Carrot Cupcake

I did NOT enjoy this. I wanted to so badly, but I just couldn’t get past the licorice root.

I really wanted this to work, but they had to go and put licorice in here. Had to try it anyway. Blech! Dumped it. This was after the dump of the nutty granola. So sad…

Autumn tea tiiimmeeee!!!

…and with the change in season comes reappearing tea friends here on Steepster! Yay!

So DAVIDsTEA just released this year’s fall collection – honestly, none of the new teas really had me interested but you know I have to try them all anyway ‘cause it’s just what I do. I did have a problem that I haven’t really had yet (this year, at least) though: that every single infuser mug they released this collection appealed to me and was one I wanted to own. That’s just not reasonable though – both from a financial stand point and a shelf space stand point. So I got one of the pretty, pretty mugs.

This one: https://www.davidstea.com/ca_en/wood-bear-nordic-mug

But anyway, this tea…

First reviews haven’t been super favorable. When I went to look at fall stuff in store I was kind of undecided whether or not I’d grab samples of this and Nutty Granola Crunch because reviews have been so mixed. And even though I actually really liked the dry smell of this one I didn’t pick up a sample because when I was talking to the sales associate she said the whole store/staff really disliked this one: there are only two blends I’ve seen associates talk so openly about disliking (Elderflower Spritz and Choconut Oolong) so I definitely made serious note of her honesty. I still needed to try it though; so I got it iced to go in order to satisfy that bit of curiosity.

So – I definitely don’t think I disliked it as much as my tea twin VariaTEA. My biggest problem wasn’t so much that it tastes BAD: I just really don’t think that it works as a carrot cupcake flavour. MAYBE if they had called it “Spiced Carrot” or something like that? There’s just really NO cake like component to the tea other than possibly the licoricey/cloying sweet finish. And I say that only because I wonder if the reason for such a sweet finish like that was to possibly replicate the cream cheese frosting/‘icing’ on the top of this “cupcake”. Even if that was the intent, however, it’s not successful and I think that licorice flavour greatly detracts from the overall cup.

What did work for me was the carrot notes themselves which I think came through pretty well. It is always just a tiny bit weird to be tasting vegetables in flavoured tea (the distinction there is important; I’m not talking vegetal notes in base tea/pure teas) but carrots have a great natural sweetness to them so the flavour works here. And, I think the pairing of cinnamon and ginger notes complimented the carrot and weren’t horribly offensive. It definitely strengthens this as a fall blend.

So overall: I’d call this fairly average/adequate at best since there were components that worked and ones that greatly didn’t. Bottom line though – I don’t think DAVIDsTEA conveyed the flavour profile they intended though, and this works more as a Spiced Carrot blend rather than a creamy, “cupcake”. Butiki and Della Terra both had more accurate Carrot “cake” blends that I found better.

EDIT: Carrot is one of those words that the more you see it the more it really, REALLY doesn’t start to look like a word anymore…

This tea was awful. I has such high hopes for it. I was a little worried about it due to the whole Peaches N Cream tea tasting like paint thinner. And boy was I right. You could taste the carrot cake a it but it’s over powered with spice and ginger. Was not happy at all with it.

Re-review of this tea.
I’ve been drinking this tea in latte form and at first I really liked this tea cause it seemed quite a bit like carrot cake, but I think I had maybe only a bit of licorice root (or I wasn’t discerning the taste enough) in my 25g sample. I have now purchased 200g of it and I think I have an understanding of it better. Here are my findings:
Reg cup of tea (8oz, 200F, 1 “perfect spoonful”, 5 min): Mild cinnamon spice taste, a bit of tart apple in the background, and I can get a hint of why this is carrot cupcake. Ok, not memorable.
Latte: (8oz of 200F water, 4 “perfect spoonfuls” steeped 5 min, mixed with hot, frothed 1% milk (approx 6oz): Lately I have been subbing out 1 or 1.5 perfect spoonfuls of another tea to balance out the licorice root sweetness and to me the resulting latte tastes like Anise Milk (a Dutch treat). I do like it but understand why others do not. I was mixing it with an early grey cream rooibos but I finished that up so I’m going to try a cinnamon rooibos to blend. Altogether I like it, but it’s a damn expensive Anise Milk (normally anise milk is just hot milk mixed with some anise powder which is a lot cheaper than using 10tsp of loose leaf tea. As mentioned previously, I am subbing out my glass of red wine on weekday evenings to a tea latte (keeping red wine for weekends), so I will try and use this up quickly. I somewhat regret picking up 200g of this tea (even though I still like it) since I can make Anise Milk for so much cheaper.

Dry leaf aroma: Freshly baked carrot cake with sweet aroma of warm spices.

Cup color & liquid aroma: Light amber. Carrot cake aroma with cinnamon & ginger.

Flavor profile: Carrot & cake flavors mix very well with the soft ginger & hint of cinnamon. Sweet aftertaste of frosting.

Why was this so terrible ;-;

It smells amazing. Like, amazing. It smells precisely like carrot cake – a big, rich, sweet carrot cake. And it tastes like licorice. Not even like a mellow root beer-y licorice, but that sickly-sweet stuff that gets stuck to the back of your throat and destroys all other flavours.

A world of no.

Drinking this after a greasy, heavy dinner and movie. It has an incredibly pleasant scent – it actually smells EXACTLY like carrot cake – but it’s a little sweet to me. You can taste the licorice more than I’d like, but it does have a pleasant aftertaste. It’s a nice dessert tea, but I’m not sure I’d get it again.

I’m not sure about this tea. I like cakey teas in my cupboard because since I found out that I’m diabetic about a year ago, I try to reach for cake teas instead of cake to satisfy that craving. This tea smells spot on, my mouth was watering because I love carrot cake. But the tea itself was kind of a let down. I want more spices, maybe if it was a carrot cake chai I’d be happier. Still, not bad. Just probably won’t grab more.

Nope. noppity nope, nope. This is not for me. Cloying licorice root and spiced carrot. I wanted to like this but it is just not for me.