Vanilla Plantation

I forgot that I have a little tin of this tea and found it while digging through my tea stash. I bought it on a whim because it smells so good!

I absolutely love this :-) It just may end up being my favourite black tea. Very smooth, no bitterness, just the right hint of vanilla. I could drink this all day and not get tired of it. Now I wish I could remember where I got this little tin because I need to go get more ASAP.

I got a little mini tin for Christmas from a friend and really wanted to try it.

This makes for a lovely latte. Malty, sweet, vanilla scented black tea with a nice thick mouthfeel. It is really good with milk because that brings out the sweetness and creaminess of the vanilla. I happen to have some vanilla soy milk in the fridge right now and have to recommend that combination.

Queued post, written March 26th 2014

This is one of the two vanilla blacks that Sil gave me a sample of for Christmas in a surprise card. Wasn’t that nice of her? She spoils me, that woman does. I’m rewarding myself with it now, having conducted my first ever lemon bar experiment. It’s cooling in the tin now and smells very very promising. (If you are curious, this is the recipe I used: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/696634/lemon-bars) Of course Husband, who loves all things lemon in any way, shape or form, will now suspect I’m trying to curry favour. Especially since there are still two whole lemons left (reduced price for three lemons, needed four, so bought six) which indicates a lemon surprise pudding in his not too distant future. I shall have to convince him that I really truly haven’t actually been a bad dog at all today. Truth is, we’re almost out of biscuits and since I didn’t know what sort to bake that didn’t need a rolling pin (I must buy a new rolling pin!) I thought I’d attempt something a little alternative.

Anywho. This tea. My reward. Yes, I reward myself for having done something that is fun. That’s perfectly normal behaviour, isn’t it?

This smells very vanilla-y. Lying around in a ziplock bag probably hasn’t done it any favours, so with this sort of strength to the aroma, I suspect it might have been as strongly aromatic as the Fru P one back when it was brand new.

The flavour is not as strong as Fru P, though, although it’s clearly vanilla-y. The base strikes me as quite tannin-y, so that makes a big difference. At first I thought that this one was assam. It has that malty, cardboard-y feel to it and a great deal of raisin notes.

I’ve always felt that assam works wonderfully as a vanilla flavoured base, so I’m very much in favour of this. I think actually that it’s that raisin note that makes it work so well for me. It makes it more… cake-y. As it turns out this base was actually a ceylon, and now I’m wondering where abouts on Sri Lanka it was grown to make it so assam-y. I don’t know what base Fru P uses (I’d be surprised if she knows it), but it’s definitely not this one.

I enjoy the assam-y notes of this base. I can close my eyes and pretend it is assam, and I like the balance between base and flavouring.