Dessert by Deb

TTB 2025. Quick note because I have to head out but wanted to get this down. This is better than I expected! Mostly it’s a creamy coconut vanilla situation and that’s delightful.

TTB 2025. We have replenished our oat milk supplies, so I decided to give this blend a proper try. Unsurprisingly, I like it even better as a latte. The brisk base and tart bergamot are still very present, but smoothed out a bit by the oat milk. And the “glazed” part is amplified. Yummy.

TTB 2025. I made this and Deb’s Earl Grey Caramel Canelé at the same time to compare them. Unfortunately, thanks to a household miscommunication, we ran out of oat milk without me realizing it! I added honey instead, in an effort to help the flavors pop, but it’s not really the same. So no rating for this one unless/until I can make it as intended. I don’t see a listing for the Earl Grey Caramel Canelé. It’s not on Deb’s site anymore, either. This tasting note will be for both teas.
As expected, they seem to have the same base and bergamot flavor – brisk and citrusy, respectively. I’m not a huge fan of earl greys in general, but this is a tolerable take. The glazed donut is pretty good! I’m getting a bit of almond flavor and specifically the sugary glaze on a donut. I bet this would be great as a latte, unsurprisingly. The caramel canelé flavor doesn’t pop the same way. I’m just getting a bit of sweetness, and it’s hard to tell whether that’s from the flavoring or the honey. I think this one probably needs milk to be judged properly.
The real takeaway here is to always check your add-in supply before making the tea.

TTB 2025. Creamy coconut, sweet maple, hint of vanilla. I can see the “custard” in the creaminess and the vanilla. I like this!

TTB 2025. Made with oat milk. Tart blueberry, yes. Almond, in a marzipan-y sense, yes. Streusel? Not so much. A berry latte feels a little weird; not bad, just atypical.

Thank you Inkling for adding all these Dessert by Deb teas to the TTB for me! I’m excited about them. Made as an oat milk latte, this went down so quickly and easily. My first impression was a cinnamon note, but apparently there’s not actually any cinnamon in here so… shrug emoji? I’m getting a light banana (not as sweet as the 52teas banana) and a nice maple flavor on a sturdy base. The slightest of astringency at the end of the sip, which is to be expected. I’m not really getting a bread/pastry note. Perhaps that’s being obscured by the oat milk. A pretty delightful banana-maple-cinnamon situation even without that bread/pastry flavor.

2025 TTB. It’s me Inkling, I’m the rooibos lover. This one never quite hit home for me though. It’s not bad, just a little muddled as others have said. The overall vibe is “red berry rooibos.” The woody flavor of the rooibos is pretty noticeable. While I can get a bit of mango flavor if I really focus, it doesn’t pop. And even though there’s no hibiscus in here, it tastes like there’s too much hibiscus in here. So basically, the balance between the mango and raspberry is a bit off. I experimented with adding a bit of oat milk to the bottom half of my mug. That just gave it more of a creamsicle vibe, but didn’t really do anything to help distinguish the flavors.

I’m drinking this sweetened with milk, and I taste a lot of the maple flavor! It’s desserty and comforting. It tastes better at room temperature. Maple is the only flavor I notice, but I love maple, so I’m happy.

Sipdown! I like this one, but I won’t particularly miss it, you know? The raspberry and lychee flavors are very enjoyable – tart, sweet, and juicy. They don’t totally mesh with the base though, which is a bit too grassy and easily oversteeps into astringency. I found that it was good both hot and iced. Really, though, the key for me was adding a bit of brown sugar, which smoothed out the base and brought out the fruit flavors more.

I taste a good amount of almond along with a sort of sharp note that could be the lemon flavoring. I somewhat enjoyed my first few cups of this, tasting mostly that strong almond. But the sharp lemon flavoring plus the not great rooibos base ended up getting to me, so I passed the rest of the bag along.

2025 TTB #11

If this had been on a black tea base instead of rooibos, I almost certainly would have purchased it in my last Dessert by Deb order. I love both mango and raspberry and I’m not sure I’ve had a tea with both flavors before. Sadly, I really didn’t get both flavors in this blend. Hot, the rooibos base was pretty much all I tasted. As it cooled, some raspberry started to come through, but I really didn’t taste the mango at all. Kinda wishing I’d tried adding milk, as I’m curious how that might have changed the flavor. But either way, I don’t think this one is for me. Hopefully there’s a rooibos lover along the line who will enjoy it more!

2025 TTB #8

I thought about trying this one last time I ordered from Dessert by Deb, so I was excited to see it in the box! The package specifies to “enjoy with milk or as a latte” so I went ahead and added milk right away. The result was a creamy, almond-forward cuppa that didn’t seem to have much else going on. I really didn’t taste any lemon or anything that reminded me of pie. But on the plus side, I also didn’t get any of that nasty medicinal flavor that I find common with red rooibos!

