Another new autumnal tea that soft launched this week!
I think the concept behind this tea is really fun and I’m typically a fan of whenever we explore indulgent/sweet tea profiles that don’t have chocolate or coconut in them. Not that I don’t like chocolate/coconut teas, but I do think we lean on those flavours a lot and there are a ton of directions you can take “sweet”.
In this case, I find this blend has that sort of almost generic brown flavour. I know that may not sound appealing, but trust that I mean it in the nicest way. It’s sort of hard to describe but it’s this kind of caramelized sugar but a little bit “cake like” sweet taste that just seems to pop up in a lot of dessert blends – blends like Coffee Cake, Red Velvet Cake, and Tahitian Vanilla. It’s not from a flavouring and between all these blends there’s no ONE common ingredient, and yet…
So aside from that unique and interesting dense and sweet coating brown note, I find this tea has some pleasantly creamy and coating notes of vanilla and caramel and a bit of an almost fruity sort of note that rides the line between top note and undertone in a unique and not linear way. It’s that playful sort of vague fruitiness that reminds me most of bourbon in this tea – especially in combination with the dense sweetness and then the tea bases that were used. As someone who likes alcohol flavoured/inspired tea blends, I feel like the bourbon could have been stronger and more overt, but I’m not sure if that’s a sentiment that most people would agree with.
But lets talk about the tea bases for a second, because this is a blend of black tea and pu’erh. The really brilliant thing about the black tea that was used, in my opinion, is that it’s a particularly malty tasting black tea and I think that just works on such a good level with something bourbon inspired. Cutting it with pu’erh definitely adds a lot more body and density to the cup but by not using all pu’erh it doesn’t get too earthy either.
If sweet and decadent “brown” tasting teas seem up your alley, then I think this will be a winner for you! It’s also just super nice as a latte as well – so I recommend giving that a try if you end up picking up this tea.
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.
