Milk Caramel

The third Lupicia tea that I tried from my recent order.
I kept telling myself I’d hold back and wait to finish some older teas before digging into these, but I was too damn excited. I have zero restraint at the best of times, to be honest.

This was the first one to disappoint me, sadly.
I’m not sure where the caramel is?

I added some milk, which brought out the creamy aspect, but really I was just tasting a toasty green tea. Perhaps there’s an underlying sweetness that one could attribute to caramel flavouring, but I am not that one.

Maybe different steeping parameters would make a difference.

It also doesn’t help that to me this tastes a lot like Harney and Son’s Tokyo, which I also bought recently.

And which I haven’t reviewed yet, but did try, and found the caramel taste to be lacking from that also.

Thus far, my favourite caramel flavoured green tea is still the one from Persimmon Tree.

I shall keep messing with these other two though, lawd knows I have enough!

If anyone would like to try this, hit me up. I was so excited to taste it after reading other reviews, but I feel as though I’m definitely missing something.

Courtney compared it to Nina’s Japon in her review, and strangely enough I also found that one to be suspiciously lacking in caramel taste. Maybe my tongue is broken where caramel is concerned. Or maybe I’d notice it if I tried sweetening these teas.

Ah well. So far the only disappointment from my long awaited Lupicia order!

Backlog from last night….

After the issue with the Cheesecake Honeybush last night, I wanted to try something else from Dexter, but still low in caffeine, and I chose this. I wanted to try this one to see how it compares to the caramel houjicha I have from Bird Pick. I’d say they are similar, but where the BP one is more roasty toasty, this one is smoother. It’s really a quite nice tea, and I like them both, but for different reasons. This one was a little more caramel and less roast.

Tea #7 from the Traveling Tea Box C Round 2
Yes, this is the second TTB for the night. More will come soon. I’m planning on doing a cram of TTB teas in the next few days since I realized that I’ve had this box nearly a week and still have a pile of teas to try. /shakes fist at work/ I’ve already weeded out a few that I was just kinda interested in trying but won’t lose sleep if I don’t Lol.
Smelling the brew reminds me of genmatcha with that roasted rice sort of smell. But really giving it a good whiff and thinking about it it turns into a buttery caramel smell. Maybe salted caramel.
Tastewise I get hay. Sweet, clean, but hay nonetheless. And watery. Maybe I needed to use more than a tsp for the 8oz? Dunno. Vaguely get something that could be caramel. But definitely not what the smell would imply.
Adding a bit of truvia made it sweeter, toned the hay down a bit so it’s more background and not foreground, and kinda made the caramel come up better. But it’s still weak so I’m inclined to believe I underleafed this one.
But drinking this makes me curious about other hojicha. Since it’s a green I wasn’t that interested in trying it. But it seems like it’s closer to a roasted oolong in taste, so I might consider giving others a shot.
This one however, was just so so and not something I’d order.

Of course, when planning a DavidsTea lunch stop, one must also stop by Lupicia. :)

I really wanted to pick up some momo oolong, but they’re still out, and for some reason I got it in my head that I wanted to try the melon oolong (probably steepster’s doing!), but I also saw this tea, remembered something vaguely positive on steepster, and bought it. Heehee!

I really enjoy toasty teas, including genmaicha and roasty oolongs, but I only had houjicha once, and I think it was before I really could appreciate it. This tea totally delivers. It’s sweet, like burnt sugar, and toasty, like a roasted oolong. It actually reminds me of Della Terra’s caramel oolong, which I quite enjoy. And it’s cheaper! Score!! Now, it’s not like an ooey-gooey caramel, so don’t expect that and you’ll be fine. I didn’t add anything, although I think it might be interesting to see what a splash of almond milk might do. I am currently enjoying the second steep, and I’m happy to say it’s resteepable. Nice!

This is fantastic. LOVE IT. Toasty, roasty, caramel, desserty, yummy, oooyyy – goooy good.

Thank you so much ifjuly for sending a sample of this my way.

I over-steeped it this time, but it’s still rather good. It’s very roasty and sweet and creamy, and I can definitely tell it’s a green houjicha tea. I like it. I don’t know if I’d drink 50g of it, but I do like it when I’m in the mood for it!

Thanks Kat_Maria! (179)

This is interesting – I bought this with very low expectations, as it sounds so generic – I mean, caramel this or caramel that seems to be in everything – it’s hardly a novelty.

Then again, it’s Lupicia, so I absolutely had to try it.

In the bag, this is a boozefest – a very liqueurey caramel, which really does veer far closer to hazelnut. I think this would have been the potentially fatal flaw of this tea – the blend of sweet, thick dulce de leche caramel and the roasty houjicha adds up to something very close to hazelnut/walnut/whatevernut tea, as it is generally presented in much lesser (yes, I mean German) blends.

But even though the flavour is very familiar, Lupicia take it to another level entirely. This is what really does it for me with their teas – they never feel disgusting or wrong in any way. I have never had a green anynut-flavoured tea that didn’t make my throat slightly itchy as the liquid cooled, or that wasn’t thick and oily from the leaf. But this one? No – every sip is clean and smooth, all toasted nut caramel. Even cold, the dregs of this are beautiful. I’d latte the fuck out of this one if I could.

I don’t want any of the other nut teas anymore (coconut, you are exempt and may go back to your seat) because this is all I’m going to need. (And I haven’t felt like that about anything since, say, February 2012 or so.)

[From my Lupicia order to Rome, April 2014.]

Thank you Kat_Maria for sharing this with me. Surprisingly, I am not loving it. I mean, Milk Caramel sounds AMAZING but is really just okay. To be honest, I am actually thankful to have found a Lupicia blend that is mediocre because I don’t think my wallet could handle it if they were all amazing!!

I realized I said nothing about this tea. Whoops, fail. It is essentially a very mellow hojicha with a buttery smooth caramel flavor. Also, it is getting better as it cools, though I still feel as though something is missing. Perhaps it is because hojicha is roasty, thus reminiscent of a genmaicha, and the caramel flavor is making me want Japon. Not bad, but not amazing either.

and the Lupicia obsession is continuing…

I’ve always liked hojicha for its natural roasted type flavor. I think this is the first time I have tried a flavored hoji.

I used boiling water and steeped this for two minutes. The natural roastyness of the hoji is definitely there and I am getting sweet caramel notes too. The element they call “milk” is a bit more like “cream” in my opinion. I am drinking mine more as a latte with a generous portion of soymilk added. Once again I made a total mess with the milk frother but that’s ok. :)

This is a nice option for afternoon/evening because it’s lower in caffeine than a regular green tea. I think the flavoring in this is fairly subtle which is ok with me. It seems well done for a dessert tea but I would not say I am raving over it.

Backlog from last night.

I had been really curious about this houjicha, especially after I smelled it. Because it smells exactly like a milk caramel – with this sharp lactose sweetness. Kind of like Werther’s Original ;D I am always really excited about houjichas as well. They just seem so unique.

The prepared steep didn’t offer much flavor in the caramel department, however. It was sure an excellent houjicha and if you focused enough and closed your eyes, you could perhaps sense some milk caramel notes in it. But I must admit that I expected slightly more pronounced flavoring, especially that, as I was drinking it, I could have easily imagined how well houjicha would go with caramel notes.

The second steep was stronger on the roastiness and perhaps revealed an itty-bitty more of milk caramel sweetness. But then, again, maybe I was just imagining it.

It’s a very good tea, just not necessarily what it promises.