So, I’ve had this blend in the past and evidently (going by my rating of 38) I did NOT like it. I tried to find my old reviews, but gave up sorting through all eleven pages of reviews – this is where some type of search function for rating would be a really beneficial feature…
I decided to try this one again though because it’s been years since I last had it and what I did have was blended by Frank – so I thought that my tastes have probably changed a lot, but also Anne’s approach to blending might be quite different than his recipe. I can’t remember if she stuck very similar to his OG recipe.
Whatever the case may be, I found myself really enjoying this cup! I actually had Maltesers pretty recently, and while drinking this tea I found myself impressed with how well that malted milk chocolate flavour was coming across! Yes, the mate tea base is pretty distinct but the chocolate/malt combo and creaminess is PERFECT as an offset to it! I don’t often love chocolate teas, but I loved this one. Maybe part of that is also that I just understand how to better steep yerba mate now? Or that the taste of it is less offensive to me in general?
Doesn’t matter – the tea was good, so I’ll take it! Bumping my rating to reflect my thoughts on the current Anne formulation of this tea vs Frank’s version.
Unrelated to this tea, but still loosely tea related…
I got promoted! Yes, again. Though – I don’t know if everyone saw my last note about getting promoted, since it was in a tasting note that I posted during the massive Steepster Freeze a few months ago…
Anyway, my new title is “Research and Development Lead – Tea”.
My previous title was “Tea Specialist”. A lot of people have asked me what that means in terms of what I’m doing for work, and my answer to that is that I’m still figuring that out. While I’ve been working in R&D since starting at the head office about two years ago, I’ve also had roles in the Quality Control department, helping with hard goods testing, and in Social Media, & most recently (over the last few months) I’ve had my hands in even more cookie jars, taking on various roles in Quality Assurance/Regulatory, Marketing, and Copy Writing in addition to what I was already doing. Some of those things I’ve enjoyed being a part of much more than others. We’ll just say I’m very well rounded across many departments…
I’m excited to hopefully be passing off some of those roles to new people though, and to take on more direct work with R&D – that’s obviously where my interest lies the most! Anything to get me more hands on with tea make me a pretty darn happy tea drinker!
