Pumpkin Pie Flavored Black

I had a cup of this for breakfast. It had a very nice true pumpkin flavor with a nice clovey taste, but it was just very light. The dry leaves definitely smell stronger than the tea tastes, and I just wish it had a more bold flavor. Still a nice cup, though. Thanks Ninavampi!

-Dry blend has medium size black tea leaves with pieces of cinnamon and clove.
-Dry leaves smell strongly of cloves. Tea liquor aroma is of warm cloves and cinnamon.
-Tea liquor is a clear orange brown color.
-Warm pumpkin pie flavor with a subtle cinnamon finish.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Good tea. Subdued flavor of real pumpkin pie.

I love pumpkin, we have covered this, pumpkin pie is one of my favorite pies, and tea is one of my favorite drinks, so how could the combination possibly go wrong? Well, let me tell you.

This tea was decent, it was aromatic, smelled like real pumpkin as dry leaves and steeped tea. Now, anyone that has cooked/baked or done pretty much anything with real pumpkin knows just how bitter pumpkin can be. This unfortunately was all over the tea. It was a strong (and unfortunately bitter) pumpkin flavor with an inkling of cinnamon. The cinnamon flavor was almost completely lost instead of being complimentary and the bitterness of the pumpkin prevailed in flavor.

This tea was taken hot with sugar, perhaps more sugar and/or milk would have helped to mellow the bitterness and help blend the tea together more. Oh well, next time.

Overall, I do not think the tea was bad, it was quite good actually, it just missed “pumpkin pie” mark. It did hit “pumpkin” dead-on. Alas, my pumpkin tea search has ended, but the pumpkin pie tea search continues.

Mike: “It tastes like cardboard. It should be called cardboard spice.”

Not sure what the others thought of it.

Brewed in Big Glass Teapot

I finally get to try 52 Teas Pumpkin flavored black. Very excited. Took a break from cleaning my room and I am enjoying every warm sip.

This is some seriously good pumpkin tea. In my top 3 pumpkin teas, much better than Twining pumpkin chai and a close second to David’s Tea Pumpkin Chai. It tastes a little more like pumpkin pie spices than pumpkin but it still tastes like pumpkin which is what makes it so awesome. I had it with a little brown sugar and a dash of cream.

Getting to the bottom of the cup, that was fast. I wonder how the leaves stand up to a second brewing.

Now I gotta try Frank’s other pumpkin teas. I have his Earl Black coming in the mail and can’t wait.

Opened the package and it smelled wonderful! The spices (and cinnamon) are just right, not overpowering. Slightly sweetened, with milk, this is a treat for a rainy day.

This tea smells like Autumn. (Pumpkin spice tea has always been my favourite thing about the season.) I would have liked a little strong spices, but I’m a chai fan. Otherwise, it’s delicious.

I made this my ground hog order because I wanted something different. I love dessert teas and I love savory teas so my theory was I should love this. Dessert (pie), check. Savory (pumpkin), check.

After getting all hyped up about this, my expectations were shot in the tea cup as soon as I looked at the ingredients. Pumpkin is never actually mentioned. Could that be covered in “natural flavors”? Maybe. But if something is mentioned in the name of a tea, I like to see it listed in the ingredients.

The raw leaf smells like pumpkin pie. I just hope the cinnamon isn’t too strong… cinnamon can be a very selfish flavor.

2.25g/6oz water just below boiling. Hmmm… that’s interesting, a lighter liquor than I was expecting and more red. It smells almost exactly like the raw leaf which is good, but it doesn’t smell like a pie was just taken out of the oven.

Wow… I can barely taste the cinnamon! While that’s good (I was hoping for more pumpkin and less pie or spice), I can also barely taste the pumpkin. I can taste it, but I’m not sure I’d be able to name it if I drank this not knowing this was supposed to be a Pumpkin Pie flavored tea. I’ll try preparing it like a chai next time.

So I read through the tasting notes this time BEFORE I brewed the tea, looking for some comments on brewing so I didn’t screw this one up like the Strawberry Zabaglione from last week. so 200F for 3 minutes it was.

Even with that, there is something that I do not like in this tea. I can’t really taste the pumpkin and I can tastes the correct pumpkin pie spices in the late part of the sip and the aftertaste, but something hits me up front with a bang on each sip that really is not to my fancy. If I drink it really fast, it is decent, which is good because I have another 400ml of this to drink but on the whole, I don’t really like this tea.

Despite the fact that my cold is still wreaking havoc with my tastebuds, I decided to give this tea a try. I will reserve judgement until I can fully appreciate it, but for now I’m pleasantly surprised. I brewed it for almost 5 minutes, and I was worried that it might be bitter, but it’s not. I don’t think I would really recognize the flavour as “pumpkin”, rather than just spices that are often used in conjunction with pumpkin, but it’s pretty much what I expected.

The tea is a medium orange colour, and the smell is quite strong—like wintery chai spices, but with something kind of posing as pumpkin underneath (unfortunately, it seems quite artificial). Again, my sense of smell is a tad off right now but I feel like I’m getting a pretty good sense of what this blend is like.

I’ll reserve real judgement on this until my senses are clearer, but for now I’m pleasantly surprised. I don’t love it, but it’s about what I expected.

Love this one as a hot tea latte. It just screams “AUTUMN is here!” Our tea latte recipe is on our website too!