Cherry Cola & Cake

Had with afternoon tea with the husband. This was one I knew I couldn’t resist trying because my husband and I are both fans of out-there ambitious, seemingly hard to pull off flavors in things (bonus, he’s a lifelong cola fiend), even though I also knew the chance of failure and chemical weirdness was high given that ambition/novel weirdness and mixed reviews here. But this was better than I was expecting given the reviews. It’s not fantastic, but neither of us found it gross either—there’s a medicinal vaguely metallic note to evoke the cola that I can definitely see many Steepsters disliking but I don’t mind at all. Not something I need to restock—and after a cup the flavors build such that you don’t want any more—but I don’t regret trying it either.

Digging into Della Terra’s autumn tea collection! So far, everything smells delicious!

There’s definitely a cola-like smell to this tea, both dry and brewed, and it carries into the flavour, which is a mixture of what tastes like cola and chocolate cake. It’s really quite interesting, albeit rather weird. There’s no cherry to speak of, although I’m not sure I got any cherry pieces in my infuser either.

I’ll see what I think about this one after another cup, but I think it will be classified as “glad to have tried, would drink again, but not re-stock”. If you’re into cola-flavoured teas, I’d recommend this one. It’s definitely better than DavidsTea’s Cherry Cola!

I’m happy to be home, 4 nights away is just too long for me. I missed my kitty babies :( I’ve also come to realise that tea tastes better when I’m at home.

This raw blend smells interesting…I can smell cherry and cola but it’s chemical and thick, I can also smell what I believe to be citrus like strong lemon. It’s just strange, not awful and not great.

Once steeped the tea smells like a sweet, cinnamon, lemon, cola, cherry, darkly stodgy. Again just rather odd.

Flavour is like cheap cola but there is also some cake present, like baked sweet crumbs/bread that have been soaked in cherry cola. It tastes as bizarre as it smells. Has some sweetness and is rather thick in flavour. The black tea is malty which adds to the cake element. The lemon is strong, sour and tangy.

Honestly I didn’t know what cherry cola and cake would taste like anyway but the idea just sounded amazing. Well It doesn’t taste like I imagined but at the same time it does taste like it’s name. Maybe more lemonade and cake than cherry cola and cake.

I don’t think this tea is for me. It’s drinkable but not something I would crave or want to drink again. Oh well, they can’t all be winners.

Revisited this earlier in the week because I had such a hodge podge of cravings. I wanted soda, chocolate, and cherries and – wouldn’t you know it – I happened to have the PERFECT tea to satisfy that unique string of flavours. It reminded me a lot of Black Forest cake, but drizzled in Coca Cola. Sounds gross, but I liked it.

Received this one as a surprise from Roswell Strange. I was not expecting anything from her and she even had a ninja slip the tea into my mailbox when I wasn’t looking.

This one smells like those cola flavoured gummy candies and also of chocolate.

The brewed tea tastes like cola, there is definitely a cake base. While hot there is very light chocolate flavour, the chocolate becomes more dominate as it cools. I did have to add some brown rock sugar so that the taste wasn’t so flat. I did not get any cherry taste, but I am not really disappointed. I personally think this one could have done without the chocolate part, but I am biased in the sense that I like chocolate but not in tea.

This one definitely tastes very close to those cake recipes where you mix a can of coke with a boxed cake mix and microwave. Those are delicious and very dangerous (too easy to make, too delicious to eat)!!

Thanks Ros!

I got this as a free sample in my first Della Terra order. I just don’t care for this particular mix of flavors in my tea, hot or iced. The cola flavor tastes like those bottlecap candies. I didn’t really notice a standout cherry flavor. And the cake flavor was hidden behind all the cola taste. Too weird for me. It’s going in my swap box. But I still appreciate the free sample. Thanks, Della Terra!

