Caramel & Rum

So, I’m revising my previous score of 80 for this tea. I don’t know if I was just really feeling this tea at the time, or what, but the more I drink it, the less in love with it I am. Its just a bit too sweet for me. It tastes good, but the sweetness gets to me after awhile I’m finding. It’s like that first bite of really dense chocolate fudge. You bite into it and it’s sweet and yummy. But get about three bites in, and all the sudden you don’t want it anymore. It stops being yummy and becomes a bit of a burden. Anyway, that’s how I feel about this tea lately. I guess tastes really do change!

For more taste related notes, see previous post.

I’ve been missing out!! I just attempted the stovetop method using Caramel & Rum by Lupicia per instructions from Tealizzy and YUM!! Used a little brown sugar too. This is definitely a wonderful alternative to hot cocoa and just as comforting. For me, this might be THE way to enjoy rooibos teas as I’m not altogether that fond of them steeped with water. Thank you, Tealizzy!

The smell of this tea is divine. It reminds me of a salted caramel sauce used to drizzle over ice cream. It smells very sweet, but the taste is not overwhelming. Definitely a dessert tea.

I got this as the sample with the October 2012 mailer. Because I also ordered a package that month, I got a second newsletter/sample. My boyfriend and I drank them tonight.
Before brewing it smells really rummy, and brewed it smells/tastes overwhelmingly rummy. I think. I don’t drink alcohol, so I guess I don’t really know what rum tastes like, I’m just going off of my imagination… and my boyfriend says that no, it doesn’t taste like rum.
The rooibos flavor is hidden beneath the other flavors.
It does really taste like a butterscotch candy. I really don’t like butterscotch, so I didn’t care for this tea. My boyfriend loved it though, and he’s not particularly into tea, so that is bumping up the rating for me.

Strong caramel and rum flavors and rooibus itself very faint, almost non existent. Makes a perfect night time dessert with a bit of milk.

I love this tea. It has a great flavor and mouthfeel. I wish it did better on the second brew though.

Another free one-HEAVY on the booze…in a good way. Caramel works with honeybush and rooibos, but the rum adds another layer. I kept on sipping it, and my girlfriend nearly stole it.

It is strong and very artificial, but unlike a lot of other Caramel herbal teas I’ve had, this one is not too thin in terms of body. I felt like I was drinking something out of a warm snifter, and the aroma was super inviting. I could see myself picking some up. I’d save it as a boozy alternative to cut out calories, and I wouldn’t drink it often. The flavoring might give me a headache if I have too much of it, but as a boozy tea, it’s a win.

I am doing the May prompts out of order. This is a tea that reminds me of my best friend.

My best friend was a hardcore coffee drinker, so the first time I offered her tea, I wasn’t sure she would like it. She doesn’t add milk or sugar to her coffee and treated tea the same. I think our first tea was probably Queen Catherine, and back then I DID add milk and sugar to black tea. It was actually because of her and another friend that I decided to wean myself off of the additions. We tried several teas that night, I remember, and she liked puerh right away.

The next time she came over, she said, “Well, are we having tea?” I was shocked, because I couldn’t tell if she had really enjoyed it. But she was hooked. She started out with black tea but later gravitated to greens and whites, and some herbal and flavored blends. She fell head over heels for Chocolate and Strawberry Puerh and started buying lots of Lupicia tea, and she brought some of this tea over share….about eight years ago, it was the first, and possibly the only, rooibos I have ever liked. Oh, and she is on Steepster, but not active.

This was a sample bag that came with my last Lupicia order. I had it with breakfast this morning, and it was quite good, but almost, just almost, too sweet for me, the way Mornin’ Waffles and Eleven by Cuppageek were very sweet, but just a tad less sweet than those.

The cough syrup rooibos flavor is completely buried, in my opinion. I don’t taste it at all.
This does have a boozy aroma and taste and the caramel is rich and…sweet. Let’s hammer that in. But I like it well enough that someday I would be willing to order it as an evening dessert tea. It would be brilliant for that, and was very good with my breakfast.

My herbals in particular are starting to get pretty scarce, due to me having more accessibility to brew tea after work in the evenings, when I can’t have caffeine. Found this bag that I haven’t tried yet, which is quite old! I’m shocked how strong the caramel aroma still is from the bag!

Threw a heaping teaspoon in a fillable bag, poured in hot water, left the bag (my typical lazy nightly herbal preparation). I really love the aroma. This tea is quite old now (2018), but has a very strong caramel aroma, waxing into a burnt sugar/toffee scent.

The flavor is less intense than the aroma lets on, but still has a noticable caramel flavor. The rooibos base is quite strong, but since rooibos naturally tastes a bit caramelly to me, it melds really well with the flavoring here. The sip starts with that slightly woody rooibos flavor, then turns quite sweet, with the caramel flavor coming out toward the end of the sip and lingering at the back of the tongue. It’s quite prevalent in the aftertaste, too. I’m not sure what the “Rum” component is here, as I’m not tasting anything that reminds me of alcohol. I’m also not getting that off-putting “pepper” flavor from the honeybush mixed into the base here, which really would’ve taken me out of the sweet/desserty profile.

It’s a really pleasant cuppa. I think I’ll make my next cup as a thick and frothy latte, as I’m sure that would be delightful.

This flavoring smells great, and the taste is fairly accurate to the name. The rooibos base isn’t the most delicious of rooibos, unfortunately, and it distracts somewhat from the whole. This one might do better underleafed or understeeped because the flavor is super strong. I drink it with milk, and that definitely goes well with the richness. There’s just something a bit metallic and bleh about the rooibos Lupicia uses. I set this tea aside for about a month and have found that the overwhelming flavor has mellowed somewhat, which is a relief. Now it tastes boring sometimes, but other times quite caramelized and delicious. It’s just not consistent enough to recommend.