More Low Brow Tea Pairings: TastyKake Butterscotch Krimpets

Some time ago, I wrote about a couple of tea pairings with Pop-Tarts. In the same spirit of perversity, I have decided to try a similar experiment with pre-packaged snack cakes.

Now I wish to make it clear that I do not endorse the consumption of pre-packaged snack cakes. I also realize, however, that some may still wish to consume said foodstuffs, so this begins my series in which I shall attempt to best match these cakes with tea.

Snack Cake: TastyKake Butterscotch Krimpets

Contender Teas:

Yunnan Gold Silk from Dream About Tea: This is a spicy Yunnan Gold with a nice hit of sweetness. (DAT’s online store is not up yet, but they will be happy to help you with a purchase via phone, email, or even a visit to their shop.)

Ceylon Kenilworth from Narien Teas: A tasty, refined Ceylon with some citrus notes.

Mountain Malt from The Simple Leaf: An assertive  yet smooth Assam with malty, biscuity notes.

The Tasting: TastyKake is a Philadelphia-based company that produces snack cakes with an intensely loyal following. The Butterscotch Krimpets are a simple sponge cake with butterscotch icing on top.

The first contender was the Yunnan Gold Silk. The spicy/sweet tea offered a nice counterpoint to the smooth butterscotch, and the tea did a splendid job of clearing my palate between bites.

The Ceylon Kenilworth is a delicious tea, and I thought its lemony notes would work well with the butterscotch cakes. However, I found that the flavors did not mesh together. In fact, both flavors seemed to want to “ignore” each other on my palate, resulting in an odd aftertaste consisting of vanilla/butterscotch duking it out with some muted citrus. Disappointing .

The Mountain Malt Assam was a better pairing than the Ceylon, but because of its biscuity/malty notes, it actually was a bit too similar to the cake to create the any real contrast or to act as an effective palate cleanser. I thought this very strange indeed, but realized that Assam is perhaps better at clearing the palate after, say, a breakfast of bacon and eggs than a sweet cake.

Winner: Much to my surprise, the Yunnan Gold Silk was the best pairing with the Butterscotch Krimpet. The spiciness of the tea provided a nice balance to the sweet butterscotch and plain cake, and the tea proved most adept at cleansing my palate between bites.

Affiliate links in this post?: Yes.

Tagged as: assam, butterscotch krimpets, ceylon, tastykakes, tea, yunnan gold