Spiced Caramel Apple

This tea has a bizarre strong floral perfume scent and flavor to it. I have had some luck mixing small amounts of it with other teas, but I find the flavor extremely off putting on its own.

Seriously, is there licorice root in here? Is that what makes this drink sweet? Is that what makes me feel so weird about it?

I’m very glad that I switched to drinking this straight black, because nothing should be added to this tea. After a shaky start, I’ve ended my sample with higher levels of enjoyment, but not high enough to be overwhelmed by happiness. Still glad I got to sample it! The joy of tea swaps :D

I’m not sure about this one. It’s not quite what I expected. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I don’t like it, but I don’t love it either. The apple here is somehow floral, and there’s a touch of bitterness in the initial sip that just doesn’t strike the right note. I wasn’t keen on my first cup — black with no additions — at all. Tonight’s second cup — with milk and a chunk of crystal sugar — is a little better but still not quite there.

I think of caramel apple as a sweet thing, and one of the problems here is that there isn’t enough toffee. I can only see two small pieces in the whole (sample) pouch. There are plenty of apple pieces, but, as previously mentioned, the overall flavour is somehow floral and a little weird. The spice, I think, is a step too far, and might be contributing to the initial bitterness. There’s quite a lot of clove, from what I can taste.

I like the idea of caramel apple tea, and I’ve tried a couple of nice ones in my time. This one, sadly, isn’t quite right to my tastes. Still — you can’t win them all. This is by no means a bad cup, but it leaves me feeling mostly indifferent.

Back from the Black Friday order… but oh no! It’s the apple flavor that I thought Della Terra got rid of completely, as I haven’t tasted it in other apple blends for a while and the other apple flavor they use is so good. This one just isn’t for me. It’s the artificial perfumey apple, rather than the baked pie filling apple. Caramel apple! I was hoping this one was good. I don’t think the caramel cubes melt a whole lot, or there needs to be more of them. Also, there is supposed to be spice here? But it was an okay cup despite my distaste for the apple. It would have been so much better with the other apple though! But this one is actually better than the other teas from Della Terra that use this apple. Really, the only bad apple teas I’ve tried from DT are the Caramel Candy Apple and the Apples & Herbs. All of the others are GOOD apples.

I feel like I have an excess of Spiced/Chai blends right now, and that’s a flavour I’m not too fond of – but this one is fruity/sweet and gingerless, so I don’t mind so much that VariaTEA added in a few cups worth of this to my birthday package.

I made it up yesterday – and was actually surprised by how sweet the dry leaf smelled. It was like very ripe, almost candy, green apples. I expected a little more spice, I think.

taste wise – this was pretty good; I thought the apple flavour was done really well, and the caramel was pretty good too and added a nice level of sweetness. The spices? They added a warmth to the blend and I think helped the sweet apple pop a little bit – but I could really live with or without them. They just felt like they were “there” and maybe a last minute thought? Like Della Terra went: “Caramel Apple isn’t fancy enough – what could we add that wouldn’t totally derail this tea but would spice it up a little? Oh, I know! Actual spices!”.

But overall it wasn’t bad. It should be easy enough to finish off.