Brioche Organic Tea

Miss Stephanie was nice enough to send me a sample of this tea. It’s a fairly famous one around here, and I’ve been curious about it for quite some time. I generally love almond and brioche is delicious, of course! So even though I’m not loving flavored teas as much these days, I was still excited to try this. There are some slices of almond mixed in with the tea, along with those tiny red flower petals that seem to be in every flavored black tea lately. Dry, it smells quite lovely and sweet with a definite almond influence.

Honestly, I wasn’t terribly impressed with this when I tried it straight. Sugar helped a bit. But milk (in my case, vanilla soy) is certainly the secret ingredient here, it makes this taste infinitely more pastry-like and buttery. I can definitely taste the almond, but it’s not a marzipan taste, just nutty and buttery almonds. There’s a little dash of cinnamon, and it really adds a lovely dimension to the tea. I’m almost reminded of French toast, but made with brioche of course! I think next time I’ll brew this a little bit stronger so it’ll stand up to the milk better.

Right now I don’t think I would order this, mostly because I don’t tend to reach for flavored teas as much. Also, I haven’t tried anything else from American Tea Room, and I can’t imagine making an order for just one tea unless it was the best tea ever…

I’ve never gotten the baked bread/pastry flavor in a tea until this, and it’s present here in a big way, and deliciously so. The flavor complementarity is a trip because it is so close to a pastry experience. Or Challah with marzipan (as Boychik called it) cinnamon french toast with maple syrup.

Second steep retains the novelty though with the cinnamon picking up the spiciness a bit in the foreground.

The scent of the dry leaf reminds me of David’s Tea ’ s forever nuts. Taste-wise, it’s a whole different story. I love that I can clearly taste the base. The taste on the tongue is a bit nutty, with cinnamon, it’s good.

But the magic happens when you exhale. All those pastry notes come out to play, and frosting was invited. It’s truly wonderful, like taking a deep breath before the next bite of your warm, sticky cinnamon bun.

mj1851 told me it was "get it in my mouth now* good. Girl, I agree

Ok I’ve just chugged sipped on another cooler cup. Now the taste of the exhale is the taste of the tea altogether. MUST BUY.

This tea is amazing. I drank it with sweetener and frothed milk and it tastes just like a cinnamon roll. Seriously, just like it with the icing and all! So bready and yeasty with cinnamon….mmmmmmmm. How do they do that? This tea is the very best version of having your cake and eating it too because you get to have your breakfast pastry and not get fat.

A sample from VariaTEA. I’ve been wanting to try this for a long time, although I’ve never really had the chance until now. I guess that’s why I’ve been saving my sample! I wanted to wait for a day when I’d have the time to enjoy it. Thankfully, it’s as good as I’d hoped. It smells sweet and nutty straight out of the packet, and this only intensifies as it brews. For a first go, I gave 1 tsp of leaves 3.5 minutes in boiling water, and added a splash of milk. It tastes fabulous — absolutely like a fresh piece of brioche, or an almond croissaint! It’s bready and nutty (almond, mostly), with a hint of milky vanilla sweetness and cinnamon spice. The base is fabulously smooth, and its slight maltiness perfectly complements the bready, sweet notes of the flavouring. It’s one of those great flavoured blacks where it’s hard to tell exactly where the flavouring ends and the base begins. Many thanks to VariaTEA for sharing this one with me. I have enough for a couple more cups, but I’ll be hugely sad when this is gone!

T&C TTB#4: This tea. This tea. I knew it would be trouble just from reading the reviews it’s gotten. I kind of dreaded trying it but at the same time, it had to be tried! Yes. It’s as bad as I thought – yet another tea company that I have to add to the list to buy a tea from! :)

This is amazing. Cinnamon-sugar-cream-pastry-wow!

TTBCr2

I’ve had this tea on my wishlist for a while. It sounded amazing. When it showed up in the TTBC, I was super excited.

The dry leaf smelled heavenly. I love brioche bread. Two of my favorite burger joints use brioche for their buns (no cinnamon, etc.) and I love plain brioche as much as with cinnamon. (I hate when they throw raisins in it. Who does that? Why ruin a perfectly wonderful baked good with icky, nasty raisins?) I wasn’t getting a bready scent from the dry leaf, but that seemed okay to me at the time.

Steeped, it smelled nice and cinnamon. Sip. I’m not getting bread. Where’s the bread? Everyone else talked about bread. Is mine broken?

I’m at work, so I replied to a few emails, tracked down a file, sipped again. As it cooled (by no means cold at this point) I was definitely finally starting to get the bready I was looking for. I did some more work, more sips, more heavenly brioche. Yes, this is a cinnamony brioche, but I’m okay with that. Had what was supposed to be a 1 minute conversation with the team lead turn into a 20 minute conversation, and since my mug was almost empty, I now had pretty much cold tea. This tasted like cinnamon toast that has been sitting on the counter long enough to not be warm, but still delicious. Yes. This is exactly what I was looking for. The cooler the tea got, the more bready it got, and the happier Cheri was.

I admit it, at first I was super disappointed with this tea. By the end of the mug, I was very happy. I don’t know how I want to rate it, though, because while I ended happy, I didn’t start there. I’m not sure how I feel about it when I think about it that way. So I’m not going to rate this. I initially removed it from my wishlist, but I think I’ll add it back on. Maybe this tea was older and had been sitting a while, which is why it didn’t have that bread kick at the beginning? Maybe it’s just me. Who knows?

This is why I’m glad I’m participating in these traveling tea boxes.

Thank you to Stephanie for this sample. It is delicious! I get flavors of raisins, pastry, sweet glaze, a hint of cinnamon. The aftertaste is yummy and lingers a long time. This is one I see myself keeping on hand after I drink my collection down a bit.

This tea is from the first round of the great Canadian travelling tea box. There was only enough for one or two cups so I took it out and threw it in my cupboard as I had been wanting to try it for a while. I am just getting to it now, about 7 months later.

I think I would have really liked this if I had tried it when I received it. But after all of the wonderful teas I have had the pleasure to try in the last year, this just doesn’t do it for me.

I received this as a sample from BrewTEAlly Sweet. Oohh my goodness. The dry and wet leaf smell very similar: spicy-sweet, nutty, and bread-like. Like warm pastries, freshly baked bread. The tea gives off a slightly citrusy aroma, which I believe has something to do with the tea base? Hmm. It reminds me of French toast, with its cinnamon and almond flavors. The predominant flavor, however, is bread. Eggy and sweet and delightful. It has a nutty, sugary finish. It’s a light tea despite the 4 minute steep time. No astringency. A good tea for evening time. (: