Salted Toffee Blondies

A sipdown! (M: 3 Y: 57)
This tea, accidentally stayed with me after last TTB. I am sure I wanted to add it in, but it was forgotten on my desk; and then the box was already packed. Sorry anyone who wanted to try it!

Also, not in my Steepster cupboard anymore… but a sipdown is a sipdown, removing from my stash system successfully and real cupboard is also a bit emptier.

To the tea… well I haven’t changed my opinion too much. It was like rooibos genmaicha to me, not much of black tea; and actually tasty and roasty. However, nothing of toffee / salty though.

TeaTiff Traveling Tea Box | No. 37

I think it’s so unique to see toasted rice mixed in with a black tea. I’m not a big fan of green tea, but I love the aroma of the popped rice so this is a treat. I was hoping to enjoy this more based on the way it smells in the bag, but it didn’t quite meet my expectations. I’ll say that there was a slight toffee flavor for me, but I would never have guessed blondies. I think for me the flavor could have been stronger. I do love the idea though!

I actually really enjoyed this blend, it had the toastiness of a genmaicha in a black and rooibos blend. It was very subtle but with a bit of sweetener and milk, it was super yummy.

Iced and with salted caramel cold foam this was bomb. So good! Rich caramel flavour. Just awesome!

First Tasting note on Steepster:

I had about 2-3 Dessert by Deb teas before trying this one and think that this is one of the stronger ones. I started out having this one straight and the puffed rice note- toasty and sweet- was the first thing I got. I looked on Deb’s website and she recommended having it as a latte and I agree that this is much better that way. I added a tiny bit of honey and a tiny bit of brown sugar to the tea before adding warmed full fat oatly. I think that now it tastes like caramel covered popcorn, which is absolutely ok with me.

Another rooibos blend, so although the flavour sounds good, I expected not to like it. Unfortunately, my assumption was accurate. Not really a fan – the rooibos is not terrible but I just don’t find it pleasant, and although I got the “salted” aspect of this tea, I couldn’t really taste the toffee. Just not a blend that worked for me, although I’ll give it a whirl as a “latte” later to see if that helps.

I feel like I’ve had this same tea several times before from Deb… Butter Toffee Cream, Maple Butter Shortbread, Salted Caramel Pancakes? All sort of butter-caramel flavored with black tea and rooibos, with or without coconut. They’re not identical, but they all taste very same-y to me.

So this is very similar to the above teas, heavy on the butter and maple sugar with woody rooibos notes. The toasted rice does add something slightly different, but it’s also somewhat overpowered by all the sugary bits (this blend has maple crystals and brown sugar AND honey).

It’s too sweet for me, and I’m a bit bored of this flavor profile from Deb at this point. But thank you, Deb, for the free sample with my order!

I got a bunch of tea samples in the mail this afternoon and just finished adding them to my cupboard, so now I’m gonna try and just enjoy a few different cups of tea over the course of the day…

I have to say, I’m really not sure how the popped rice is supposed to translate into the taste of this tea. It’s a really prominent toasted rice taste that immediately takes me to Genmaicha territory. I guess it would make sense if this was like a “Salted Toffee Genmaicha” but as far as I can tell from Deb’s description it’s meant to just taste straight forward blondie with caramel? I thought, maybe, that the roasted quality might be intended to replicate the taste of caramelized/burned sugar but if so it doesn’t do a good job – it’s just too much of a stretch…

With that aside, I’m enjoying the tea though! It’s mildly flavoured with the familiar and cozy toasty nuttiness but also notes of coconut and a little bit of a light sugary sweetness. It’s better as it’s gotten colder, in my opinion – the sugary sweetness feels deeper and a bit more caramel like and the roasted rice has settled some. It’s not really like its namesake, but it’s good! And so I think going forward I’ll just mentally enjoy this as a loose “Toffee Genmaicha” in my head.