Caramel Oolong

On the Fifth Day of Christmas, Della Terra Teas sent me this tea!

Sorry for the gap in my “advent calendar” postings, but I came down with a bad bout of food poisoning (not that any bout of food poisoning is good, mind you), and I was not doing much of anything except for stuff I’d rather not talk about here in this atmosphere of polite company.

So, I left off with day four, and it’s time to talk about day 5 … Five Golden Rings … or one golden tea of Caramel. Caramel Oolong. and Mmm!

I didn’t pick up on a lot of citrus notes in this cup, I got a lot of caramel though, and a lot of the toasty flavor from the Oolong. That suited me just fine. Not that I have anything against citrus notes. I just wanted to experience the caramel.

One of the nicer flavored Oolong teas I’ve experienced in some time, except that I just reviewed the Tiramisu Oolong from 52Teas (to be published tomorrow evening) and it was pretty remarkable too.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/12/18/fifth-day-christmas-della-terra-teas-sent-tea/

This tea was pretty good. Yesterday I had wrote the brewing parameters on the bag. So when I brewed this up today, I didn’t look at the ingredients. I usually try not to read ingredients or tasting notes before I try a tea so I can just taste the tea and not worry about whether I am tasting certain ingredients and such.

Anyway, as I was drinking this tea, I was picking up on a lot of citrus notes. I thought my palate was off, but then u checked the ingredients, and it said orange peels…. Good, I’m not crazy.
I found this to be a decent oolong, but I think I would prefer caramel flavours without the citrus.

I haven’t had this tea in awhile. I still really like it. It’s a nice roasted oolong with caramel! Looks like Della Terra doesn’t have this one anymore, which is too bad. They used to be so involved in Steepster and having sales all the time and now they’re so quiet. Hmmm. Anyway, good thing I still have at least a couple more cups of this one left. :)

Oooh, first tasting note! No pressure! LOL

BrewTEAlly Sweet was kind enough to send me a sample of this. It smells REALLY caramelly! I’m a bit picky with my dark oolongs. Some of them just feel like something is missing, to me anyway. This is pretty good though, and the caramel flavor is spot on! I’m glad I got to try it but this is not something I would purchase in the future. Hurray for trying all the teas though! :D

It’s ok, this tea. I can taste the caramel, oh how could one not for it is loaded, and it really is a pleasant tea. Not sweet enough for me so I would normally add sugar except I am really trying to eliminate sugar especially now that we are trying to lose the weight gained overseas. I know a sugar free diet is not sustainable for me but if I can get used to less, I would love it.

The dry leaf smells great. It is quite dark, has bits of caramel throughout but it also has those darned yellow petals I could do without.

Steeped for 3 minutes and added nothing to it. It is pleasant indeed. It could be oh so good for me with some sugar. It brews dark. Not caramel dark but black tea dark.

I am getting no citrus whatsoever but I am ok with that since I am not into citrus all that much.

Should you buy it? You can get a small pack, it won’t disappoint. You might get bored with more.

Sipdown!

I managed to sip through 2oz of this rather quickly because I took it to work and oolongs are the perfect tea for work since I can kind of forget about them and run to a meeting and they don’t tend to get ruined. Though this darker oolong can get a little bitter and astringent like black tea, but there is no way I can do black tea at work since I run around so much.

Anyway, this is a nice oolong tea. Dessert-like, but only with a bit of sweetener added. To be honest, what would make this more awesome, would be using a greener oolong. Because darker oolongs can still irritate my acid reflux and greens less so (especially if I accidentally let them steep too long).

Not sure I’d repurchase right away, but it was nice to have.

I don’t do Valentine’s Day, but I am making a very narrow tea-related exception and only drinking teas I love today. This one comes to me courtesy of BrewTEAlly Sweet. Thanks!

This is both straightforward and delicious. Smooth caramel goodness over a solid base tea. Only one serving left, but I might polish it off tonight just to make some room in my cabinet.

Had a really nice cup of this as a mid-morning treat. I like it better than I did last time – the caramel was less artificial tasting, and not as strong, allowing the base oolong to shine through. At points, it actually reminded me fairly strongly of Butiki’s Maple Pecan Oolong. It’s not quite as good, but it makes a reasonable substitute. Maybe my parameters were better today, or maybe I was just in the mood for it, but I enjoyed this immensely.

Speaking of Maple Pecan Oolong, I must add it to my Butiki shopping list. I’ve started to put together a list of teas I want to restock in the near future, now I’ve had some time to work out my likes and dislikes, and Maple Pecan Oolong is absolutely one of them.

I’m upping my rating on this one, simply out of sheer enjoyment. Today is being a good tea day so far.

I had this one the other day with breakfast. It has a really nice, sweet, caramel flavour. Smells fantastic too. Glad I picked this to try.

Named “Cozy Caramel Oolong” as day five of 2013’s Della Terra 12 Days of Christmas box.

This would be my first oolong, so there won’t be too much commentary on the quality of it. But that said, this is SO good! It’s dark/bold but sweet, and not sweet enough to take away from the boldness of the oolong. It smells so good brewed, too. Roasted, a bit sweet, and a very comforting smell.

One of my top favorite teas from the box, for sure. I will probably buy more of this in the future.