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My dad is one of those people for whom all tea tastes the same. On occasion he can tell that he doesn’t like something (for example, he really didn’t like camellia flower tea). Somehow that didn’t stop him from wanting a piece of my haul from the Coffee & Tea Festival. So I gave him most of my H&S samples of this tea (oddly enough, they were giving out the same samples last year). I also happened to have an extra tin of this lying around, so I added that to the pile along with the Tarlton Green that I picked up special for him. Three days later, my dad comes back to me saying how much he loved one of the tea samples I gave him and can I get him more. Of course he had forgotten the name but when he described it I realized it had to be this one, so I got to be all “I already gave you a whole tin and you didn’t realize it. So there, I’m that good! Bwahahaha!” Ok, maybe I didn’t actually say bwahahaha, but I was totally thinking it.

When even my dad finds a tea distinctive, I had to give it a try. The cinnamon is definitely dominant here. It tastes like cinnamon sticks, not powder. It’s also weirdly juicy. I know there isn’t any blackcurrant in here but I could swear I’m picking up a tinge of it. There’s a sweetness here that’s very much present but not overpowering. After a few sips, I realized what this tastes like – it’s dead on for red hots!

This is vaguely in the same flavor family as Della Terra’s Cinnamon Diletto, which I hated. That one tasted like Big Red gum. My problem with it was that the sweetness was off somehow, almost aspartame-like. I can’t stand the taste of aspartame. Here, though, the sweetness is more sugary and meshes very well with the cinnamon. I can’t make out the black tea base, but it’s possible that the base is also holding the flavors together better than the rooibos base in the Cinnamon Diletto.

Overall, this tea is more liquid candy than tea. I can see why a non-tea drinker (non-tea-drinker?) would like it. I find it tasty enough, but I do prefer being able to taste something of the base. It’s also a bit too sweet. I love the lingering strength of the cinnamon though.

Like many black teas, this one hurt my stomach. I’m giving my last few sample sachets to my dad and calling this a sipdown.