Salted Caramel Mate

One of our cats woke me up, kept me up, throughout the night bringing me small toys and proudly, loudly, announcing her great achievements one by one. So, needless to say, I needed caffeine this morning. A maté and black tea blend seemed like just the thing. Plus, it’s another sipdown!

I’m not sure this flavor is still available. I didn’t see it on the Stash website, but it looks like Amazon might still have it. It’s too bad if so – this one is pretty tasty. It reminds me a lot of a cookie dough ice cream. Maybe the caramel is translating into cookie for me. I can also taste chocolate, which now I remember is because there are cocoa shells in this.

This is tea 16/50 I bought in a Stash Assortment. Smells nice. Very light flavor, mostly coffee.

The tea bag smells like other Stash desert teas do, with a twist: it melds that now familiar old yogurt raisin smell with carpet. Clean carpet, but still . . . carpet. What happens when you drop the bag into water? The carpet is wet now. The carpet is wet.
I didn’t really want to finish this. It is not good on the tongue; it tastes like dried out raisins. Sunmaid. But, bafflingly, the caramel aftertaste is pretty true and the smell in the cup is very true. Why it smells weird from further away is a mystery. Why this made it to market is a bigger mystery; it’s gag-worthy.

This tea bag was from a family member’s work. She found it stuffed at the bottom of the wrong tea box. So it’s quite possibly pretty old.

Tasting Notes: The cocoa shells come through along with some notes of campfire smoke and wood. The monk fruit adds some sweetness that perhaps for some might remind someone of a dessert. Although I don’t get dessert from this cup just sweetness and roasted earthy and smoky flavors. It is a pretty interesting tea just not what you would expect. The chocolate notes with the sweetness and complexity of the other notes I would say that this could be considered a dessert tea for some but it would be a chocolate perhaps with some salt.

I would drink this myself occasionally but it’s not a tea I need to have in my cupboard per say. This tea is quite tricky to describe so it’s best to try it on your own and form your own opinion of it.

Delicious! Satisfies my sweet tooth for sure.

I love this tea so much. Granted, I’m a bit of a sucker for salted caramel, and I was very happy when that flavor combination became widely popular a few years ago. I believe I discovered this tea last year on the shelf. It is one of my go-to teas in the autumn and winter. It smells heavenly. The flavor itself is a little flat if you steep it in too-hot water, but when you get the combination just right it’s so soothing and perfect. I’ll honestly drink it any time of the day or night – especially if it’s bitter-cold outside or rainy. It’s especially nice if you pair it with a creamer/milk. I do a little glop of almond milk with mine.

Fairly decent overall. Brewed up light and sweet – mostly a weak chocolate flavor but some salted caramel flavor in the background. This is probably one of the best desert flavored teas that I’ve encountered, still I highly doubt I will be buying more when I finish the box.

GCTTB DAY 1

Second tea I’m sampling today, this one caught my attention because I like Stash teas but I’ve never seen this one being sold in store. The concept sounds intriguing, and I figured the salted caramel theme might be appropriate for the holiday season. I only left the bag in for about 2 minutes because the tea turned dark quite quickly and I can smell a slight herbal bitterness to it (the mate?) so better safe than sorry.

The aroma does smell like caramel, but it’s mixed in with that strange ashy note that I can only assume belongs to the mate. It almost reminds be of the earthiness of puerh, but not the same type, if that makes any sense.

I couldn’t really taste the salted caramel in the tea. It was overpowered by the earthy/herbal notes that gave off a slightly ashy aroma. It was faint, and only in the background. Overall it just wasn’t for me. I didn’t really expect the flavour of mate to overwhelm everything else. I’m glad I at least didn’t leave it for be recommended 3-5 minutes!

The smell of this teabag when I opened the was frankly awful, I’m not sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t something that smelled like spoiled cheese. I almost threw it out right there and then, but I decided to give it a chance. The flavour is tolerable, but not really what I’d call salted caramel. It’s mostly a smokey mate flavour with (very) burnt sugar notes. I’m glad I only grabbed one teabag.

Drank while adding all my teas to my cupboard and eating sweet strawberry candies, which may have influenced the flavor.