Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: The Secret Garden Tea Co.
Tea Description:
One of our bestsellers! Vanilla and a secret sweet ingredient. Fruity and dessert-like, it pairs wonderfully with raspberry cheesecake, almond trifle, chocolate mousse, and other sweet treats.
Ingredients: Black tea, natural flavors.
Learn more about this blend here.
Taster’s Review:
The dry leaf smells delicious with soft notes of vanilla and a fruity, berry essence. The brewed tea smells more like black tea. I can pick up on faint notes of vanilla, but none of the fruity notes that I could smell in the aroma of the dry tea.
I brewed this secret tea in my Breville One-Touch. I added 2 bamboo scoops of the tea into the basket and poured 500ml of water into the jug and set the timer for 2 1/2 minutes and the temperature to boil (212°F).
Mmm! This is tasty. I taste strawberry! I also taste a very subtle chocolate note along with the touch of vanilla. The strawberry is sweet but has that tart berry note toward the end of the sip. The vanilla softens the cup, giving it a smooth and delicately creamy taste and texture. The chocolate is very subtle. There’s just enough chocolate in there to make your taste buds perk up and say, “whoa, what was that? Was that chocolate?”
The black tea has some lovely notes of malt to it. It’s a rich black tea with a medium-to-full-bodied taste. There are hints of flower within the layers of flavor from the tea and it has a certain robustness to it – I think that I could reach for this as my first cup of the day and be quite satisfied with it.
I love the way this tea teases and tempts the palate. I taste strawberry and then it hides from me because the next sip is where I pick up on chocolate. It’s a fun tea to sip. And there is another note in this … almost nutty. I’m not sure if it’s a nuance from the tea or if it’s another secret flavor, but every once in a while, I pick up on a slight “nutty” tone.
After the tea cooled slightly, I could pick up on more of the rich chocolate-y notes and the nutty notes. It’s really quite a delicious and a fun tea to drink. I’m really glad I tried this one!
