Turtle Cheesecake

The past few months, I’ve been buying more 52Teas blends than I ever have. I saw so many different teas that I wanted to try! I’m coming to realize, though, that I’m disappointed with a blend probably 50% of the time. Sometimes the tea is perfect in scent, but when it comes to taste — completely lacking. One of my favorite blends was the caramel cheesecake. I’m disappointed that I didn’t buy more when it was out. This one smells promising as it reminds me of that blend. There’s a bit of cheesecake and nuts that I detect. The black tea base is not a favorite of mine and it doesn’t smell particularly alluring, but the cheesecake bumps it up a little.

Sipping… yes, this is similar to the caramel cheesecake, only not as tasty. There is quite a lot of a dryness that I think comes from the nuts. It really doesn’t leave a nice sensation in the back of the throat. I don’t taste any chocolate, but I’m honestly just here for the cheesecake. The cheesecake isn’t strong and is, once again, just a wisp.. but paired with a tiny bit of sweetness, it’s nice. Boy, that dryness is not pleasant. I’d like this blend a whole lot more without the nuts & with a nicer base.

Another from the GCTTB. I’ve been wanting to try something from 52 teas for a while now and I absolutely love cheesecake (and turtles!!) so this seemed like a match made in heaven. Unfortunately it didn’t quite live up to my expectations.

The dry tea was sweet smelling and I could catch the odd hint of chocolate and a bit of nuttiness but not much else. There were some definite hunks of pecans in the mix tho so I was holding out hope.

The steeped liquor was a dark brown and had a slit cheesecake scent to it (yay) with a bit of chocolate undertones. Unfortunately the aroma didn’t really match the flavors, the cheesecake pretty much disappeared aside from an odd aftertaste. There was still the odd chocolate note but no real caramel flavors (tho the mouthfeel was somewhat creamy) and the black tea base really didn’t add much. The one note that was particularly present was the pecan flavor, a bit bitter but I’d almost call this more of a candied pecan tea than turtle cheesecake.

Oh well it’s just as well as I’m not sure how happy I would have been if I had found that I really really liked this tea since I only have enough for one more cup and it’s currently out of stock :)

Sipdown! Sadly haven’t managed to make this one work for me. It’s chocolate, but fairly bitter and dry-tasting for the most part. No caramel, no cheesecake. Sad face.

Let’s be real here, tea will never match the fatty, creamy, lusciousness of a slice of cheesecake. This tea is satisfying though. Just maybe not in the same way.

Add Ins: 1/2 tsp of sugar free toffee syrup and 2 tbsp of lite soy milk

I feel like the add ins kind of made this cup. Toffee is perfection for this. I’ve tried it both ways multiple times now. Without the sweetener, the caramel notes fall short and there’s no creaminess. It’s a bit like a cup of flat artificial chocolate. Once you add just a bit of each add in, though, you suddenly have something that tastes like a sweeter milk chocolate (though still leaning on the artificial side), with heavy creamy caramel notes and a slight nuttiness.

Like most 52Teas black teas, the base and flavorings have a small margin for error. Just under 3 minutes and 200F always turns out a happy cup though.

There’s none of the sharpness of cheesecake here and it obviously doesn’t melt in your mouth (and thighs), but it’s still a tasty tea.

(At this moment) NOTHING is more frustrating than knowing you’ve tried a tea, and not having a note on it, most likely due to a lengthy period of not logging teas, even though I swore I tried to avoid drinking samples. Ugh.

So this tea, is a sipdown. And I’ve had it before. And I can’t remember what I thought of it (I have to assume at least decent?). Also, it’s from Courtney (thanks Courtney!) Tasting it now, well, I believe it has likely lost some flavour. But, there’s still some tastiness to it. So I feel like it was probably tasty, but not as tasty as Cashew Turtle. There’s also a different base – I loved the Cashew Turtle base, it just fit so well. This one’s different. Not bad, just different. Maybe less… heavy, or something. Anyways, I like what’s left of the flavour of this tea. I don’t get cheesecake, but to be fair, I rarely do. I just wanted turtle. And I get kind of a nutty/caramel flavour. It’s satisfying. A touch of scratchy throat too (bleh), but oh well. I assume this would get a rating of about 80 for me, fresh, but I won’t be presumptuous and will just leave it off and cross my fingers for more turtle-flavoured things in the future.

Also, I have attempted to update my tea spreadsheet. It currently reads 939 teas. I am quite aware that this is an incorrect number, because I had a bunch of swaps that are only partially recorded, and I also have teas incoming. Oh, and I bought two more today. So I guess that’s 941, down to 940 with this sipdown. (I think I’m actually around 1000, but we’ll go with the “official” count right now).

tl;dr I have too much tea.

HHTTB #4/18

I believe thanks goes to QueeOfTarts for adding this into the box. This was a nice morning cup yesterday. This cup has the standard black base with hints of caramel. I didn’t get too much more out of this one. It was enjoyable, but not my favorite 52 Teas cup.

Here’s Hoping traveling teabox – Round 3

Sigh – I should have known better. Why can’t all of 52teas be like their banana pudding? At least if that were the case, I wouldn’t be disappointed every time I bought or swapped for other blends.

Anyway, I’m getting mostly pecan with this and it’s the drying in your mouth kind. I added sweetener and nothing else is really popping for me. Maybe a little creaminess, but I don’t get cheesecake. Back in the box it goes.

From the HHTTB2

This is pretty good! The taste is mostly caramel followed by chocolate with some nuttiness popping in here and there. I don’t get cheesecake. After adding some sugar and milk the caramel really shines, but the flavor from the nuts is gone. Still no notes that remind me of cheesecake.

No doubt that this is a good dessert tea. I would have loved to have tasted something hinting at cheesecake, but I had no problem sipping on a caramel, chocolate, pecan flavored tea!