Sorry for the delay in posting my longer review of the October offering from handmade tea. Life has been crazy, been traveling, etc.
The joy of handmade tea begins the moment you receive the package. I have the full monthly subscription which means every month I receive both the tea and the palate building ingredient samples. (If you want to try handmade tea for less $$ you can get a smaller subscription without the ingredient samples.) Handmade tea is a great fall-blend. The ingredient samples that are included are African Black Tea, cinnamon and ginger root, and allspice. The spices that were included are whole (as opposed to gound powder) and are the exact ingredients that are in the tea. I’m not entirely sure that I knew what allspice smelled like exactly until I got this tea.
After smelling the ingredient samples I smelled the dry tea. I really like the ingredient samples because I’m not sure I would be able to pick out the different ingredients. Not only can I SMELL the ingredients in the blend after smelling them on their own I can also SEE them in the dry tea. As an aside, now that I have familiarized myself with these samples I can now much more easily pick out the flavors in other teas.
As the tea brews I can smell the cinnamon and the ginger. At the first sip I get a slight pepper essence from the black tea base. The cinnamon, ginger, and allspice flavors are all PERFECTlY balanced. I have had some cinnamon blends that were like drinking red-hot candies – the opposite of this. I LOVE THIS TEA. I really think this is a perfect fall tea. I am already more then ½ way thought my 3oz and I DO NOT want this sample to run out.
