Tiramisu Oolong

Oh wow, I really like this! Thanks to Dexter3657 for sending it to me. To be honest, I’ve found 52teas to be very hit or miss lately so I wasn’t sure I’d like this but on the other hand it sounds potentially awesome, no? (I’m dating myself here by confessing I LOVE tiramisu in all its early ‘90s glory, yum!) Turns out it’s great! The tang promised in a lot of Frank’s cream cheese-involved blends never shows up for me, so I was excited I could smell a sour cream tang along with roasty coffee in both the dry leaf and the finished tea! The body/feel is fairly light but the flavor is really there, all of it—the sweet vanilla and roasty coffee, chocolate, sour cream, and even an icing thing, possibly from the marshmallow. I would order this, woo! It was so inspiring I decided to have some coconut yogurt to go with to pump up that tangy flavor I love, yum.

My brain feels fuzzy. I watched The Hobbit 2 today in the higher frame rate of 48 fps. It was like watching a video game. Super weird, and my brain hasn’t recovered yet. I don’t know how Peter Jackson could get this story so wrong. The second film is worse than the first. Someone described it to me as “fan fiction” and they are totally right! Jackson’s The Hobbit is pure fan fiction. Anyway, because of my fuzz brain, this tasting note may not entirely make sense. But here goes!

ON TO THE TEA!

The leaves look dark to me. Is this a Formosa oolong? The brewed tea aroma is chocolate, oolong, and maybe a hint of coffee. Mmm, the flavor is a lot stronger than the aroma. That’s a change for the better that I’m not used to. It’s usually the other way around with the aroma being more potent than the flavor.

The flavor is chocolaty, creamy oolong. I am getting a hint of coffee too. Overall, the cup is becoming more muted as it cools. This is one to enjoy piping hot! I still can’t tell if this is a Formosa oolong or green. I guess I’m leaning towards green, but it’s not very vegetal.

This isn’t sugary sweet or cake-like. So, I don’t think it could take the place of real tiramisu should you have a craving. But it is a delicious tea, and I’m glad I had the chance to try it. Thank you for sharing, Courtney!

Sipdown!! (221)

Thank you Courtney for sending this my way but this tea has fallen victim to my dislike of oolong. I think I have FINALLY realized that more times than not, I don’t like pu’erh or oolong and so I think I have decided to stop trying them. I know this means I might miss out on something great but there is just so much tea in the world that I know I just can’t try them all.

As for this tea specifically, I really wanted to like it. If I could look past the oolong, I would say this is actually a pretty great representation of tiramisu. It is both creamy and cakey with a nice vanilla-coffee flavor. Alas, the first flavor that hit my tongue when I took a sip was oolong and that is just not for me. Though, I would say that anyone who doesn’t mind/likes oolong, would probably enjoy this cup.

Backlog:

Yummy!

This was a tea I was excited to try … Tiramisu Oolong? Um … yes please!

The Oolong has a rich and toasty flavor that accentuates the flavoring nicely. I can taste the rum, the coffee notes, and the vanilla notes. The marshmallow adds a bit of “fluffy” to the taste. I do wish I tasted more chocolate. But, then, when do I ever wish the opposite? I can’t think of a time when I thought “gee, this tea could use less chocolate.” I don’t think I’ve ever actually said that about a tea. I don’t think I ever will either. Chocolate … well, one can never have too much, can they?

I liked this one. Quite good.

I freakin loved this tea when it first came out! Like adored it. Now that it has been sitting around for a while, it has lost it’s umph. There is a little something bitter in the front part of the sip, followed by some flatness and ending with more bitter. I might be getting a little flat chocolate in the end. This is a prime example of my tea hoarding nature gone wrong. I wanted to save this tea so I could savor it over time and revisit it when I missed it, but it was better fresh and I should have guzzled it down when it was fresh. So sad!

Well, now I REALLY can’t wait for my husband to have some time to come home for Christmas, because he will LOVE LOVE LOVE this tea! He’s mostly the reason I had to snag it, because he is a big fan of tiramisu and oolong, so it seemed perfect!
The dry leaf smelled very creamy and custard-y, with hints of chocolate and coffee. Very promising! I steeped it for only a minute, because I do intend to try resteeping it later (when my baby is not sleeping on my lap). The brew smells very much of green oolong, a somewhat astringent nutty smell. The coffee and chocolate seem to have disappeared, but I know smell isn’t everything, so I sweetened it a little, to help those flavors out. I had meant to add milk, but I forgot to do that before I sat down to nurse, and, well, it got left out. I think I will like it better when I can add milk, because I can taste hints of the chocolate and the cream, but they’re not quite strong enough, and the coffee is nowhere to be found. I am not going to rate this one, because while I know this review didn’t turn out very praising, at least part of the issue is the way I prepared it. I’m going to make this taste right, later. And when I have, I will rate it.

From the LiberTEAS sampler I bought a while back

3 minute steep, 1.5tsp per 12oz of 190F water.

Once steeped it yielded a golden tea that smells – oddly enough – both vegetal and chocolatey. I’m not sure if I would consider it “tiramisu” at this point, but I’m hopeful.

One sip in and there’s the roasty oolong from the description with a sweetly dessert note from the marshmallo and cacao. The taste is rather deceptive – the smell is almost grassy – but this is one I’d be more than happy to drink again in the future. It’s warm and comforting and kinda restful (without really hitting any of the dessert-type cravings).

So if you’d like a sweet dessert oolong I’d definitely recommend this one…but it’s definitely not the espresso-laden dessert I was expecting from the description.

EDIT: Second steep lost pretty much all of the dessert flavours that made this one so delightful…it became very roasty oolong which – while not bad – was rather disappointing. I’d like it better if the flavours hung around a little longer, so I’m knocking my score down a wee bit.

Ooh, I like this. It’s much more subtle than I expected, with a nice green oolong base and a gentle creamy flavor and mouthfeel on top of it. There’s a little bit of espresso to it and an aftertaste like cookies—all the flavors are just as they should be. The cream flavor especially is just perfect. I might experiment with a higher temperature to see if I can tease out some bolder flavors, but this is delicious!

Having a pretty lazy Saturday wile the hubby is out of town, and kids aren’t bothering me too much. Daughter asked for tea (running out of French Toast tea…her favorite!), and I decided to make some of this.

Nice and relaxing…a tang in there, but nice and mellow.

I brewed this up this morning without reading about it. This was a sample provided for me and it was without cocoa nibs so it looked like wood and oolong. I recently talked with quite a few people at work about making teramisu for out month in lunch for October to find out that everyone thinks differently of tiramisu. While I like this, I must admit that I was really looking forward to a coffee taste/aroma within an oolong blend. I did not find any coffee taste though and the chocolate notes are gone because the nibs are not there so maybe I will just have to make my own.

How about this… green dan cong powdered with coffee and roasted, shaken gently to reduce the coffee powder once roasting is complete, cocoa nibs and vanilla bean chopped side by side and roasted with the leftover powder from the tea, and then finally all shaken loose to remove the powder and aired out before packing.