Brewed Awakening

I brewed this up two or so hours ago and it’s sat by the open window where I forgot it almost that whole time.

Oops.

It tastes pretty stunning chilled, though. I’m not sure where the vanilla tones are coming from, but it’s a bit like a vanilla coffee drink. Or maybe a little Kahlua-esque? I’m going to regret the caffeine when it comes to sleep tonight though.

Still. A- would forget tea again.

This is an unusual tea. As an ex-coffee addict I was on board with the steeping smell—like chocolate-covered coffee beans, yum—but the white chocolate leaves zillions of light oily little drops floating in the tea (for the most part I’m not concerned with some debris in tea but the oiliness and color here were rather unappetizing). It’s hard to know what to make of the finished taste—you could be disappointed because it’s like watered down coffee (it reminds me a bit of those tins of powdered International Coffee from the ‘80s, very weak coffee bases overlaid with a lot of sugar and oil), or bemused because it’s got the body of tea but not really much of the flavor, or enjoy it for sort of being in between a lot of things, a novel synthesis. My own take keeps jumping from all of these, honestly. I guess I’d drink it again, and some sips I even think I really like it in a guilty pleasure sort of way. Not sure what to make of it. At any rate, it’s not at all bitter or astringent, especially given you’re expecting a coffee-type profile. I suppose it’s like coffee flavored ice cream—your feelings about straight up coffee can be entirely divorced from your feelings about the ice cream flavor, because they’re not at all the same though related. Something for when you want “coffee flavor” as if it’s a listed option for dessert syrup, but are entirely uninterested in coffee the actual thing with its texture and own complex balancing act of bitterness and roastiness and all that. Hm.

The oiliness and white chocolate give it a plastic dimension the more you drink. I think I would rather drink plain hojicha (now I wonder what mixing some hojicha with a tea like Florence would taste like…).

SIPDOWN!

Also another from the travelling tea box if i recall correctly. While I can appreciate a great cup of coffee, this tea is just kinda blech. This brews up into a tea that’s pretty much the colour of a good thick black coffee. It’s not a pleasant cup of tea either. I tried to add a bit of milk to this to see if it improved the taste but it’s really just kind of burnt and icky. Maybe i can’t drink coffee anymore, but this…just sucks lol I supposed someone looking for a gradual switch from coffee to tea might enjoy this, but i’d rather jump to beautiful blacks that have wonderful flavours.

So, I was planning to try a new mate, but I slept in this morning and just felt too tired. I was sniffing my “to review new teas” pile and found this tea, a sample by Will Work For Tea (yay thanks again!). By smell, this had to be the tea this morning.

DRY: Coffee, kinda pungent. Whoa, lumps of whole coffee beans in this tea! Oh hells yes thats what I need this morning. Tiny pieces of white chocolate? I was guessing that black tea is in this. I looked up the tea online and it’s oolong and green! Crazy!

STEEPED: I was smelling a bitter black tea until I knew what teas are in “Brewed Awakening”. Now I can totally ID the green tea smell. Also smells like coffee. Brews up to a dark, slightly cloudy tea.. looks like black tea.

TASTE: Hit of slight bitterness and a punch of coffee. Tiny bit of creamyness and nuttyness at the end. Totally tastes like black tea and easy to end the judging there! But now that I know it’s green tea – I taste it, with it’s roasted and almost over-cooked green teaness. I can detect the oolong at the end of the sip, which adds body and nuttyness. Or it’s all in my head and I’m trying to detect green and oolong. ARG.

WHO’D LIKE THIS TEA: Coffee Drinkers (you are running out of excuses to not switch to tea), black tea drinkers who don’t want to drink black tea. Tea drinkers who want to be schooled on creative use of green tea.

COMMENTS: This tea is crazy – it was fun that I didn’t know the ingredients until I was half-way into the cup. I totally thought it was blacktea/coffee beans/white chocolate/something roasted tasting like mate or barley or nuts.
I’m impressed green and oolong was used here to create a coffee effect. Very smart Art of Tea, very smart.

Compared to all the recent coffee-tea blends I’ve drank recently, “Brewed Awakening” is the more simple blend and one that would appeal most to tea drinkers who like a creative blend. This would be the tea to serve if you have tea drinkers and coffee drinkers at the same table. You’d might satisfy both parties.
This tea is more milder than my recent coffee-teas. TeaVanas Javavana mate is stronger and more chocolately. Fusion’s “Good Morning Mate” is more roasty, spice and robust.

Overall, pretty funky tea. I was schooled! Now I need to check out Art of Teas line up to see if they can school me again. I don’t think I’d order this one, but happy to of tried this tea.

This blend was okay. I was excited to give it a try because once I opened the package it smelted divine. However, I felt it had an odd scent to it while and after it being steeped – almost like it was burnt. (Note: I only steeped in for 3mins and at the given water temp.)

It’s not my favourite cuppa but don’t let that steer you away from it. I don’t like the flavour of any coffee at all, so I think that might be my reasoning for it. For a bold tea, I didn’t exactly think it was “bold” enough. I think it would definitely be a great starting blend for a coffee lover who wants to get into tea.

I’m glad I had a chance to at least give this blend a try. I think I know what I’ll give my coffee lover friends for Christmas now! ;)

To be completely honest, this reminded me of Teavana’s matevana (a roasted mate with oolong). Butttt there’s no mate in this. Tasteception?

It definitely had coffee and vanilla notes and while it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t amazingly good either. Kinda a meh for me.

Thanks for sample Ladyfriend :)