Vanilla black tea

I’ve had a recurring headache the last few days which seems to happen to me whenever the weather is changing… ugh. I wanted something yesterday that was familiar, but not plain, yet I didn’t want a lot of flavor. This one hit the spot… a familiar favorite as in being a nice black tea. The flavor of vanilla came through nicely w/o encouraging my headache to become more pronounced.. smelling a couple of blends was enough to turn my nose to them at the peak of the headache because the smell almost made the pain worse.

I re-steeped this today just because it was still in my steeper basket and I was feeling lazy. Still a nice black tea w/a faintness of vanilla. Thankfully my headache is feeling about half better today and I’m considering trying something more flavorful later :)

T&C TTB#5: This was fairly weak. Maybe more a caramely vanilla but not even much of that, really. Just kind of meh.

I was expecting magic from this vanilla blend from Zen! I love vanilla blends! Sadly, I must have tried too many of them, and already have a few favorites, as this one is not my favorite. Others might be a fan of this base, but I am not. The flavor is not for me and it seems too weak. I did see actual big pieces of vanilla in the blend, but the vanilla also doesn’t seem strong enough for my tastes. With a different base and more vanilla, I would have liked this one better. I suppose I can’t stock up on EVERY Zen tea!
Steep #1 // just boiled // 3 min steep

T&C TTB #20

I have this notion that vanilla tea should be the best thing ever, but I am finding that I have such high expectation for vanilla tea and that most straight vanilla black teas do not live up to it. This was tasty, but nothing to write home about.

The dry leaf smell actually reminds me of bitter chocolate. Brewed, the tea base is full bodied and slightly bitter. A faint vanilla scent, makes for a slightly sweet black tea. Tasted with no additives, the flavouring is very light but present, there is no very distinct taste of vanilla when first sipped, the vanilla is lightly present in the aftertaste, almost as a top note to the flavour of the tea base, true vanilla smell, not cloying, artificial, or sweet. I taste vanilla in the back of my mouth. The tea actually reminds me of vanilla scented dark chocolate. Makes for a nice slightly sweet flavoured tea, for those who prefer the taste of tea to be dominant in their flavoured teas and for flavourings to be used to accentate the tea base. I like the base it is strong deep and leaves a tingling on my tongue and the back of my throat like espresso. It resteeps well.