This tastes too much like sour lemon. I’ve had delicious orange teas from Deb before, so I was confident I’d love this, but it isn’t really for me. The second time I had this, I gave it a shorter steep and didn’t dislike it as much. Still, the orange wasn’t juicy or bright, kind of just muddled and meh.

The main flavor I find is coconut that tastes to me like it’s on the edge. I shared this with my partner who never notices coconut being off, and he really enjoyed it! It’s desserty with a decently strong hit of spice. He thought this tasted really fruity for some reason.

Fruity red rooibos sometimes comes out murky to me, and that’s definitely the case here. I taste the nonspecific fruit flavor, and it mixes with the rooibos to be pretty muddled and meh. It was okay cold, but I wish I could have tasted the mango or that the base could be changed.

This smells like almost rancid coconut even though the bag is only a few months old. Luckily I couldn’t taste the coconut, but I also didn’t taste much of anything delicious either. It’s basically just kind of metallic black tea. I added milk, and that vastly improved things. It actually does remind me of a float! The quality of the black tea is sort of like soda, and the coconut and vanilla give the milk an ice cream vibe. This could be done better, but it’s not bad! I’ve been drinking it as a work tea, and I’ve ended up really enjoying it cold each time! It’s weird, but I’ve grown to like it.

This tastes like every other boring, lazy fruit tisane. When I ordered a bunch from Teavivre, they all tasted like this. It’s just nondescript, bordering on stale fruit sort of muddled together. It’s mostly tart red fruit. It’s not that it tastes bad, it’s just boring.

The peach flavor is the strongest. It’s candylike and a bit tart. Sweetened with milk, this is pretty tasty! The milk gives it more of the soft serve vibe. I’ve also enjoyed it cold without milk. Then it tastes like a combination of peach and red fruit.

Sipdown, and I’m only just now finally getting the steeping parameters perfect. Boiling water, overleaf, long steep (7+ minutes). The result is a rich and roasty dark chocolate flavor. I never did get much creaminess from this but I like dark chocolate so I didn’t really miss it either.
I haven’t been on Steepster much in the past week, but I hope our California Steepsterites are safe!

The resteep was super delicious. Lots of toasted rice flavor. The first steep somehow wasn’t as impressive. I taste toastiness and a bit of caramel, but not as strongly. Still, I really enjoyed the combination of toasty flavor with salted caramel! It doesn’t seem like pancakes to me.

I haven’t had many grape teas, but this definitely captures the feeling of grape juice! Cold with sugar, it’s quite candylike and nice! My last few cups of this weren’t quite as nice as the first several – it leaned more toward the meh green base than the unique fruity flavor. Still overall, I enjoyed this!

Homemade Advent Calendar from AJRimmer: Day 20

AJRimmer really did an excellent job catering to my tastes with this advent swap… I’m all about maple!

I really like this one! It’s warm and buttery and sweet, and the gunpowder base complements it well — I feel like it adds a backbone to the sweetness. I don’t necessarily get a strong maple flavor, though it is present… it’s more of a brown sugar-type sweetness. It could maybe do with a smidge more cinnamon, but honestly, this is one of the nicer DbD blends I’ve tried. (Though, admittedly, it’s tailor-made to appeal to my tastes!)

Kelmishka Homemade Advent Day 17! This is fruity and desserty and smooth. I definitely taste something more than just the fruit. I wouldn’t say eclair specifically, but something creamy and custardy sounds right. I like it best cold with milk and sugar. This is one of the best DbD teas I’ve tried! The resteep tasted the same as the first. The aftertaste is tangy and fruity in just the right way. I appreciate how different this is from other fruity teas I’ve had.

Homemade Advent Calendar from AJRimmer: Day 15

So many black teas in my advents today! I feel like the days have been feast or famine when it comes to caffeine… either everything’s caffeinated or nothing is. I’ve been trying to be smarter about my caffeine intake this year, because I’m pretty sensitive to it, but all that restraint has gone out the window this month. Oh well!

Anyway, here we have a fun pancake-inspired blend with toasted rice. Were you to transmute this tea into actual pancakes, I think they would be far too sweet for my tastes. Like… I’m not sure I actually want pancakes drizzled with salted caramel?! But as a tea, it works. There’s some definite caramel, and some sweet maple, plus lovely toasted rice notes. What I’m not getting is much salt, which is a shame — I think it would help balance this blend. A stronger black base might help, too.

Fun to try, and I bet it would be nice as a latte with some oat milk!