Hot Buttered Banana Bread

This was an extra that Queen of Tarts threw in with the items I purchased from here. Thank you!

This is my first tea from the new company and I am actually really excited to get to try one of them. The black tea base that Frank used really turned me off to the teas. I could taste nothing but cardboard in any of the black teas. It overpowered all the flavors that were suppose to be there and so I ended up not liking a lot of the teas.

This new tea. Wow!!! It tastes exactly as advertised in my opinion. I get a fairly strong banana flavor, I can imagine the nuts peaking out in the bread as you bite into a piece dripping with butter. I have one more cups worth left and I think I will take it home this weekend to doctor up with a little milk and sugar. I think I might just have to try a few more of the new 52 teas.

Just enough in a cheeky little sample from the wonderful ashleyelizabeth for me to brew up a pot of dessert, topped off with some vanilla soy. Yes, perfect with creamer and sweetener (or a creamer/sweetener duo like vanilla soy!); not as good on its own. But who needs to drink this on its own anyway? Yum.

I got this in a swap with ashleyelizabeth. Thank you!!!

So, I realized at almost 8 last night that I hadn’t consumed any caffeinated tea all day, and I still had almost 5 hours worth of work to do. I was not going to make that mistake today! I brewed a 3-cup pot of this and made it strong. I also got a work call, so I steeped it for much longer than I intended. It still turned out really well anyway. I could only wish the banana flavor was stronger, because what I really want to do is blend some of this with my favorite, Pancake Breakfast, and have Hot Buttered Banana Pancakes with Maple Syrup tea!

This is a blend I saw that immediately sounded delicious, however, I am always very hesitant with 52 teas black teas and by the time i decided I was willing to buy a package, it was sold out. However, I didn’t feel so bad as so many reviews popped up that sounded like people were displeased with it. Even the wondrous keychange, who loves her 52 teas banana blends, seemed less than impress. Nonetheless, I was very happy when keychange included some in her amazingly generous swap package. Thank you!!

Tastewise, this does have a nice banana quality to it but there is also a strong base presence. There is also a touch of oiliness that can be representative of the butter. It is pleasant enough and I am glad I have enough for another cup but ultimately I won’t be sad to see it go and I think I made the right choice when I didn’t buy 2 oz of it.

I had a surprise waiting for me when I got to the house. An envelope from MirandaGou! If you guys recall, a few weeks ago I was in a state of shock that she had disappeared from Steepster. All traces gone. She wrote a note of explanation to go with the teas. Awesome.

This was one of the teas she sent. Generally 52Teas don’t work for me. I don’t order them any longer myself, but it’s nice to try them in swaps. I overleafed slightly, and I steeped both a lower temperature and for less time. I’m getting banana here with a nuttiness in the background. There is a bread-like flavour in the aftertaste. I’m actually quite enjoying this cup. I need to remember to steep 52Teas at lower temperatures from now on.

In other news, I spoke with both my psych and conservation profs today. My conservation prof is a sweetheart, and said I could present to the class rather than the department, and we could just have my poster up for the department presentation. She jokingly said we could put a cardboard cutout of me next to it. :P My psych prof said that as long as I could get someone to switch days with me for the presentation that would be fine. I emailed and so far I have no responses, but worse case scenario – I book a flight back one day early. YES.

We also had a fascinating presentation in conservation today on wildlife corridors and habitat fragmentation. My ultimate goal is to be a conservation biologist, so this was endlessly fascinating to me.

I don’t know. I think that I’m starting to feel increasingly “meh” about all of these blends. For one thing, I feel as though they all taste the same, which could mean that they all taste the same, or maybe my mouth is broken. Either way, I feel as though if I were to have this tea, butterscotch banana, and pancake breakfast side by side, I would legitimately struggle to tell them apart. What I do remember tasting markedly different, however, was the banana pudding, which I loved.

In the bag, this smelled pretty spot on for hot buttered banana bread. You can smell the walnuts both in the dry leaf and as its steeping, and although they don’t feature too prominently in the sip, I imagine that it’s the walnuts that give the sip a bit of a dry finish. And aside from that, I honestly don’t know what more to say. It does taste buttery, I guess.

I finished the cup, and certainly didn’t dislike it passionately, but I do have like nearly two oz of it left now that I’m not sure what to do with. Some went off to VarieTea, but yeah, swap pile, mostly.

I love banana teas and was so excited for this because of how good the reviews are, but I know those reviews are from previous batches of this tea and I was running the risk of it not tasting the same as those batches everyone raved about. I was right, this tea fell completely flat. There is no flavour at all. I get just a slight hint of banana and maybe nut, but it’s hard to tell. I like my banana to slap me in the face. Trying to swap out this one.