Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
Because the love for this tea is so strong, we stuck closely to the original recipe. One difference is that we’re utilizing different teas in our black tea base. I think you’ll notice the difference and I’m confident you’ll feel this was a change for the better! We’ve made a really yummy thing even better!
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about the Tea of the Week Program from 52Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
Well hello there! It’s been a long time, no see! It has been a hot minute since this Dodo has written anything in the world wide tea web about tea. Just to catch anyone up, I have started a new job, and it is that job that has made this little bird a bit apprehensive about writing any reviews. You see, I now work with the tea company, Tealet. The curtain has fallen, and the inside of the tea world looks quite different than it did on the outside. Taking everything I learn with a grain of salt, I think I can safely begin reviewing teas at perhaps an even more subjective perspective than before. (Cracks neck) Now I am ready to get back to work!
On to the tea! This is the first tea that I cracked out of the re-blend sampler pack I receive as my kickstarter rewards. This was the one I was most excited about. Upon opening the package, I get a strong whiff of the flavors. Maple at the forefront, light and fluffy buttered pancake at the bottom. At first whiff it smelled like the black tea base was cowering in the wake of the flavoring.
Steeping the tea, the black base does get to shine through a bit more. It’s a robust cuppa, very suitable for a breakfast setting. A dash of cream, no sugar, and you get more dessert flavors from the maple and the black tea. The flavoring themselves are quite strong, maybe a little too strong for me. Even so, they pin down hot, fluffy pancakes, buttered and drowned in syrup so well I almost don’t care.
This tea is quite good. I finished my sampler bag in three days! I would highly recommend it to anyone who needs a quirky twist on your plain, old, worn out English Breakfast. Two for you, 52Teas, you go 52Teas!
Potato Pancakes & Applesauce Green Tea (Holiday Series: Hanukkah) from Butiki Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Butiki Teas
Tea Description:
Our Potato Pancakes & Applesauce tea pairs our buttery Organic Huangshan Mao Feng with generous potato pieces and crisp apple chips. Plain, this tea is thick with potato notes up front followed by apple and cinnamon notes with some buttery notes that peak through at the end. As the tea is repeatedly sipped the buttery quality will become more apparent. The weighty body adds to both the potato and applesauce feel. Since this tea is on the lighter side, we recommend drinking this tea at a warmer temperature. For stronger potato notes we recommend adding a very small amount of salt; however, this may diminish the applesauce notes. For a sweeter applesauce, we recommend adding a tiny bit of sugar; however, this may reduce the potato notes.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Wow! This Potato Pancakes & Applesauce Green Tea from Butiki Teas (part of their holiday series in observation of Hanukkah) has to be one of the most unique tasting teas I’ve yet to encounter! I figured it would be when I requested a sample of it with my order, however, I still find myself in AWE of how truly unusual this tea is. Unusual, yes. Unique, certainly. But it’s also really good!
I can’t say that I’ve ever tasted the combination of potato pancakes and applesauce before. I’ve had these two foods separately, but never together. Until now, that is, as I sip this tea. And I really can taste both the potato and the apple in this. Yes, that’s weird, but it’s weird in the yummiest way imaginable.
The green tea base is light and smooth. I note no bitterness or astringency here. Just a crisp taste. It doesn’t even taste overly vegetative or grassy. Really, the strongest “vegetable” note that I taste here is that of the potato, and that tastes somewhat thick and starchy. It’s not a heavy flavor though. I suppose if I wanted the potato to taste stronger, I could have added a pinch of salt like the above description suggests, however, I didn’t want to obscure the apple notes so I decided to go without salt or sweetener here and just experience this tea without additions.
There is a buttery creaminess to this as well, and this melds beautifully with the potato. The apple is delicate and sweet. The cinnamon accentuates the apple nicely without bombarding the blend with a strong cinnamon presence. The cinnamon is added at just the right amount here, because it doesn’t taste distinctly “cinnamon-y” … instead, it makes the apple taste like applesauce, which is exactly what I think Stacy at Butiki Teas was going for (since the name of the tea is Potato Pancakes & Applesauce).
