Caramel Tea

Had this for breakfast. Pretty decent. Not great. I added some milk and honey to my first steep. Was heading out the door and added half of an actual salted butter caramel from Trader Joe’s to my second steep. That was was really good. Like most of the Culinary Teas, I enjoy it, will drink my whole sample, but probably won’t re-order.

I did it, I finally found the time and help to clean out a spot for my desk in the basement and move it down! Step one of my Tea-Lair is complete, and while my sweetheart is busy at school tomorrow I will be moving all of my stuff down and setting up my little nest. I also got a new teacup, it was so expensive, a whopping 99 cents, but it is simple, white, and from Arsburg, Germany.

Today’s tea is a dessert tea full of candy-like sweetness. Caramel Tea by Culinary Teas is a Ceylon black tea blended with Natural flavors, Butterscotch chips, Sunflower petals, and Calendula petals. The aroma certainly matches the name with strong notes of burnt sugar and vanilla cream. There is also a malty undertone of black tea, so it does not just smell like candy.

Once brewed the leaves become very rich and malty with and intense sweetness. The aroma reminds me more of toffee and cream than caramel, but that is not at all a derogatory statement. The liquid has an intensely sweet aroma mixing caramel notes and creaminess for a tea that certainly smells more like a dessert than anything else.

The taste is pretty intense, honestly it reminds me more of a Caramel Mocchiato than tea, mixing strong notes of caramel, cream, and slightly bitter nuttiness. It is quite good, leaving a smooth feeling in the mouth and a very sweet aftertaste, of course I want to try this tea with a bit of cream. Adding cream mellows out the tea and brings out the caramel but making it more like caramelized sugar rather than candy. As the tea cools it has a slightly toasted marshmallow taste to it. This tea is a perfect example of sweet dessert tea, and makes a great substitute for an actual dessert at the end of the meal.

On a fun note, tomorrow will start a “Theme Week” the Pu-Erh week worked so well so I am going to try a different spin on it. Experiments are fun! For blogs and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/01/culinary-teas-caramel-tea-tea-review.html

Mastress Alita’s Monthly Sipdown Challenge – a caramel tea

A pretty obvious choice for this prompt. Unfortunately it doesn’t really taste like caramel to me- maybe vaguely? More like a slightly buttery vanilla. Not bad, but not something I need to purchase once I run out. Pretty boring.

This one is better than the last two teas I’ve tried, but still hasn’t “wow-ed” me.
The steeping aroma is similar to the maple tea I tried, which like burnt sugar.
The actual taste is definitely caramel. It’s not as rich and sweet as I hoped. The black tea base is very present in this one, which makes it not as sweet.
Kinda disappointed with this one, to be honest!
It would be so much better if the base didn’t dominate so much. If it was sweeter it would be great!
So overall, it’s an okay cup, but…nothing I’d drink again, sadly. :/

Yummmm! This was more caramel-y than I had anticipated. Not terribly sweet, but more of a deep, burnt caramel. It almost reminded me of a coffee more than a tea, which is great because I miss coffee (I had to quit drinking it a few months ago). I can see this being really satisfying in the morning.

I would be interested to try this again with maybe some soy milk or cream.. I feel like it would round out the rich caramel flavor nicely.

I enjoyed this quite a bit and I might just have to purchase a few ounces… thanks for the sample, Amanda! :)