Green Caramel

Now I guess this is what you’d call a “dessert tea”. It’s really good! Smooth, sweet, very caramelly. (Thanks, Starfevre!)
I used the 2-tsp sample in about 12-14 oz of water. Added sugar and milk.

I have not ventured out very far into the world of green teas, so this was an interesting one for me. I like rooibos, but have never tried a green tea/rooibos blend. The flavor is pretty earthy and then follows up with caramel at the end. The caramel comes out a bit more as the tea cools. I’m just going to keep drinking and see how it goes. Thank you yappychappy!

Brewed a cup of Green Caramel this morning. The dry leaf scent is sweet caramel and you can see the pieces of caramel mixed it. Brewed up, I was disappointed with the taste.. I felt that the rooibos taste came through much more than the caramel or green tea taste and threw off the balance.. This rates as a “meh..” on the taste-o-meter™.

(I believe this is from the Marco Polo TTB.)

This could be described as tasting like caramel, marshmallow, toasted rice, and earth. The rooibos imparts a woodsy flavor and there’s also something like damp leaves in the background. Not as unpleasant as it sounds. The green tea base, however, is atrocious. It’s like stewed grass. It’s like vegetables that have been left moist and out of the fridge for too long. I don’t know how else to describe it. It has a funk to it that’s just intolerable. If this blend had used a black tea base, or even oolong, I could probably get behind it. Unfortunately this is blended with a very rough, low grade green tea.

I was hoping this would be my last cup before bed, but now I’m going to make something else to get the taste (and the memory of the taste) out of my mouth.

I pulled this sample from a traveling tea box a while back. It has been sitting with my samples for a couple months.

First thing I notice is a burnt cigar scent… which also happens to be the first thing I taste! It is this dry ashy flavor that takes over the sip. After the sip, the caramel creeps our from under the ash. Adding sugar doesn’t do much for bringing out the caramel. I’m not enjoying this cup. I think this one is a dumper. Next!

This tea fit the bill for my caramel craving after the last one. It’s very light tea base with just enough caramel to cover it up. Perfect, light, caramel. Nom.

I figured since it’s now 9:00, I should probably lay off the straight black teas until tomorrow. Which is a shame! If only the mailman had gotten here sooner! So I chose this one out of my The Persimmon Tree sample pile to try. It’s a green tea and red rooibos blend with big spheres of caramel, genmai, crisp rice cereal, flower petals, and some little mystery seeds. Smells extremely sweet and caramelly.

The brewed aroma is… leafy, grassy, caramel. I am definitely not impressed with the taste of this one, which is surprising considering it has a fairly high rating for a flavored tea. The base tea tastes like either a low-grade sencha or a bancha to me. It’s very autumn leafy and rough-tasting. I do taste the red rooibos a little bit, but it’s very mild. The caramel flavor is strong, but there is a definite artificial aftertaste to it… It tastes plasticy or alcoholic. And I just don’t find that caramel goes that well with the green tea base. Nope, not for me!

This is a nice tea. Drinkable. Enjoyable. It’s not spectacular, but I’m enjoying it. Surprisingly, the caramel does not overwhelm the green in this tea. I’ve gotten two infusions out of it, but I don’t think I could get a third that would still have the caramel to it. I’m not tasting the rooibos at all.

Hm…. light and super creamy with the smell of caramel, even though it’s lacking a bit for me with caramel flavor, it’s still delicious. Thank you to Suziqzer for sending this to me!

On an unrelated note: Mother’s Day. Happy days to all of you who are celebrating as mothers, with your mothers, or with other people’s mothers. This (used) to be a really challenging day for me, when I was still grieving my Mom’s passing (I was 16, she was 45). Once I got through that first year of celebrations however, things became easier, to the point of where I forgot the pain or sadness at all, and now only think of her fondly.

Why am I sharing this? Because a gent I dated briefly, who ended things because he “needed to figure things out,” is having his first Mother’s Day since his mother passed late last year. Part of him trying to figure things out was realizing he needed more time to mourn and release, and I understood that completely (and did the same thing with a relationship I’d just started prior to my Dad passing, many years ago).

And so, I dedicate my tea-drinking, the lovely peonies sitting on my desk right now, and all of my happy, warm-and-fuzzy thoughts to those struggling with today for whatever reason that may be. I hope that you all find joy and peace in the comfort of knowing you’re far from alone, and that it really does get better.

I don’t know what possessed me to buy a small tin of this tea having not tasted or even smelled it before since I generally going for blacks before greens, but I did. I didn’t even buy a black tea on this order, not even a sample! Somewhere between the description and the tasting notes, I got won over… well, that and I’m a sucker for a sale.

I opened up this cute little tin to a wonderful sweet caramel fragrance and these funny looking balls sitting atop the blend. The balls I assume are generously sized pieces of caramel just waiting to melt into your cup. I was tempted to bite into one before putting it into my steeper basket to see for sure that’s what it was, but I managed to refrain… It might happen the next time though.

Steeped the sweet caramel fragrance remains and the addition of toastiness from the little pieces of rice, and the green tea is present but not pushy…. How I like my greens, sitting in the back being supportive. I added a touch of raw sugar to bring out the caramel.

It still amazes me I picked this over a black tea but I think it’s a winner for when I’m in that craving for a green tea time that happens. When I started trying loose leaf teas Nov/Dec of last year, I thought I wouldn’t find any greens that I liked… boy I was wrong. I’m starting to find out that I really like having the variety of different kinds of teas more than I expected I would.