Aug 31
Jamie’s Teaview Snapshot
 | "Overall, the vanilla is creamy and sweet and the green tea base lends a little extra mild sweetness and is a surprisingly good match. "
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A big fan of vanilla, I wanted to try this tea based on the name alone. So it was interesting to me to find a green tea as the sample base. I was surprised as I've never thought of green tea combined with vanilla. I tend to think rooibos or black teas would be the base in a vanilla tea.Be that as it may, when I took a deep preliminary smell of this tea sample, I was pleased with the results and ready to try it out. The base is an organic Japanese green tea. It looks to be a sencha, (though with more the coloring of a Chinese Dragonwell) with long, medium, short and bitty pieces of green tea, nicely flattened and rolled. There are visible chunks (nice quarter inch pieces, some of them!) of vanilla bean in the tea, sourced from Madagascar, Tahiti and Indonesia, also organically grown. Along with the obvious vanilla pieces, there are some straw colored twiggy and thready bits throughout the tea that look to be there for aesthetics. The smell of the tea is distinctly vanilla, and very inviting.
I looked around the website for some information on brew times and amounts to brew and found the website annoyingly lacking in that regard. I found it curious, as well, that while a price for the tea was included at the website, a corresponding ounce or gram amount was not available. For example, this particular tea costs $24.00. Whether that's for three ounces or one, I can't say. I took a cruise around the website trying to determine whether a standard sized tin or package is used, which I would imagine to be the case here, but couldn't find the information!
On to the tea itself. I opted, without more information available, to use one tablespoon of tea to our 24 ounce infuser pot. I heated our water to 175 and steeped three minutes for a first infusion. I used no sweetener for the first infusion. This treatment yields a lovely glowing golden liquor. The green tea is very mild and the distinct vanilla overlay is quite enjoyable. It's not cloying or artificial tasting. Just very vanilla. The tea has a nice bright taste with a mainly vanilla flavor that lingers a bit in the mouth. There are lots of nice vanilla bean speckles at the bottom of the cup. I think this tea would be well appreciated by someone a little shy of common green tea taste attributes. The green tea taste I found nearly imperceptible. Given that this is a flavored green, that didn't seem to be a strike against it in this case. Naturally, a vanilla lover should enjoy it pretty well.
My husband and I infused a second pot of the same leaves this time adding less than an 1/8th teaspoon of powdered stevia. I let the infusion linger five minutes. This is a tea I think benefits from just a bit of sweetener. Shawn immediately pronounced that it tasted like a cream soda, and thought it would be delicious iced. I think I concur. The sweetener brings the vanilla to a peak and this tea is lovely cold. I let a cup cool on the windowsill before coming back to it and it is really fine cool/cold. Overall, the vanilla is creamy and sweet and the green tea base lends a little extra mild sweetness and is a surprisingly good match.
I'd confidently recommend this tea to anyone enjoying flavored greens or vanilla or to someone looking for a drink at once sweet and refreshing for summer or anytime. This could be an interesting pairing for dessert, as well. And do try it cold or iced, if you enjoy your tea that way!
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August 31st, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Sounds delicious!