Banana Pancakes

A sipdown this morning of a tea from last year’s 12 Teas of Christmas. I still have a few pouches half full and at least three unopened. I intend to finish them up before my next advent tea calendar arrives.

I can taste bananas, walnuts, granola (nuts, oats, coconut), and a fruity, smooth black base that has some acidity to it. This could overbrew easily, but I found ~4 minutes was fine. I did 8 minutes in hottish (70 deg C) water because I had no kettle or microwave and had to make-due with tap water. I could see this making an amazing latte and it would take sweetener well. I think it is great on its own as well. There is a hint of cocoa in the base tea that would be covered up by adding milk to it.

mmmmm not enough banana as usual but this was a good tastey treat. Very much sort of pancake/syrup vibe to it along with the banana. thanks variaTEA!

Sipdown (283)

Today’s #31daysofhallotean prompt is to combine two unlikely teas. Personally I don’t know if this combination is unlikely but I thought of it due to the latte I had the other day. I wanted a salted caramel latte but instead went with a banana pancakes latte when I realized I didn’t have enough of the former. Today I thought those two flavors could be good together so I gave them a mix.

They go fine together. Sort of a weird smokey caramel banana flavor. That sounds nice but it is topped by a metallic quality and the floral oolong. Underneath is a dense black tea, which I think is the “pancakes” coming through. It’s all a bit flat.

Like my last combination of cotton candy and lapsang souchong, I just can’t seem to get flavors to pop.

additional notes:  I’m having my own themed day and having three pancake teas for PANCAKE DAY (also will be having pancakes for dinner.)  Just finished a pouch of this.  It’s sadly losing some of it’s flavor at this point, though not that old.
2021 sipdowns: 21

This is the upcoming Tea of the Week (for the week of April 10th) that I just posted because 1) this upcoming week, especially the first couple days of the week, are going to be very hectic on the personal front and I won’t have a lot of time to sit in front of the computer and do everything that needs to be done to post the tea to the website and on social media sites; and 2) because Mat asked me to make some tea because he needed some caffeine so I decided to grab this because I actually DO have some time to sit in front of the computer and write a tasting note tonight – so why not enjoy a cuppa now?

This is so good. I was inspired to create it after coming across a banana pancake recipe online that required just 2 ingredients: bananas and eggs. Now, I haven’t actually tried this recipe but when I discovered the recipe, immediately my thought was “Hey! Banana Pancakes would make a great tea flavor!” (This happens frequently – I come across a recipe for something that sounds tasty and I think ‘I want to try that as a tea!’)

And so it was that I made the tea. There is a very forward banana flavor with a strong maple presence. A barely there hint of butter (which is intended, I didn’t want too much of a buttery taste because I didn’t want to interfere with the banana, pancake and maple flavors) – and a delightful kiss of nutmeg along with a nice background of pancake. This is a satisfying, distinctly starchy pancake flavor – not like the aforementioned banana and egg pancake recipe. I can taste the pancake part of this – right down to the crispy fried edges.

A really tasty, cozy kind of blend.