You know, there’s a legitimate reason as to why I haven’t written a tasting note on this yet. The first couple times I had it, it was slightly different so I thought I’d hold off, but here I am, what, ten months later without a tasting note because it’s still ever-so-slightly different every time I have it.
When I first got my glorious DF group order package, this one immediately stood out as I was going through and sniffing all the pouches. It is so creamy and lemony, truly like lemon meringue pie. I just knew I was going to love it, so silly me did the opposite and didn’t drink it for months, hoarding it. Classic Swedish Chef.
I recall the first couple times I had this, it was a little disappointing. The creaminess wasn’t quite there and it was more lemon sorbet or something. Tasty but not as lively and bubbly as the scent of the dry leaf.
Then the most amazing thing happened when I tried this again a couple weeks ago. I steeped it, took out the basket, then walked out of the room for a while. When I came back, I thought, huh, I smell something baked. Bready. Is someone baking something down the hall? I’m used to smelling interesting things coming from my neighbours in the apartment so I was so sure it was that. But wait, no? I also smell candied fruits so it kind of reminds me of a cake, maybe? Toasty cake? I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it is, then I realized, I smell freaking Panettone. In the middle of February. We finished ours just after Christmas and I doubt people still have some now (although the Italian grocery store not too far still has some, I’ve noticed). I know you’ve figured this out already a long time ago where I’m going with this, but it ended up being this tea all along. What I find so fascinating about it is that this is Venice we’re talking about here, so colour me freakishly impressed.
By the way, that cup unfortunately didn’t taste like Panettone, but like creamy lemon.
Fast forward to yesterday, I almost wrote a note on this but didn’t. Yesterday’s cup caught my attention in a different way. Expecting to taste creamy lemon, I got caramel heavily competing with the lemon? Where did that come from? And yes, I just double checked the ingredients list now and see that there is supposed to be toffee in here. Totally forgot about that!
And now, today’s cup is back to creamy lemon with a more obvious meringue note. It’s lemon meringue pie without the crust. No caramel, but maybe it’ll come through more once this cools more even though. I steeped this about twenty minutes ago so we’ll see.
It’s a refreshing change from the other Noël teas, perhaps because a couple of them in the series share multiple notes in common with other DF teas, whereas this one stands on its own.
