Pineapple Upside Down Cake is a black tea blend that tastes just like the name. This tea blend comes from Della Terra Teas, an online loose leaf tea seller.
FYI – Della Terra has AMAZING and creative black tea blends. They do other teas, but the bulk of their lineup is black teas. Their chocolate teas are very chocolately and their marshmallow teas are extremely well done! Della Terra also has lots of good sales – for last black friday, in my opinion, had the best deal going out of all the online tea sellers.
(I’m a tea nerd, I write the steeping times on the tea package if it lacks one.)
Pictured above is the 1oz sampler size of tea from Della Terra.
DRY LEAF: Strong scented tea! Pineapple Upside Down Cake smells sweet and like cake batter. Interesting!
Mmm, lots of nice pineapple pieces to nibble on!
STEEPED: Classic dark brown black tea look. Smell? Bit of a black tea smell, but with cake vapor steaming up. Mmmm, is my tea steeping up a cake? I steeped this at boiling for 2 minutes.
Hoot? We don’t see a lump of cake in our tea cup, but it sure smells like cake!
TASTE: Buttery and cake taste up front which are played up by the black tea. This tea clearly tastes like yellow cake batter to me! End of sip, I can taste that caramelly brown sugar flavor – that melted oozy top of the upside down cake. I also get a little bit of creamyness at the end that lingers as an aftertaste. I taste a little bit of pineapple when the tea cools. No bitterness or tart in this tea.
I added a bit of rock sugar to the remainder of my pot. In my experience, adding a little rock sugar often perks up fruit flavors.
With rock sugar, the pineapple totally comes out – a fresh pineapple taste soaking in caramel. The caramel flavor pops out brighter as well. However, with rock sugar, the yellow cake flavor goes into the background. Very delicious – just like pineapple upside down cake! I think german rock sugar might do a bit better with this tea to match the brown sugar caramel flavor.
COMMENTS: I like the yellow cake taste, but if you want the full experience of Pineapple Upside Down Cake tea, you need to sweeten it to make the pineapple flavor pop.
I’ve had a few cake teas before (mostly DavidsTea blends) and this one has the strongest cake flavor out of all of them. Very well done Della Terra!
Overall – this tea is dead on pineapple upside down cake. DEAD ON! Don’t believe me? Go order some and see for yourself! Order some Eight Candles, Smores, and Lemon Chiffon while you are at it too. Just saying.
