Not So Vanilla

I’ve had this tea a few times and I finally feel like I can write a tasting note about it. For some reason, I’ve had to have a few cups of it to fully form an opinion. I was excited to try this cup as it sounded really delicious – chocolate, vanilla, a nice quality tea base.

Sipping… this tea is tasty – vanilla with light chocolate notes. Despite the strong vanilla flavor, this tea is a little too thin for me. I want a stronger tea base to lend a deeper chocolate note because I’m really just tasting a wispy sort of vanilla with nothing behind it. The vanilla is very nice, don’t get me wrong, but it really needs something more.

I wouldn’t turn down a cup, but there are other teas with a similar profile that I enjoy more. If you’re looking for a vanilla tea with nothing to get in the way, I would pick this up!

cavocorax sent this one my way as it was on my list of teas to try. I can see how people are comparing this to WP’s GO. It’s very similar though different too. I can see keeping this one in my cupboard though, especially with the decline of the cad dollar. It’s a flavoured tea…not not on my ZOMG must have list…but this is a good vanilla tea. Quite nice. Thanks a bunch for sharing cavo!

Received this last week, very excited about it!

The bag smells divine.

I couldn’t wait long to try it, and I’ve had a couple mugs now (2 steeps each)

I am a huge Golden Orchid superfan, it’s probably my holy grail tea. Though way too expensive to drink regularly, it’s definitely something I covet and cling to.

I was hoping this would be at least a bit comparable, and it is! It doesn’t have the long, delicate unbroken leaves that GO uses as a base, but it is still full of flavor. Maybe not QUITE as naturally chocolatey for the base, but the vanilla aspect does not disappoint.

It has a lovely thick and creamy mouthfeel as well.

Perhaps I shouldn’t compare this to anything else, but I can’t not.
I can’t remember what I rated GO but I will definitely reorder this when it’s gone.

Vanilla everything FTW!

I’m on a Tippy’s Tea roll. Reached blindly into the tea box (I really have to get the teas unpacked!) and pulled out this one for this morning. As always it is smooth, slightly sweet and yummy! Surgery is coming up in two weeks. Will I be able to taste this when I recover? I hope so because it sounds absolutely lovely!

Got my Tippy’s Tea order today!
Of course the first tea I opened was this one. It smelled so chocolate-y, I got excited!
But while I was steeping it, I forgot about it for a couple minutes. So it ended up being really bitter. xD Could taste some chocolate and maybe malt flavors. But I can’t give it a fair rating till I actually steep it right! I’m still excited about this tea, just need to keep an eye on it better! XD

As you can see from my previous note, I LOVE this tea! The vanilla bean flavor is amazing! The base tea is also amazing! I drank the rest of the sample from Cameron B today. I got more chocolate notes and it’s so silky smooth. Yum! I’m so glad I have 50g on its way. I have a feeling it won’t last long. ;)

OH! Oh. This is the tea I’ve been needing all day. It has been a bit of a crappy, stressful day, and I grumped my way through it and now I’m home. I’ve had dinner (hunger definitely exacerbates the grumps!) and I’m sitting with a cup of this tea, just starting to feel like maybe life is ok after all. :)

So I opened the package, smelled the tea, and said “Oh my GOD” (out loud, to myself… I’m just cool like that). This smells amazing! If you’ve had a good vanilla black tea (made with real vanilla beans!) you know what I’m talking about here. There is a strong chocolatey-ness to this tea as it steeps, which translates nicely to the flavour of the tea as well. The base tea is smooth and rich, with chocolate notes that are enhanced by the creamy vanilla. Mmmmm. Lovely.

I drink an awful lot of tea. Starting to review teas online has made me realize that. Oh well …

I had some left overs of our ‘Not so vanilla’ tea and decided to brew it up. The smell of the loose tea is chocolatey vanilla. The taste is delicious, spicy, creamy, smooth, wonderful vanilla. I decided to brew this at a temperature lower than what we recommended to see what difference it would make to flavour, and it does not alter it too much.

I cannot wait for my Whispering pines order to be delivered, because if this is what I can create with my ham-fists then I’m sure their tea is going to blow me away.

Okay. I will not compare this tea to Golden Orchid. I won’t.
The Golden Monkey base tea is divine. It’s the same one they use in their underground pumpkin. But the addition of vanilla beans changes this blend completely. Where the underground pumpkin has sweet potato notes, NSV brings out the Golden Monkey’s caramelized brown sugar flavor. I steeped this one three times western style. I could have gone for a fourth, and I wanted to… but I can’t cry about the steeping that could have been when the ones I actually had were perfect. The final steeping I had was nothing but pure vanilla sweetness. The melted Chocolate flavors really stood out to me on the first steeping especially.
This is a damn good cup of tea. Maybe Tippy’s best so far.
However, since I am not comparing, this is an ever-so-slightly price efficient alternative to Golden Orchid.

Two more to go from Tippy’s Tea! This is the one I was most excited about, as I love all things vanilla and I also happen to find Golden Monkey quite tasty. The leaves are medium-sized and thin and twisty. The combination of dark grey and golden colors reminds me of tiger stripes. Dry scent is sweet cocoa and creamy vanilla, and it reminds me of Golden Orchid.

The steeped cup also smells of cocoa and vanilla bean. This is quite tasty! It does remind me of Golden Orchid, which makes sense given the combination of vanilla bean and Fujian black tea. I think I may have underleafed a bit, as the base tea doesn’t have a ton of presence in this cup. I mostly taste the vanilla bean with creamy cocoa and wood weaving their way into the background. Tasty! Next time I’ll use more leaf.