In my experience I’ve found that people either love or hate carrot cake. As for me, with my enormous sweet tooth, I’ll enjoy a slice of carrot cake any day, but that’s not always the case for others. What? Carrots? Cake? Who’s sneaking vegetables into my dessert? I can understand the dichotomy.
Whether you love carrot cake or not, it’s hard to resist trying a tea flavor as bold and unusual as Frosted Carrot Cake from A Quarter to Tea. From the beginning, these tea leaves have a lot going on. This is a genmai cha-based blend, so sencha green tea and gold puffs of toasted rice are available in abundance. Beside the rice there are actual carrot pieces in the blend, as well as raisins, and dried pineapple. Ginger and cinnamon balance out this ingredients list and bring their usual baked-good-charms to the flavor palette.
The most impressive part of this blend is the vanilla frosting element, which actually tastes a bit tart and tangy like real cream cheese. This isn’t just plain-old vanilla flavoring, the specific carrot-cake cream cheese frosting is alive and well in this cup of tea.
This is a green tea, so mind your temperatures and steeps times, no matter how delicious the cake aspects smell, take out the teabag after a few minutes to avoid any bitter undertones. The frosting notes get more prominent as the tea cools.
Believe it or not, this tea does taste like carrot cake, even without sugar or milk, the fruits and veggies in the tea leaves bring enough natural starchiness and sweetness to make this blend feel full and decadent.
If you love carrot cake, you’ll love this tea. If carrot cake isn’t your style, give this brew a chance in the name of good fun, you might be surprised by how tasty carrot cake and tea can be.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: A Quarter to Tea
Description:
A cup of well-spiced carrot cake accented with raisins and pineapple for sweetness and a sweet and tangy cream cheese frosting.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Plum Pear Green from the Pekoe Sip House
I couldn’t resist giving Plum Pear Green tea a try from the Pekoe Sip House. It’s nice to see a tea featuring these fruits. I feel as though both plum and pear don’t get enough love in the fruit-flavored options of the world. There’s plenty of peach and strawberry teas and candies, but not so many for plum or pear.
This tea did not disappoint, and even the dry leaf was fragrant with mellow plum fruit flavors. The stone-fruit taste of plum and apricot reminded me of some of my favorite oolong teas, with their trademark smooth earthy and fruity tones. The pear comes forward with the green tea taste, both a bit nutty and grassy at the same time.
This tea is best brewed while following the instructions, with cooler water and a two minute steep time. To further bring out the fruit’s nature sweetness, consider adding a touch of honey to you mug. Or give this tea a try as a cold brew and mix in a few fresh pear slices to dress it up.
This blend is juicy and fruity, against a savory green tea backdrop. There’s a lovely buttery mouthfeel and the crisp-sweet note of pear on the aftertaste. The blend isn’t too candy-like or over-flavored, but it’s also not too boring. The plum and pear are nicely balanced in the overall palette of the tea and make for a very comforting, drinkable cup.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Pekoe Sip House
Description:
A gentle blend of green tea with the flavors of fresh pear and soft sweet plum.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Vanilla Cupcake from the True Tea Club
It’s hard to resist a tea named Vanilla Cupcake, especially on a day when you just need something cute and sweet to brighten your day. This tea smells surprisingly fruity alongside the vanilla cake flavors, reminding me of fruitcake or banana bread. In a world of frosting-flavored, cake-themed tea blends, the amount of fruit flavors and fruity ingredients makes this blend stand apart.
The orange and papaya coupled with the vanilla, make this feel more like an orange-glazed sponge cake. Yum! The banana chips add their own full-flavored sweetness, but there is distinctly less of the traditional “frosting” taste, so if you want the extra creaminess, you should add a splash of milk to give the blend that dessert-like twist.
Because this is a decaf rooibos blend, it would be a perfect choice to brew up for a girl’s tea party. Who wouldn’t want a sip of a tea called vanilla cupcake? You could even serve it with real cupcakes and make a day of it!
