chocolate caramel pieces, and as they melt they release the glitter…
As for the taste? Well, I think that’s the part where I’m kind of unsure if I’m vibing with it. It’s pretty sweet, and reading the ingredients list I think it would be easy to say that’s coming from things like the caramel pieces or the brown sugar, and while I do think they add some sweetness I don’t think they’re actually the primary culprits of the sweetness I’m experiencing in this! Cinnamon is quite sweet, and there’s A LOT of cinnamon packed into this tea – so much so that it’s initially hard to taste anything other than cinnamon and sweetness. So, that adds a lot of sweet cinnamon flavour – very similar to fan favourite Cinnamon Rooibos Chai actually. I don’t personally think that DT needs another cinnamon heavy chai – we’ve got enough cinnamon forward chai blends! However, people seem to love it so that’s probably why we keep doing it.
On top of the sweetness of the cinnamon, though, is an added lift of sweetness from the fennel in the blend – which adds another element of sweetness. I actually like fennel a lot, and the times I’ve been able to taste the fennel in this tea along with the cinnamon are the times I’ve enjoyed it the most. However I know that fennel can be really polarizing, so maybe it’s overall better the fennel just adds sweetness and doesn’t consistently taste present!? I don’t know.
THe other thing is that there’s “caramel” in the blend, but you can’t taste caramel and that bums me out – I just really want a good caramel tea! Is that so much to ask!?
But yeah – I like the cinnamon and I like the occasional fennel, but I’m iffy on the sweetness level and I don’t think it’s a particularly unique flavour even if I like it. I love the visual though, and the throw back to OG Glitter and Gold!
Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
