French Toast Dianhong

An excellent tea! I really enjoy the flavor and the vanilla comes through as well. Made with the hot water spigot at work, a loose leaf bag, and coffee cup. Temperature was around 190 and steeped for 2 minutes. Added some Almond Cream as well. Fantastic breakfast tea to drink during my morning meetings.

Sipdown! I could have sworn that I wrote a taste comparison between this and 52teas’ Coconut French Toast with Cardamom Maple Syrup, but now I can’t find it anywhere and I finished off the 52teas about a month ago so… either I planned to write it and never did, wrote it somewhere unusual and lost track of it, or accidentally deleted it, but the end result is that no such tasting note exists. Alas.

I drank most of this tea grandpa-style, with two balls in a 12-oz mug. I must have gone off script at some point, because I ended up with just one ball left. I decided to gong fu it. I’m five steeps in and still going. The first steep has a strong maple flavor. Subsequent steeps transition to primarily malt and cocoa notes. It’s good on a cold winter’s night.

GCTTB DAY 7

Wow, this tea is amazing! I don’t know anything about dianhong, as I’ve never tried it before, but I must say that this flavoured version is absolutely delicious. I only used one ball this morning for a quick steep. It had barely begun to open up so once I get home I will try a couple more steeps to see how the flavours change. It smelled decadently sweet and creamy – some of the notes I got were vanilla, custard, butter, and whipped cream. To be honest, I’ve never had authentic french toast before (that I can remember), so I am unsure how well it holds up the the expected flavours, but on its own it’s extremely flavourful without being overly sweet. Smooth, creamy, and quite rich. I am pretty excited to see how this tea changes with more steeps.

We drank this with a bit of the included vanilla bean this time and that definitely amped up the vanilla flavor! We continue to enjoy this one!

Another sipdown from this week. Vanilla and great black tea. I seem to be working LP teas pretty hard this week, but I want to drink these while the flavor is still good.

The smell in the package is heavenly french toast. Used two balls, per instructions, and received a nice cup of vanilla goodness. Re-steeped for about 5 minutes and had a pleasant, though less vanilla, cup.

This is tasty stuff, though I’m not getting much french toast. It’s more of a vanilla dessert. I wonder how it compares in the different batches.

Just a thought: AQ2T did really well with the maple syrup taste in their Syrupy Pumpkin Pancake blend. If you guys ever wanted to collaborate, I’d recommend adding some of their syrup flavoring to this, and I think it would be perfect.

Either way, I’ll be buying some more of this when it’s gone.

I had received this yesterday, but was too immobile after work to make any. However, I must admit that this has been a fun tea to drink. I’m currently on the third steep; which really comes to life with the French Toast experience. I can taste a lot of the “toasted nutmeg bread smothered in vanilla maple syrup” in this steep; which is an accomplishment for LP, since he’s the food-tea combo inspired artist who made French Toast tea.

I will have to extend this note later on, but I want to point out something that occurred to me only a moment ago….A few weeks back, I had the pleasure to visit with LP, to drink tea, eat, and share many thoughts with him on many subjects. However, during the tea gathering, an idea was brought up about pairing food with tea. I believe that Andrew (LP) mentioned that there’s very little known about food & tea together, as much as there is with either wine or beer paired with food. Yet, here is an artist who has accomplished something so complex, unique, complicated, and undiscovered—and with his blends—has made a whole new kind of tea. He uses quality leaf with quality ingredients. And although I’ve never disliked anything thus far (I haven’t tried the Mediterranean Chicken Tea, as I’ve heard/read it called) while drinking LP’s stuff. And with that said, this is why I’ll always support his projects/teas no matter the cause. He’s a great individual with a unique talent; to which I’m happily able to give my monies over to him with the hopes that he can achieve his tea blends and/or dreams!

I have to say that this isn’t at all what I was expecting. From the smell of the dried leaves, I was expecting a strong vanilla flavor and the sweetness of a maple syrup perhaps. It’s my first dianhong, so perhaps it’s not fair of me to review a flavored one when I haven’t tried it plain.

Once brewed, the tea smells and tastes very strongly floral, with hints of vanilla lingering on the edge. Is it rose? Lavender? I don’t know. The base seems nice and light, and I can taste a bit of malty chocolate if I try to penetrate the floral. Every once in a while, I can kind of taste the eggy toast in the background, but it’s faint.

Now that I look at other reviews, I can see that some people experienced this, but most didn’t. I’m a little sad that I didn’t get the sweet, syrupy custard flavor that the others tasted. I still enjoyed this tea, but as I was in the mood for something desserty, it wasn’t what I would have picked for this afternoon.

Edit: Oooh, chocolatey third steep, but still very floral.

This morning I brewed up the sample that came with my most recent Liquid Proust order – French Toast Dianhong. I was actually pretty interested to try a sample from a different batch than the bag I have, because I get a floral flavour from that one. While it’s not overpowering, it’s still…odd. This batch, I’m pleased to report, is much more normal. There’s no floral to be found, just chocolate, vanilla, and a lot of delicious maltiness. Total yum.

2 balls, boiling water, 3.5 minutes. Splash of milk.