When smelling this tea, all I was getting was the cake, but when brewed this tea tastes exactly what it claims to be. I don’t know about the cherry part, but definitely cola and cake. It is good and definitely very interesting, but not a tea I would drink on a regular basis. It’s more of s novelty tea for me.

Cold brew! 3tsps steeped in 12oz of water in the fridge for almost 24 hours.

This is the best ‘cola’ tea I’ve tried. In fact, it might be the only one which gets across a strong and accurate cola note. Though it smells very cakey, as well as like coke, the cake doesn’t translate through into the sip when cold brewed, except as a very faint background note which I could be imagining. I remember it coming through more when hot, but cold brewed this is all cherry coke goodness (and the ‘coke’ feels less confusing cold). I don’t get any chocolate from it either, but I think I prefer it that way. I wish I could remember which company Della Terra sourced their teas from or who else sold the same blends, because I would love to pick up some more of this for the summer. As an iced tea it does a good job of killing any coke cravings! Thanks for sharing this with me, KittyLovesTea!

ETA: I resteeped my cold brew leaves in hot water, and the cake is much more prominent as is the base tea.

I have had this sample for so long, I’ve forgotten who sent it to me in a swap. I’m sorry, whomever you are, and thank you for sharing! I’m pretty sure this was just thrown in, not something I requested but something the person thought I would like…

Anyway, I steeped it up this morning after breakfast.

The loose leaf didn’t smell like much, but the brew smelled SWEET. Like rock candy and maple syrup, with a slightly woody, rooibos-like aroma from, I’m guessing, the base? I didn’t look at the ingredients.

I tried it first without sugar, but it was clearly in need of some, so I added a scoop. I’m guessing the sweet flavor that comes across as maple syrup might be intended to be a caramel flavor, from the cola. There’s no cherry flavor really to speak of, but that’s all right with me, because the flavoring in cherry cola is waaay artificial and not very pleasant to me. There is definitely a baked good flavor there; if I’d had to name this tea, I’d have probably come up with Maple Coffee Cake or something. A little cinnamon wouldn’t go amiss, to seal the deal in the baked-good-flavor department. I’m quite enjoying this! (As I think about it, this may be the very first Della Terra tea I’ve tried… I could be wrong, though.) Anyway, I’d rate it higher, because I really do like it, but it’s missing a flavor element that it probably should have. Thanks again to whoever sent me this! I will have to perhaps make a Della Terra order in the future, if their other flavors are comparable in overall effect.

I think I’m attracted to weirdness in teas, and this one seemed like an ambitious flavour so I pretty much had to give it a try. I also love cherry cola, so it was pretty much a given from the moment I saw it. This one has been in my cupboard for a while, unopened. Today it finally saw the light of day! I used 1 tsp of leaf (plus a whole cherry!), and gave it 2.5 minutes in boiling water. No additions.

I hated my first sip. It made me scrunch my face up, and I’m not really sure why. The sheer oddity of the flavour combination? I’ve been fine from my second sip onwards – clearly I’m acclimatised! It has to be said, though, that this is a bit of an odd duck. The initial flavour is, I’d say, chocolate cake. The malty black tea base helps this effect, I think, and there’s some of Della Terra’s “cake” flavouring kicking around in the background. The thick, almost stodgy one (a la Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Blueberry Crumble, etc.) The cherry cola flavour emerges mid-sip, and it’s actually pretty accurate. It even tastes a little effervescent, although it’s hard to imagine how that is achieved. The cherry tastes pretty natural and juicy; not too chemical or medicinal, which is a relief, but the end of the sip is a little sugary – almost like sugar syrup. There’s some of Della Terra’s sparkly crystal sugar in this blend, so maybe it’s that now it’s sunk to the bottom of the cup. Pretty, though!

On the whole, this is a pretty odd combination of flavours. Cherry cola and chocolate cake are probably not two things I’d consume together. Having said that, I do actually really like this tea, now that I’ve gotten over the initial weirdness. Quite what that says about me, I don’t know!