Banana French Toast

Steepster TTB 2025

This tastes like a generic black tea in flavour. I smell maple on the looseleaf, but I’m not getting any banana, maple, or pecan from the brew itself. I tried it twice (first steep 5 minutes with boiling water and a dash of soy milk – second steep 8 minutes almost boiling water with a dash of soy milk). There’s a tiny bit of nutty flavour and some tannins, the black itself is slightly malty but not enough for my liking. I do get a honey flavour like from the tea itself, but not as strongly as with Laoshan blacks.

This isn’t bad for a straight tea, but it does not deliver on the French toast flavour or banana at all.

TTB 2025 – This one isn’t as flavorful as the other Dessert By Deb blends I’ve tried so far. I get a bit of banana with a hint of maple syrup, but I don’t get anything resembling french toast.

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.

Currently sipping on this at work! It’s super subtle with the banana which I do enjoy. I wish there was a bit more of the french toast element but with a touch of maple skinny syrup and made into a latte it was super yummy!

Inkling Advent Day 8. I’m so lucky to get to try all these Dessert by Deb teas – I’ve seriously gone to her website a dozen times considering making an order and never have, so this is the perfect sampler. The factor that has kept me from ordering her teas is that I prefer teas with heavy flavoring, and I got the impression that that’s not how she blends tea. From the ones Inkling has generously shared with me, it seems that impression was correct. Like the others, this one tastes mostly like black tea. I also taste a bit of green banana, but no maple or baked elements. And this flavor profile would seem to call for a more baked type of banana, not green. This was still pleasant (maybe my favorite from Deb so far), just not exactly what I’m looking for.

Had a mug of this at work this morning. It was quite mildly flavoured without much banana at all, though I did get a nice hint of maple. Even though the absence of banana was disappointing, I did really appreciate the brisk malty taste of the black tea. It was, perhaps ironically given the concept of the tea, kind of like drinking a super modestly flavoured English Breakfast.

2022 Spring Tea Swap – Day 11
From Emilie!

This smells like actual dried banana, not banana candy! Not only is the flavoring spot-on, but the base tea is delicious. It’s proving to be perfect for breakfast. I have to say, I’m so impressed with the Dessert by Deb blends so far. I’d been on the fence about placing an order, but I think it’s inevitable at this point.

So not technically a sipdown just yet, but I’m setting aside the rest of this pouch to send to an Instagram friend who is interested in banana teas. So, future shipdown! Or swapdown? :P

The banana here is nice, I like the banana flavoring that Deb uses as it tastes like actual bananas instead of Runts. But there’s not a whole lot else going on, other than the sweetness of the maple. And I don’t really like the black tea that Deb uses, I find it a bit bland but also tannic, sort of the worst of both worlds ha ha. It’s not overly tannic, but enough to dry my mouth out a bit, and it just doesn’t have the strength of flavor to balance that out.

So meh, nice banana but otherwise not my favorite. Slightly too sweet for me as well.

Iced Latte Sipdown (206)

This was good as an iced latte. The banana came through very clearly with some French toast sweetness. It was an 8 oz serving so I wasn’t bored by the French toast flavour and mostly could focus on the banana.

odd one out here…banana flavour seemed artificial to me. Will need to try it again when i can pay more attention to it