This wonderful sample came from TastyBrew!
Alright, so I could smell this one right through the ziplock, and boy what a smell! Cinnamon (sweet not spicy), sweet almond, buttery baked good notes…oh man, it’s all here. I’m trying to resist just eating it and all the almond bits in here. Why, Stacy? Why must you tempt me so?
Throwing it in the pot, pouring the boiling water, and now I’m just smelling it as it brews. The scent of this one is making me hungry.
This has much the same scent profile as it did dry, except that maybe the buttery baked notes are peeking in a bit more. The almond is sweet and strong (not too strong, though), and the cinnamon is also sweet and prominant. Drool.
Ok, now to the best (?) part of the tea experience – tasting it!!
Based on the smell, you’d think the almond and cinnamon would make for one cloyingly sweet tea. This is not at all the case. Though it is sweet, it’s a nice balanced sweetness. The nuttiness of the almond has emerged more in the brew, while the sweetness is a little more subtle. The cinnamon notes aren’t as strong as they were in the smell, but they are still around adding a sweet, warming aspect to the cup. The buttery cookie aspects seem to be mostly gone, but I do catch them here in there at the back of the sip. The black tea base has also decided to emerge after brewing, giving a off a mildly earthy/black tea element to the middle of the sip.
Overall, I really enjoyed this one. Almonds are probably my FAVORITE nut (almond M&M’s anybody?)and I love me some cinnamon in tea. I wish the buttery notes I had gotten in the smell had translated a bit more readily in the cuppa, but overall I was very pleased. I think for the next cups worth I have, I’m going to add just a smidge of sugar and see what happens. But as this one stands now, I could see myself ordering some.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I heard the mailman…
Thank you, TastyBrew for parting with a bit of this yummy blend!
