Organic Vanilla Noir

Morning latte! I like the vanilla of this tea. It’s not so much vanilla flavour as it reminds me of vanilla bean. I’m glad the sample I purchased has enough for several cups so that I can also try this straight. Overall this is a nice start to a rainy Wednesday morning.

I really like Vanilla so I ordered a fairly large bag (3.5 ounces) of this from the American Tea Room. Imitating JacquelineM I cut up a fresh Madagascar vanilla bean and allowed it to sit in the bag for about three weeks. The result is a deep, rich vanilla tea. I am certain that the flavor has been well-enhanced but also it may well have been quite strong before my addition.

Because of the strength of the vanilla, my tasting note may be a bit off. The black tea support seems to be excellent but also chosen as a backdrop to promote the vanilla.

If you like vanilla I would highly recommend JacquelineM’s method and get the best vanilla bean you can find and doctor the tea. I did not taste the tea previously, because I put the smallest hole in the bag possible to add my vanilla bean segments. It’s delightful and not the least bit ersatz!

This was my breakfast tea! The vanilla complimented the Blueberry French Toast and bacon my husband made this morning – good stuff! :)

A never before opened sample packet.

There’s an intense aroma from the packet. It’s a dark smell, a strong vanilla smell. On the continuum, it’s so vanilla it’s almost chocolate. I’m pretty sure the name is intended to refer to this being a black tea, but it’s a fitting name also because of the dark quality of the vanilla.

The aroma levels out in the steeping. There’s still a darkness to it, but that’s the Yunnan. The vanilla becomes creamy. Floral, really. The tea is a medium amber color.

In flavor, the vanilla has both beany and creamy qualities. The Yunnan gives the tea a depth that makes it more interesting than it might be otherwise. If this base were a Ceylon, the flavor would probably sit on top of the tea. In this, the vanilla sifts down into the depths of the tea and becomes one with it.

I’m not sure how to rate this because I really like it, but I am not sure I’m tasting it on a pure palate. I had raspberry yogurt fairly recently.

Sticking it in the upper 80s for now.

I didn’t think much of this tea when I first got it, but it’s really growing on me now. To say it tastes like root beer isn’t exactly accurate — but there’s something about the flavor that always makes me think about root beer. It has a lot more nuance than I originally gave it credit for.

Oooo. I like it. It smells like vanilla, tastes like vanilla, but has a boozy quality to it that I didn’t expect. I really like this. I think I’ll like it even more in the winter.

This was the last tea from The American Tea Room that I had to try.
I was really looking forward to this one and I totally got disappointed. :(
When I opened the bag it didn’t smell like vanilla, in fact, it smelled like chocolate.
So that was kinda weird.
The tea itself tastes extremely fake. Reminds me of Harney’s Vanilla Black tea which was really bad too…Oy…
This one is not for me :(

It’s Vanilla Noir time. The aroma of the dry leaf is an undeniable vanilla, which isn’t surprising since ATR was quite generous with the vanilla bean. I detect a hint of smokiness from the base, so for my own selfish reasons, I’m hoping that won’t be reflected in the flavour.

The cup I had last night, without any additives, was surprisingly smooth with minimal smokiness. The vanilla doesn’t quite have the dimension that I like. It has an alcoholic quality to it rather than a warm, gourmand one.

This morning, I went all out and added some half and half, coconut sugar, and a touch of pure vanilla extract. Eh. Granted, I almost never add sugar to anything, except to chai, but it doesn’t enhance the vanilla in any way. Maybe just stick with half and half, or nothing at all.

I wouldn’t buy more but it’s nice to be able to experiment with these very generously sized samples. I just weighed this one, accounting for the packaging, and the sample incidentally weighs 15g. Pretty awesome. You can easily make 3-4 regular-sized cups with that.

This last cup fail flat, I could still taste the vanilla bean I’ve adored in the past but it was almost like drinking vanilla water. It was a sample size that was not stored well that could be the problem. I’m not even sure if I like vanilla tea anymore after drinking this, which I need to figure out quick because I planned on having my mom bring back a ton of my favorite from London next month. Before tonight I had thought of this as one I would order if I was placing an order anyways and was running low on vanilla tea, now I’m not sure. Hopefully I just did not store it correctly.

This tea was brought to me by the superb mj1851 and I have to say I quite like it! I added some milk to cool it down because I was too impatient to wait and I feel like it was a good decision. I feel like it has an artificial vanilla extract quality, in the sense that when you smell it it’s soft vanilla, and when you taste it black, it’s probably a bit stronger than one would expect. Thank you mj1851 for this: is good!