In addition to all the fruit pieces in the tea, the leaves have at least two types of flower petals which makes the blend especially pretty to the eye. The bright and varied colors seem especially festive if you imagine this tea blend not just as a vanilla cupcake, but maybe as a “birthday cake” cupcake. This is a great blend for any day that needs a celebration.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Roobios
Where to Buy: True Tea Club
Description:
This Vanilla Cupcake Rooibos provides an exotic and smooth rooibos which provides a velvet-mouth feel. A dash of Banana chips amplifies this infusion into a heavenly status.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Let’s Go Bananas! Banana-Themed Teas
Tea with bananas? That’s crazy, right? Or maybe it’s just crazy delicious. Let’s take a look at five banana teas I’ve tasted lately.
Grilled Spiced Banana from A Quarter to Tea – Let’s get started with the weirdest banana tea I’ve come across. Not only does this blend feature bananas, but it also uses smokey flavors to convey the “grilled” part of Grilled Banana. Brewed, this tea is shockingly creamy, much more like banana creme brule than any overpowering smoky lapsang souchong. The hint of smoky adds a nice savory note to the sweet banana, like the tasting the sweet-salty shell of fried ice cream. This is a total underdog combination of flavors, and they really come together.
Banana Peach Green from 52Teas – This green tea is smooth and sweet, with some very forward peach flavors on the smell and taste. The creamy, tropical banana comes through on the aftertaste, rich with real-fruit flavors. No banana-candy flavors here. The nuttiness of the tea makes the aftertaste of this blend feel smooth and comforting, like banana bread.
Bananas and Custard from Bluebird Tea – This tea can seem mild at first, with little fragrance in the dry leaf, but when this green tea is brewed at the right temperature, something magical happens. When brewed this tea truly smells and tastes like banana cream pie. It nails the fruity, starchy banana flavor, and the creamy-yet-tart vanilla custard. The gentle nuttiness from the green tea helps keep this centered, but there are plenty of banana-crazy dessert flavors to go around.
Banana Split from A Quarter to Tea – There’s a lot going on in a banana split, there’s vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream, and sauces like marshmallow or pineapple, and the bananas and whipped cream of course. This white tea is sweet with strawberries but creamy with bananas and has a touch of the starchy, real-fruit banana flavor. This blend is sweeter than the others thanks to all the strawberry, but who wouldn’t want to taste an ice-cream-themed tea?
Monkey Chops from Bluebird Tea – Wow, what a name! Monkey Chops has a tart ceylon black tea base with added vanilla flavoring and banana pieces. Even without milk this brew has plenty of creamy notes and smooth banana flavor, strong enough to compete with the bold black tea base. This would be amazing with a splash of milk or a dash of cinnamon sugar.
Love them or hate them, banana teas don’t come along every day so it’s worth getting a little crazy and giving them a try!
Firewater from Pelican Tea. . . . .
Firewater from Pelican Tea gets its name from the addition of hot habanero peppers to the tea. But hot peppers aren’t the only unusual ingredient, this solid black tea also has toasted brown rice, an ingredient that is usually found in green tea genmai cha teas.
I always like to get a whiff of my tea leaves before I brew them, but I was a little nervous about sticking my nose in the bag this time. Would I get a noseful of hot peppers and run away sneezing like in the cartoons? Well, I got lucky, this tea smells savory and earthy and a bit like baked bread from all the starchy brown rice, but no burning or sneezing.
I let the leaves steep and took in the scent of the brewing tea. Still no bite of spice, just more toasted cereal tones from the rice, and a robust black tea. Taking a sip, I finally get a glimpse of the hot peppers. At the back of each sip there is the slightly smoky, chipotle flavor of habanero peppers, and a warm burn of capsaicin down my throat. It’s not so spicy as to be unpleasant, but it is definitely a distinctive experience. All the forward flavors of the tea focus on the nutty, roasted rice.
This would be a great tea for those who like rice in their tea, like in genmai cha. Or this would be a winner for those of you who like the spicy soup sipping broth products out there. The brown rice and earthy black tea take over most of the flavor palette in this tea, but the passing flame of hot pepper spice with each sip makes this something special.
All in all Firewater is a really unique blend that would be a fun gift for any lover of all things hot and spicy.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Pelican Tea
Description:
The original Pelican Tea, and an instant classic. Habanero-infused Orange Pekoe black tea and toasted brown rice contribute to an unpretentious blend that’s as comforting as it is spicy.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!