Birthday “Cake Tea” Tasting 3/8
So, this tasting was actually my first time trying this tea – and honestly were this not part of the line up I probably would have kept ignoring it in my stash so I was very happy for the extra nudge I needed to actually brew it up. I even ended up making a full mug of it afterwards just for myself afterwards so I could really delve into the flavour profile and fully experience it.
I wasn’t wildly in love with it in terms of flavour, as much as I wanted to be given the cleverness of the name, use of Kukicha as the base, and deliciously sweet vanilla aroma coming from the dry leaf. The taste was a little too artificial for me, and it had that sort of sweet dough-y/fondant vanilla taste to me that I get from blends like Santa’s Secret (from DT) – but with this strange anise/fennel undertone. Switching from the ‘cupping’ style of preparation (which is a bit more concentrated) to a more traditionally prepared Western style of mug only seemed to strengthen those anise notes, as well.
Also, even though it wasn’t MY least favourite tea in the tasting I think that it’s safe to say that this one was the least favourite of the crowd…
I think we all just wanted a little bit more from it.