Marshmallow Macaron

Oh boy …. I was not expecting to like this at all. This is something I never would have bought for myself but was generously given a sample by the lovely Ost.

I love this! This is surprisingly something I might like to purchase, especially during a holiday sale. I had it hot and thought it tasted like a berry rice krispies treat. It was so nice as an afternoon tea when I was feeling snacky and would of course make a wonderful nighttime dessert tea.

Just FYI, I didn’t taste the hibiscus right off the bat but could taste it on the second steeping (although, I never took the bag out on the second cup so….yeah).

I have a confession to make… I went to Teavana today. Hangs head. I was at the mall with my mother and sister and we were walking by the store, so I figured might as well. Actually, I’m glad I did go in, because I picked up a couple of cute little tins (http://www.teavana.com/tea-products/tea-storage-tins/p/pompom-tea-tins) at half price! So worth it! As usual, the salesperson was annoying and overzealous about trying to get me to taste all of the samples. And of course, when I picked out a couple of teas to buy, he wanted to give me 2.7 ounces when I said I wanted 2 ounces. No sir!

Anyway, this tea. It smells wonderful and sugary, just like it should. I was in for a big surprise when I took the first sip… HIBISCUS. It was so tart! The flavors that I could taste underneath the tartness were good, but it was hard to focus on anything other than the hibiscus! I don’t even understand why anyone in their right mind would decide to include hibiscus in a marshmallow flavored tea. Those two things are pretty much complete opposites! Are these people crazy?! Rage rage rage.

So anyway, after that I spent a while picking all of the hibiscus petals out of my two ounces of this tea. We’ll see how it tastes after that another time.

Teavana, you are on my shit list! >:(

Extra Note:

Trying 4 tsp and 2 sugar cubes, added 1 afterward- the tea was a bit more bitter, but in a nice way- the taste of some island fruits/tartness though did overcome most of the sweet tones. This time it tasted more like the Wild Orange Blossoms herbal tea (by Teavana). Maybe less steeping time? Maybe I’m letting too much of the bottom of the tealeaves (in the infuser) seep into the cup?

Any advice?

From the Herbal TTB…

Okay, smells like marshmallow…hmmm. I did not look at the ingredients list until I went to log this, and then I noted Flyawaybirdie’s comments about the papaya. Sitting here with the log window open, preparing to sip…

From the Herbal TTB

I probably should have looked at the ingredients first. Yikes. I’m not even sure which ingredients it was, but something in here just turned me off immensely. But really, why would you put hibiscus OR papaya in a Marshmallow blend? I dumped the cup. I did not like.

One reviewer nailed it when they noted this tea tastes like angel food cake! That is precisely the taste I get, angel food cake with fresh fruit drizzled across the top! Stepping aside from my feelings on Teavanna for the moment, I do love angel food cake with fruit so this tea was like a low blow from the corporate behemoth. I have to take off points for the added pink dye however, it disappears completely from the second steep leading me to believe it was there in the first purely for effect. Still, for a dessert tea, this is quite tasty…

I received this in the Herbal TTB today. I’ve had it before and I wanted it again! I can taste the coconut, marshmallow and a bit of cream. It’s pretty much the same as before. (Okay, that shouldn’t be a surprise!) I’m enjoying it but I’m not swooning over it. I’ve had a few other macaron teas that I have swooned over. :)

This tea has a much stronger smell than taste, which I’m fine with because the aroma is INTENSE! As other reviewers said, it smells like cake! The flavor is a little more difficult to pin down, but it’s creamy, fruity and a bit floral. It’s VERY sweet on its own, and doesn’t need any additional sweeteners (and I usually add a bit of sweetener to everything!).

Since the flavor is fairly subtle, it mixes well with more fruity teas. I tried it with a strawberry-flavored mix in the store, and it was lovely. I can imagine it would work really well with pineapple, too.

I’d recommend this tea, but for me, it’s not an everyday tea. It’s more of a late night/dessert tea that I would have every once in a while.

I had a the pleasure of getting a free cup of this when I made a recent visit to Teavana to restock my favorite blend.

Anyway, it was brewed with some unknown amount of their ever-so fancy “German Rock sugar”. Generally, I prefer sweetened tea. The first sip frankly took me by surprise. The taste was crazy sweet and came in multiple complex hits. At first, you sip and get a very mild vanilla+tea flavor. Then, you taste a split second of marshmallow, which blends beautifully with vanilla… It’s all good, but then within milliseconds the taste shifts dramatically to a carmelized/maple-y flavor that I suppose is supposed to be emulating macaron. At this point, the last hit, the tea is almost sickeningly sweet. The last hit tastes quite artificial, and it lingers.

Still, it keeps you coming back for the first half of the flavor hits, especially that tiny hint of mellow marshmallow. I ended up finishing it in the end, but I definitely wouldn’t be able to drink more of it. Over the next couple of days, I sort of missed it…

This tea tastes like cake. Angel food cake to be exact. It does smell horrendously sweet though, which I had to get past at first. I actually had to leave the room while it was steeping because the smell was just too much for me!

But once I got past the smell, which mellows considerably once the tea is steeped, I did really enjoy this taste. It’s definitely a sometimes tea though, rather than one I would drink often. I can see how this could cure a sweet tooth in the evening, because seriously… cake.