Birthday Cupcake

My least favorite from Della Terra that I’ve tried, and I’ve enjoyed all the others so far. The black tea base was weak. The artificial flavors were dull and flat. It smelled like a cheap birthday cupcake scented candle. I will not be drinking another cup of this. It’s going into my swap box, for sure. I’m still a fan of Della Terra, and this tea won’t stop me from trying their other dessert offerings. :)

If you are craving something sweet, this hits the spot. My only issue with it is I’m mostly getting icing. No real cake. It’s certainly not bad but there’s only so much icing you can eat before you get sick of it (at least that’s the case for me). Might switch up the temperature/steeping time to see if that has any impact.

This is actually fabulous as a latte. I did try it once already and forget to log it (oops) on it’s own and it was pretty underwhelming. It does remind me a lot of David’s Tea’s Red Velvet Cake, with a bit more vanilla to it. It’s turned a beigey pink colour from the milk which I think is kind of cute, but I digress. This tea is pretty typical as far as sweet, vanilla teas go, but I always enjoy them anyway.

This was kindly sent to me by MissB, and I used to drink it on mine or others’ birthdays, but it’s getting old now so I need to drink it down regardless of how weird I find the name on non-birthdays. I ate a chocolate earlier and thought I tasted it, so got excited and decided to brew up a cup of tea in the hopes that my sense of taste is returning. While it’s still not particularly discerning, I can taste more than just ‘sweet’ now, which is progress! I can taste enough to eat but not enough to be able to appreciate tea yet. Not that it matters, because while I was ill my well-intentioned mam decided to wash my tea strainers for me. I’m not sure how she went about the washing process, but I used one of my little mesh brew baskets for this and the second the hot water hit it I got a really strong smell of garlic. I’m 90% convinced she hand-washed it with her garlic crusher thingy which I know she used the same day. While the tea was hot it tasted mostly like cupcake, with a slight unwelcome hint of garlic, but now it’s cooling the garlic flavour is getting really strong and I’m going to have to tip it out. I’m quite upset since I’m probably going to have to throw out the brew basket too, and I think she washed all of my tea stuff so I don’t know how much everything will be affected. Plus I can still smell the totally accurate vanilla-iced cupcake and it smells sooo good that I want to keep drinking to try to find the flavour but it’s just not happening.

My rating is based on how I remember the tea from other times I’ve drank it. Obviously I’m not going to mark it down because of my garlic’d-up infuser.

Birthday Cupcake on my birthday! It just seemed fitting. :)
Drinking my second-to-last tablespoon of this and enjoying every second of it. Such a delicious vanilla frosting, creamy cake-like delight!
Della Terra really delivered with this one.

This is from memory, but I remember this being surprisingly true to the name! Sweet, cakey, and with a creamy icing note as well. There’s a bit of oil on top that might turn people off, but I think that adds a bit to the creaminess.

In my quest to try all the dessert teas, Ost has been helpful, in sending this along.
I’m glad to have tried it. Its rather chocolaty, which is not my very favorite tea flavor, but its got a nice and creamy mouthfeel.
I wish there was more of a frosting note, though. I’m getting cake, just not quite cupcake.
This is one of those samples that is fab to try, but it illustrates that you’re probably not going to buy it.
Many thanks to Ost for the sample!

A third birthday tea came just in time for my birthday, thanks to the package I received today from Ost! This one was a little different than the other two so far in that it is the only one to actually contain tea. I wish I would have started with this one for my first cup because I’m sad that I can’t resteep it more than once since it’s getting late. Oh well. This is one I’d consider buying, for sure. I don’t get much in the way of chocolate, but I again can taste a vanilla buttercream flavor. It smells quite sweet but isn’t really. I’ll be looking for this next time I place a Della Terra order!

Thank you Scheherazade for this sample from our recent swap.

The raw blend smells strongly of vanilla and maple sauce, at first I thought cocoa but then the maple grew and lingered in my nostrils. It’s beautiful.

Flavour is sweet and thickly like maple with buttery notes and a lingering after taste. I was once gifted some maple shaped sugar treats by someone that were soft and crumbled as you sucked them…this reminds me so much of those sweets. It’s not so much cupcake like as it treacle/maple sponge cake like but I suppose the fact that it is rather cake like at all is a triumph. Not as thick as you would think being a black tea either which is a plus considering it’s so super sweet.

A lovely tea, too mild for my husband (though he agrees with me about the after taste and treacle sponge cake) but I quite like this blend. It tastes much nicer than I was expecting.

Ok, I’m just going to come to terms with the fact that I love the idea of cake tea, but don’t like cake tea itself at all. This reminded me a lot of David’s Tea Birthday Cake, with a bit of added coconut and better altogether because the base is black tea. Chocolate, vanilla, coconut, odd “cake” flavour, maybe a bit of butter…It is overly sweet, and has that typical pungent sort of smoky sweetness that seems to dominate all these cake teas. That odd taste I can’t quite pin down is what I don’t like. It tastes like batter, but not delicious home-made batter. Oh no. Sickeningly sweet and artificial boxed cake mix. What is that about? Seriously. Stop it.

I won’t give it a bad rating, it is not BAD. Not the tea’s fault that I can’t work out my issues with cake flavouring.
Disclaimer: I actually enjoy cake from a box once in a while, for that awesome trip down memory lane: kid’s birthday parties in my childhood, or bake sales at school, when all the mothers just brought that to pass off as their own and all the kids gobbled it down as fast as they could because SUGAR. I have nothing against cake mix, but I find the combination of tea and that flavour god awful.