La Vanille

My second time making this tea I used the shorter recommended steeping time and it turned out much better. There are pieces of vanilla bean which stand out amongst the pulverized tea leaves. I drink it with milk and honey as it is recommended by Lupicia as lending itself well to milk tea. I like Harney’s Vanilla tea better but this is a fine vanilla tea as well.

Day 3 of the Lupicia advent calendar. This calendar is beautiful but it’s also chaotic and I can’t decide whether I like that or find the inconsistency frustrating. Day 1 had a single pyramid sachet. Day 2 was loose leaf. Now day 3 has something like 5 pyramid sachets. No clear rhyme or reason! Maybe they’re just using the calendar to clear out dead stock, so the format and quantity depends on what they’ve got enough excess of? We shall see how the rest of this shakes out.

As for this specific tea, it’s a vanilla-scented Ceylon black tea. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt my stomach, so good news there. Helpful for trying to narrow down what I can and can’t safely drink. I did eat beforehand and had this with a cinnamon roll as a precaution, but precautions didn’t help with Carol so… if I was smart, I’d just pass on the black teas, but I’m stubborn and want to try all the advent teas! I tried this with no additives and found it fine but not great. The vanilla feels more like just a whiff of vanilla during the sip, though it does linger pleasantly on the palate. It’s a nice, pillowy vanilla, with no weird edge or aftertaste to it. The base seems pretty nondescript to me. It’s astringent, and sort of generically black-tea-flavored, if that makes sense. This did pair well with a sweet dessert, though! I can see this being well-suited to being an accompaniment to dessert after a hearty meal. Next time, I’ll try it with a splash of oat milk.

I woke up this morning in a panic, convinced I was late, and thinking it was even the wrong day.
Gah. Dont know where, but it was a frantic five minutes.
Now, on to the tea!
I got both Vanilla and La Vanille when I put in my last order. I quest for the perfect vanilla tea, and I was interested in comparing and contrasting.
First up, in loose format, this is tiny. Granules instead of leaves, with the occational fragment of…. vanilla bean? Maybe?
This has not got nearly enough vanilla to please me, and an oddly bitter undertaste, which is not enjoyable. Its not so bitter that its undrinkable, but I am mightily disapointed.
Next time I’ll do a back to back test of this and Vanilla, to see what the difference actually is!