Orchid Vanilla

sipdown! (220) gotta love working from home occasionally…super busy but i made time for lots of tea drinking! plus the bathroom is ever so much closer at home than at work haha Another sample from nicole :)

I have to say this tea smells phenomenal! I just wish it tasted as delicious. There’s a good vanilla taste here, but sadly the coconut ruins it for me. There was an after taste in the sips that just made me have to frown a little. If you don’t mind coconut though, i can see how this might appeal to more folks. not a bad tea, but nothing i’d want to keep in my cupboard as a vanilla black staple. :) thanks nicole!

Not sure what orchid is supposed to taste like but, from the description, I don’t think it is supposed to be a flavor in this tea. I get toasty vanilla and coconut from this, with a pretty nice black tea base. Overall, not bad. I picked this up with a recent Rue La La certificate which made it essentially half price. Not sure I’d keep it in the cupboard over other vanilla blacks but this is a good tea to have around until it’s gone.

Oh, and I don’t know if it makes a difference but this was the loose leaf version.

A bit of a backlog here, as I was enjoying this tea while teaching my daughter’s art class.

This is a really good tea – it might just be my favorite from Tea Forte – I love the balance of coconut and vanilla with this tea.

Really delicious!

Apparently Vanilla Extract (as well as Vanilla Bean) has Calcium in it. So…does that mean if you are craving vanilla flavoring you are craving calcium??? Not sure. Perhaps. Especially when I am not one that usually like vanilla flavored things. It’s not that I don’t like vanilla it’s just not that I ever say…WOW…I really like Vanilla…or ever chose vanilla over other flavors first, ya know!?

Anyhow…I am drinking this now…it is pleasant and mellow and hints of vanilla. It’s nice.

I don’t drink enough vanilla teas, as the strong and delicious cookie scent had caught me by surprise. You can practically smell your bites into soft and decadent sweet cookies, with an extremely well balance of vanilla and coconut.

Unfortunately, as you steep the leaves, the sweet decadent cookie aroma fades into a just as sweet and slightly more nutty, but clearly pale scent. This now worries me. Thankfully, and with knowledge of experience with most flavored black teas, I had added equal amounts of rock sugar to the leaves; this should help the vanilla and coconut maintain their cookie flavor.

And, indeed, it has. The tea can be sweet, with the vanilla and coconut helping to keep the pale black tea under control. The pale flavor is there, but not as prominent as the other flavors.

I am a bit relieved that I would not be entirely disappointed with this tea, but maybe a half teaspoon of rock sugar would suffice next time. I cannot see myself steeping the leaves a second time, as the paleness tells me this black tea will only maintain its full flavor on the initial steep.

But, a still sweet and slightly decadent tea before lunch, and during these stressful holidays, is great nonetheless.

The fancy teabag/pyramid/thing had a wonderful fragrance when I took it out of its packaging. The vanilla was deliciously fragrant and smelled like actual vanilla bean rather than some random perfume or extract. I could smell the tea base underneath which had an oddly lightly spiced sort of scent. I had to concentrate for my nose to pick up the coconut, but I think I detected it up. There’s something about coconut that just seems to blend really well with vanilla.

Unfortunately it pretty much all vanished as soon as the water hit the teabag, and just smelled like steeping tea. The taste of the tea started off rather weak and somewhat flat and only slowly did the flavour creep in, first the tannic flavour of the tea (which was fairly gentle and mellow compared to many of the bases used in flavoured blends – a point in this tea’s favor) followed by a sweet, vanilla-ish flavour. It’s not really the bursting-with-vanilla-flavour taste I was expecting, and it was kind of a let down in this regard. Not really getting the coconut flavour either.

This tea might benefit from adding a bit of sweetener and possibly milk too, although I think it would have to be steeped longer, as right now I think it’s too mild to stand up to the milk. It’s not a bad tea – it doesn’t have me jumping for joy, but it’s a nice easy-drinking black tea.