I love it when I find a tea like this: one that delivers exactly what is promised in the name, even if the name seems a little crazy! And yes, the idea of a green tea that tastes of potato pancake and applesauce does sound a little crazy (maybe even more than a little crazy), but again, that’s a crazy in a very delicious way.
Well done!
On The Fifth Day of Christmas, 52Teas Sent to Me …
This is another tea I was fairly certain would make it into one of the coveted spots of the 12 Days of Christmas sampler. This one has been a huge hit, it has even been reblended a couple of times and it manages to sell out quickly. (In other words, if this is a tea you want to try, I recommend getting to 52Teas NOW and buy one of the revived in-stock pouches, because, they will not last long.
For the 5th Day of Christmas, 52Teas chose this tea …
PANCAKE BREAKFAST FLAVORED BLACK TEA
This tea has been a big hit on Steepster. And for good reason. It’s not only incredibly good … it actually tastes like pancakes that have been topped with butter and maple syrup. It is pleasantly sweet (but not too much), buttery, maple-y, and there is a bread-y, cake-y kind of taste in there that gives it the pancake-like taste.
This is one of those teas that is best served warm, and it is a rich, satisfying tea so I think it’s fitting that it was chosen for a Sunday tea. It’s one of those teas that you want to reach for after sleeping in a bit.
If you’d like to read my review of this tea from earlier this year, click here. I really don’t know what else I can say about this tea that I haven’t already said, except that this is one that you need to taste to believe. It’s remarkable.
Pumpkin Pancake Breakfast from 52Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Product Description:
After creating our Pumpkin Cheesecake blend last week, I was bitten by the pumpkin bug, and reminded of the delicious pumpkin pancakes my wife likes to make. As popular as our pancake breakfast tea is, I thought this could be just as popular–a Pumpkin Pancake Breakfast tea.
Here is the essence of pumpkin pancakes, drizzled in warm maple syrup and topped with a touch of fresh creamy butter. (To our vegan friends, I assure you this is still 100% Vegan, and we only use natural flavors–something of a miracle, if you ask me, but a delicious miracle.)
Taster’s Review:
As I sit here typing, this tea is in my mug which is placed right in front of me… and the aroma wafting out of the mug is irresistible. It smells so good that my taste buds seem to be focusing all their powers to make my hands stop typing and start sipping.
And … YUM! Yes, of course, yum. This is 52Teas we’re talking about. Frank is the “Willy Wonka of Teas.” I am sure that he’s working on some fantastic blend that is a 3 course meal all in itself.
But in the meantime, I’m blown away by this Pumpkin Pancake Breakfast tea. It really delivers what it promises: the flavors of pumpkin, pancake, butter and maple syrup are all there. Yummy! Plus, of course, I can taste the flavor of rich black tea.
The black tea base that Frank uses is a blend of Nilgiri and Assam teas, and it provides a very solid backdrop for the unusual blends that Frank dreams up. However, I have noticed that with some of the blends – more so than with others – it comes across as slightly bitter. And that is the case with this tea, so I recommend caution when brewing it, start out with just 2 minutes (or 2 minutes 15 seconds) and adjust according to your own taste. I brewed this cup at 2 1/2 minutes, and I think it could benefit with a little less time. It is still very flavorful, and I’m not getting much bitterness here, but, I can sense that if I steeped it even 15 seconds longer I would have a bitter cup.
As it is, though, it is rich and flavorful without being too bitter. Next time, though, I think I shall brew it for just 2 minutes.
I enjoyed my cup straight up and found that it is pleasantly sweet on its own. I then tried it with a little sprinkling of turbinado sugar and found that this brought out some of the maple-y tones a bit more which was nice. I think next time I try it, I shall try a drizzle of pure maple syrup and see how delightful that turns out!
At the time of this writing, this blend is sold out. I hope Frank does decide to reblend it for those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to try it, because this would make the PERFECT tea to serve with breakfast on Thanksgiving morning!