Toasted Nut Brulee Oolong

Sipdown! I realized that with this cup that this tea had in fact gotten a little stale. I was surprised because it was one of my newer Teavana teas and I have others that are as fresh as when I bought them. This one lost most of its cinnamon awesomeness in this last cuppa. Overall I enjoyed this tea, but I do feel mislead by the “oolong” label. It has a large amount of rooibos in it as well. I felt this was tasty; but not a staple.

Sipdown no. 145 of the year 2014.

As I am hopelessly behind on the daily sipdown project, I am now adjusting my goal to keep myself on an average sipdown of 1 per day, and as it is the 98th day of the year, I’m still in pretty good shape. I keep hoping that as things settle down I’ll be able to establish a new habit, but the problem is lately things have not been settling down.

Today I even ran out of the house without my Timolino, which was tragic. I had a slice of bread with peanut butter in my hand which I wolfed down in the car. Wolfed being the operative word, because it felt as though it stuck in my chest on the way down. It was really uncomfortable and I had nothing to wash it down with so I had to stop and buy a drink at the closest gas station.

But having now gotten through two training sessions and a couple of phone calls, I am taking a break to have some tea. I forgot, somehow, that this had rooibos in it. Now at sipdown, I’m remembering—because it appears that a lot of the rooibos sifted down to the bottom of the tin.

As I’ve mentioned, this doesn’t taste bad, it’s just weird and not very oolongy. It’s sort of a smoother, lighter version of the Constant Comment flavor profile, right down to the orange. It actually reminds me of the “tea” my mother made for my father when he had a cold, which was essentially some cinnamon sticks and clove and a touch of lemon. I can’t now remember whether she just boiled these up in water or whether she added them to Lipton. Either way, it wasn’t a particularly subtle flavor but also not horrible.

This is actually pretty flavorful and not at all offensive. I just get no oolong at all in the flavor, and the toasted nut brulee name baffles me. I think it should be called orange cinnamon cardamom. Wouldn’t you know, Teavana still carries this one. Figures.

Today, while in the mall, I traveled to Teavana to pick up a tea that, turns out, was discontinued-which fully explains why I had never heard of it and was so intrigued. (Holy Run-On Sentence Batman!) Nonetheless, I decided to aid digestion in a cup of the old favorite. I asked for it hot and “slightly sweetened” which usually means a lot less sugar than was put in here. I am not criticizing, I am just saying…

For this store made brew, I am afraid I have to almost change my rating, it did not taste nor smell anything like I remembered. It was strangely sweet, smelled like oatmeal – an oaty, sugary, cinnamon and raisin kind of smell. The flavor was sweet and slightly and I mean very slightly spiced with cinnamon, but that’s it. This really reminds me of snickerdoodles, the butter cookie with cinnamon and sugar and that’s about it…sigh, this is not what I remembered at all!

To make sure I was not crazy, I went home to dig through my cabinets to see if I had any remaining and try and figure out what was amiss. I had enough for one small pot (this is a bittersweet moment, I had enough to quiz and question myself, but was able to finish off another tea). The pot I made at home was much more like I remembered: some almond flavor, some coconut, spices from cinnamon and cardamom, nothing at all like what I just had in the mall!

My infusion was three minutes, hot, no additives. The store was three minutes hot, slightly sweetened. Could “slightly sweetening” with the German Rock Sugar really do that? I guess so. So, fellow Steepsterites, I do not really know if this proves anything, but what I do know is do not sweeten this tea, it kills the flavors and undertones that you should be enjoying and almost killed a perfectly good rating.

For now, I will chalk the change up to the sweetened version and keep my rating for the version made at home. If you do give this one a try, I cannot stress enough to try it on it’s own before adding anything.

My perplexity with Teavana, and more specifically, their marketing department appears to be growing.

With a name like Toasted Nut Brulee Oolong, I naturally expected this tea to taste like nuts. The problem is there is so much else going on here: roobois, apple, pineapple, coconut, cardamom. The flavors are conflicting and the tea is schizophrenic. To me it seems more like it should be called a tropical tea? In any event, it is at least drinkable and not unpleasant.

Can anyone recommend a flavored oolong that really does taste like nuts?

Teavana! Where are my big beautiful oolong leaves?

