Cinnamon

Thanks so much for Tamm for sharing some of this with me!

So I store all of my tea swap samples in the same box, and I just noticed recently that all of them smell like Hu Kwa (the smoky tea from Mark Wendell). Evidently the Hu Kwa is so potent that it needs it’s own humidor or something.

So this morning when I went to go try this out I swear I can taste some smokiness in this tea but I don’t know if it is my imagination or what. As others have noted the cinnamon flavor is very subdued here so this isn’t a choice if you wanted something that was going to taste like cinnamon gummy bears. It really is more of an herbal-y cinnamon and I also like that you can really taste the flavor of the tea underneath (a Chinese black – perhaps a Keemun?)

I did enjoy this, but I’m not going to bother rating it due to my fears of inadvertently getting the Lapsang Souchong aroma in there… we shall see what happens with the other samples.

Not sure what possessed me to buy this one. I do like cinnamon but it’s a sort of a second or even third tier flavor for me behind chocolate, nuts, fruits and vanilla. I think I probably thought it would be interesting to taste a tea where the primary flavor was cinnamon (without any others in the mix) and also to see how Kusmi managed this one.

Since I originally put this into my shopping cart, though, I’ve had two cinnamon black teas, so curiosity 1 has been satisfied. That leaves me with curiosity 2.

In the tin, the cinnamon smell is rather subdued. It isn’t red hot strong like the H&S, and it isn’t cinnamon stick strong like the Adagio. It’s really just a hint, but a nice one. The tea’s aroma is a similar, subdued cinnamon.

Interestingly, this seems to me to be one flavored black tea where less really is more. Though I found the various Kusmi chocolates and the bourbon vanilla too quiet and disappointing, I prefer the less in-your-face cinnamon flavor of this to the Adagio by quite a margin.

Like the Adagio, it’s a more herbal version of a cinnamon than the H&S, and it doesn’t have a candy sweetness. Unlike the Adagio, the tea seems to be steeped in a cinnamon fragrance, rather than to be a base to which cinnamon has been glommed on heavy handedly. It works.

It may even work, for some purposes, as well or better than the H&S (a much stronger flavor, a much sweeter flavor, a much candier flavor). It really depends, I suppose, on what you are looking for in a cinnamon black tea and since I tend to like stronger flavors I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this.

Still not sure I’d buy more than one cinnamon tea for the permanent collection, but if I did, this would be a contender.

I can’t believe this is my first time logging this tea! I got this as a wonderful gift from Angrboda. I think the more teas I try as samples/gifts from Kusmi the more I want to place an order. The almond and strawberry are very, very tempting. I must also admit that I love their tins. They look amazing!
This tea is so warm flavor wise. I only steeped it this time at 3 min. so I didn’t get hot-lips flavored tea. This tea is perfect by itself, but my favorite thing to do with it is to make wassil with it. I just make the tea with hot apple juice instead of hot water. It tastes AWESOME! I really like the flavorings of the Kusmi tea and like others, I actually steeped it at a lower temp. than other blacks. This really helps the flavor out.