We’ve had a lot of rain this week, so I’ve found myself craving this tea quite a lot – not surprising since I’ve essentially trained my body to want this tea during heavy rainfall. It’s practically a tradition, at this point.
As far as the infusion goes, this really just tasted like fruity potpourri – in the same deliciously awful way it usually tastes. However, I think it’s VERY worth noting that in measuring out the tea leaf for this cup I found a GIANT piece of vanilla bean. That’s fucking cool! I mean, I know there’s like a million ingredients in this tea and I vaguely remember vanilla being one of them – but I’ve never actually seen vanilla in the dry leaf before (and I’ve had a lot of cups of this tea) so I’ve kind of always assumed it was like a vanilla flavour!?
Vanilla pods are fucking expensive so it was cool to see such a GIANT chunk of one in my infusion. There must be a really low percentage in the overall blend though, because this was a pretty darn cheap tea to pick up from the local to Regina store I bought it at; which I know selects their teas through the catalogues of several larger vendors (the more hands a blend passes through, the greater the mark up – everyone wants to turn a profit).
For there to be any significant vanilla in this blend, it would 100% be selling for more than what I paid for it given both the cost of vanilla as an ingredient and the mark up from the retail location purchasing from a bigger vendor…
Nifty, though. I wish I would have taken a photo.
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Roswell, we use a LOT of vanilla in my house baking all the time so I have been making homemade vanilla extract for years now. Last year, I was so upset that my $20 pack of beans had gone up to $55 but I bought it anyway. Last weekend, I used those beans to make four vodka fifths of vanilla with an extra fifth to top it up and also refreshed the bottle we are currently using. I had $175 invested in my ingredients and made $540 worth of vanilla extract, not counting the topping up which probably brings the value to more like $800. It is CRAZY.
Truly! It’s probably one of the most expensive ingredients that a company can blend into their tea at the moment – hence my shock in seeing such a large piece of it! Probably about two CM long? I picked it out of the steeped leaf, when it was softened, and split it open to scoop out the insides. Very cool!
Neat! I wonder if you could stick it in some sugar and make vanilla sugar with it? It might be scented with your tea, though, but that could be good!
Roswell, we use a LOT of vanilla in my house baking all the time so I have been making homemade vanilla extract for years now. Last year, I was so upset that my $20 pack of beans had gone up to $55 but I bought it anyway. Last weekend, I used those beans to make four vodka fifths of vanilla with an extra fifth to top it up and also refreshed the bottle we are currently using. I had $175 invested in my ingredients and made $540 worth of vanilla extract, not counting the topping up which probably brings the value to more like $800. It is CRAZY.
Truly! It’s probably one of the most expensive ingredients that a company can blend into their tea at the moment – hence my shock in seeing such a large piece of it! Probably about two CM long? I picked it out of the steeped leaf, when it was softened, and split it open to scoop out the insides. Very cool!
Neat! I wonder if you could stick it in some sugar and make vanilla sugar with it? It might be scented with your tea, though, but that could be good!