I began by preparing this tea (in my Tea Forte Cafe Cup), following the directions given on the Tea Forte (steep 3-5 minutes using just-boiled water).
When I first opened the cardboard package containing the pyramid-shaped tea bag, I was immediately struck by the very sweet vanilla smell. It was delectable. The website lists that this tea also contains coconut slivers, and, indeed, traces of coconut were certainly evident in the aroma.
After steeping for three minutes, I decided to remove the tea bag and test the flavour. Upon removing the lid, I noticed the colour was an unremarkable brownish-red of black tea. Then I smelled the tea. The scent of coconut had all but disappeared, and the aroma of vanilla had actually deepened and taken on more muted tones.
With the first sip, I was disappointed. The taste of the vanilla was barely there. I suspected this might have something to do with the length of steeping time, so I put the tea bag back in for another minute. (On a side note, something I really appreciate about the tea bag design is the stiff string, making it easy to move the tea bag around.)
This additional steep complete, I tried the tea again. This time, the vanilla was much more prominent, almost spicy. The liquid itself remained wonderfully smooth. The spiciness was actually a delightful treat, tingling a bit at the back of one’s throat as the tea is swallowed.
Sadly, the coconut that was originally smelled when the tea bag was first brought out is nowhere to be found. This could just be on account of the fact that my taste buds are not very familiar with the actual taste of coconut (which, in all fairness, I have only tasted on rare occasions). The vanilla, however, completely makes up for this lack of coconut, in my opinion. It is certainly one of the best vanilla loose leaf teas I have ever had (out of a total of perhaps three to five, as my vanilla tea explorations have not ranged very far).
I would not call the flavour itself rich, but it is certainly not mellow. This seems to be the sort of tea that could be drunk, cup after cup, all throughout one’s day. And, with the caffeine it contains, would be an excellent stimulant during long work hours.
To test the stamina of the tea, I decided to steep another cup, increasing the steep time by one minute (to bring it to 5 minutes total). The aroma is less intense than before, as was to be expected, but the vanilla smell is still deliciously pleasing. The taste is still quite good as well, albeit not as intense as the first cup. The spiciness is gone, but the smooth vanilla flavour remains.
Over all this was a very good tea. If I were to purchase it in large quantities, I think I would opt for buying the loose leaf in a canister, to allow me to vary the amount of tea used per steeping (and also allow me to more easily steep a large pot of it at once). On my personal enjoyment scale of 0-100, I rate Tea Forte’s Orchid Vanilla black tea a 75/100.
I just have one final question, that perhaps a fellow drinker, or even Tea Forte could answer… “Why orchid, and where is it?”

An ok tea. Sweet-smelling and tastes (coco)nutty. Would be more impressive if served with milk I guess :)

It’s Meh! A little let down on this one. As other reviews have already stated, the scent is delicious when dry but once steeped it becomes a mild plain vanilla loosing all but a traceable flavour of coconut as well as the extinct notes of orchid. Meh! sums it up

Opening the package of I was immediately assailed with the strong aroma of vanilla and a hint of coconut. Blended together these two reminded me of a toasted marshmallow or even a sugar cookie.
This is not a tea for those looking for tea flavor. This is liquid desert. If it was not for the actual appearance of tea leaf I would have no idea that this was tea.
The leaf is quite pretty with short black wiry leaf and tiny flecks of whitish coconut. At least this stuff LOOKS like tea. But one can’t gauge these things based on appearance alone, so taste I must.
I loosely followed the package directions for my first cup. I say loosely because I used a bigger cup than the 8 oz suggested (I used a 12 oz cup) and thus, used a bit more tea too (weighing in at 4 grams). I followed the directions and used boiling water and a 4 minute seep.
After infusing, a malty tea perfume started to waft from the cup softly entwined by vanilla. Unfortunately that did not translate into tea flavor in the cup. I had high hopes that any sugary flavor would be tempered by the maltyness of the tea but it simply got lost.
As I said, this is liquid desert. The flavor is very heavily vanilla with only a slight hint of coconut and not even one tiny bit of actual tea. The lack of tea flavor might be my own fault. I really did not use enough leaf. Still there was so little tea flavor present I am not sure it would have made much difference.
Don’t get me wrong. This is not a bad beverage. Sweet and smooth, this drink would work well either hot or cold, and a dash of cinnamon might enliven the cup to something almost legendary. (If you try this I suspect it will taste like Jorchata – the Mexican rice drink)
I wont buy this tea again but it might be just perfect for those who like an infusion of dessert instead of calories.