Black Tea with Vanilla

Ridiculosity ensues.

The back story: So we are moving locations at work. Closing down the current location and moving to a brand new building. The owners didn’t want to have a lot of down time so there has been a lot of packing of things while everyone continues to work full hours and full duties. It was a ridiculous mess, and things were packed up that were needed and then unpacked and then lost, etc. Lots of stress. So the day before the last day at the old location, the tea kettle was packed up. Blasphemy. But alas, I am a type A tea drinker. So I brought my little hot shot water heater to work the next day. So I get to work. Heat up my water. Get my tea out. My strainer is GONE. GONE I tell you. It was packed up. Who would go into my stuff and pack up the strainer and not the tea? My boss, that’s who. And guess what else. The “random tea bag drawer” is empty :( I had to wait 2 hours for the closest drug store to open to go and buy a bagged tea.

The tea story: I picked this one up based on the fact it was the least scarey for a bagged tea, who wouldn’t like black with vanilla. The box is hilarious. It is supposedly “High Tea”, the French side reads “Haute Societhe”. I actually laughed when I read that. Then I googled the definition of Haute just to make sure I was understanding this right. Haute – fashionably elegant; high class. The box also makes a big deal of this fancy new tea bag string system. A Haute tea string system – cue eye roll.

The scent tea immediately is a turn off for me. All I can think of is why does this black tea smell like rooibos. Then it eventually comes to me that I at one time bought Tetley Madagascar Vanilla rooibos tea and it was disgusting and it smelled exactly like this tea. Its the vanilla. But I suck it up because its tea, and its all I have.

The rant story: This tea bag string system is a joke. It is the kind of string that is all embedded inside the tea bag and you have to pull it out to extend the string. There are two strings. So I pull the strings and it immediately rips the bag open. Whatevs, I have like 20 of the sachets I will prolly never drink again. And the whole idea about this awesome new string system is you can pull the two strings in opposite directions when you are done with the tea and it will squeeze the tea bag out so you get every last drop of flavour. Really Tetley?!? Who squeezes the tea bag? Not me anyway. You simply pull it out of the water, let it drip, then fling it into the garbage hoping you don’t drip on the floor. I obviously did not watch the video on their website about how to use this new tea string system. I guess I am not Haute enough.

Back to the tea story: The tea is what I expected. I already knew I wouldn’t like the tea based on the vanilla smell. The black tea was ok. Not bitter which was nice. Moderately strong based on the crushed up tea dust in the bag. Tasted mostly like an orange pekoe. The vanilla to me is bitter and sweet at the same time and it actually does not taste like vanilla at all. There is only “natural flavours” listed on the ingredients and not actually vanilla so who knows what it really it. It was ok. I guess I am not into Haute vanilla. It gave me my tea fix. I will definitely make sure the tea situation at the new place is much improved.

Haute, so haute.