You can tell the first time I had this I hadn’t had much experience with oolongs – because this was disappointing and not at all what I was expecting. I now expect an oolong tea to be creamy and milky, and something I’d want to resteep again and again. This fell flat. There was no milky. No creamy to be found. At first taste, there was nothing…then there was a little bit of a nice nutty flavour and sweetness in the aftertaste. That’s it. Nice, but underwhelming. :(

After having something as concentrated as DT’s Brazillionaire (which if you love nuts you should try, because, well…nuts) this tea kinda tastes like nothing special.

And I really wish Teavana would start putting in more leaves and less tisane, please.

It occurred to me that I can’t be completely uninterested in oolongs, since I like this one. I got home from work and running errands today totally beat. All I wanted was a nap. Barring that, a decent cup of tea. But not something too caffeinated, but nothing herbal. And none of my new Christmas teas, since those are on a self-imposed off-limits until (you guessed it) Christmas. So I returned to an old standby favorite, remembering that it was oolong to see if I had the same sort of unenthusiastic reaction to the tea that I had to the DT Vanilla Oolong.

And I didn’t. I quite enjoyed it. It hit the spot very well indeed, which leads me to wonder if the DT Vanilla Oolong wasn’t just a victim of poor timing on my part. I’ve been wanting dark, malty teas in the morning ever since I got the DT Assam Banaspaty, and an oolong just wasn’t going to cut it. So the DT Vanilla Oolong might go back on the shopping list for another, better timed try.

So, this tea? I tasted cinnamon. I think. Not just unidentifiable spicy warm flavor, but cinnamon. I’m going to be crushed if the first flavor note I think I’ve ever authentically identified without prompting or without guessing at it turns out to be wrong. Something just said “cinnamon”. So I may be developing a bit of a palate after all.

My friend who came over and drank The White Wolf with me today brought this tea with her! She bought it while at a convention and had not been to a Teavana before. I had forewarned her! She let them over pour the first tea but then out her foot down with the next two.

She made this at home and was disappointed with it. She said she really didnt get the flavors she thought she should have, so I made a pot for us to share. This time she really liked it. I showed her that there is very VERY little oolong in this. I saw lots of rooibos (but thankfully didn’t TASTE lots of rooibos) and the usual plethora of flavoring bits you find in their tea, but not much TEA.

It was, surprisingly, a very drinkable cup. I would have to say that the cinnamon was the dominant flavor for me, not like Hot Cinnamon Spice from Harney but still in the forefront. Next came the nut flavor and burnt sugar with vanilla. This would be a great tea for a holiday party to appeal to non-tea drinkers. It came off as very sweet but there was no rock sugar in it – we checked!

Grabbed a cup of this while at the mall. My wife was getting her eyebrows done….so I treated myself to tea. A good call I think. This one is pretty good. The cinnamon just about knocks you over. I could also pick up the apple and caramel. However there was just a funky aftertaste that I had with this one. I think it was pretty good and think my mom would love this one for Christmas or her birthday. I think they should rename it cinnamon bun instead of toasted nut brulee.

I received this tea in a swap with Ottawa Tea… thanks!

It smelled like cinnamon in the bag, sweet and spicy at the same time. 195/3 min (plus another minute afterward because it was too weak)

The scent and flavor remind me a lot of Forever Nuts, however, in order to achieve that, I used nearly double the amount of tea than I normally do. I’ve found that some of Teavana’s teas just have so much stuff in them that the tea to stuff ratio is seriously off and requires adjustment. This tea is no exception.

Hot, it tastes of apples and cinnamon, but as it cools, it takes on more of a nutty sweetness, like an apple crumble or apple cobbler. It’s quite good, but I don’t think the cost it would take to produce a pot of this (with needing to double the tea amount) would be worth it in the long run.

I got this in a coffee and tea exchange, along with wonderberry truffle and superfruit unity.

When I opened the bag, it smelled extremely cinnamony and spicey. Not really what I expected from the name. There were big, delicious looking pieces of nuts in there. After steeping,it smelt very toasty and nutty and more of what I was expecting. I think I didn’t use enough, because it was a bit weak, but the flavors I was getting were lots of cinnamon and a definite toasty, nutty flavor.