Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Cinnamon Tea’

When I was contacted and asked to try the Celestial Seasonings Fast Lane Black Tea, I readily agreed. Celestial Seasonings was the very first company to respond to our inquiries when we started IAATL, and sent our very first batch of teas for review, something for which I will be forever grateful. Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime tea is also the tea that started it all for me, back those ummhurummph years ago, when I was but a wee child of 5 or 6.

Apparently, Fast Lane Tea was, a number of years ago, a tea that Celestial Seasonings discontinued. Since then, the legend goes, fans of this tea have petitioned sufficiently to have it return, albeit for a short period of time! This tea is ONLY available online (at http://www.fastlanetea.com or from Celestial Seasonings Tea Shop in Boulder (see the website for details).

Now, to the tea. This tea is a caffeine packed punch in the gut. With a black tea base from Indonesia, we get cinnamon, eleuthero (a variety of ginseng), licorice, nutmeg, and an EXTRA shot of caffeine! This is the very first time that I have see caffeine actually listed as an ingredient!

The smell is spicy/sweet. I can detect the cinnamon and licorice for sure, not so much on the ginseng or nutmeg however. Brewed up, you get what you would expect, a dark liquor, and almost Christmas Spice-like scent to the tea.

It tastes pretty much what you would expect – not particularly strong, a very middle of the road, spicy with sweet notes of the licorice. It is not an amazing, blow me away Darjeeling/Assam/Ceylon single estate loose leaf tea flavour with complexity, but it is also not a bitter, pour it on the neighbors weeds to get rid of them tea. Pleasant and non-offensive, a little passive for my personal tastes, but certainly of higher quality than you would expect from a bagged store shelf tea!

As for kick? Well I wrote this review in 5 minutes at 3:00am, after drinking the tea at 3pm – what do you think? Seriously tho – I can sense that it does have more caffeine than I am used to in a black tea, but I don’t get the frenetic mind warp and massive crash that I get from a triple espresso either – this would be a great tea to study with – students take note!

Bottom line – while it is not a “don’t miss this tea” it is well blended and will appeal to a wide range of people – keep it in the cupboard for when you need a boost.

You can purchase the Fast Lane Black Tea directly from the Celestial Seasonings website.

Today I decided that I could not resist the call of the Tea Forte Sweet Orange Spice. Tea Forte sent us 2 of their pyramid grande – Sweet Orange Spice, and Hazelnut Truffle. I have had the Hazelnut Truffle before (yummy!) but the Sweet Orange Spice was, well, intriguing.

As usual, the Tea Forte Packaging does not disappoint. There are 6 of their signature Tea Pyramid infusers packed into one large pyramid, with the good old leaf poking out of the top I love their consistency and brand recognition.

The minute I opened up the packaging, I could smell the tea. It took me all of a millisecond to make the association between this and Cinnamon Hearts. For those of you that know what I am talking about (that traditional Valentines treat) you KNOW what I mean, for those of you that don’t – go to the bulk barn (or similar bulk store) find them, and inhale. NOW you know what I am talking about!

The tea brewed up to a nice rich dark liquor. The cinnamon scent was muted a bit, but still there. I got the hint of cloves as well. The real shock came when I tasted it. It hit me like a sack of potatoes – SWEET! Not just the “tasters” sweet, a true sugary sweet. I had to check the packaging, and check my cup to make sure there was no sugar actually added! I never, and we are talking hundreds of teas here, never tasted a tea with this kind of natural sugary sweetness! Because I am a sugar FANTASTIC, for me, it is perfect.

As I run through the ingredient list – Black Tea – check, there but muted. Definitely not the star. Orange Peels – check – background “zest”. Cloves – check, enhancing the overall experience. Cinnamon – BLAM! This is the start of this tea for sure, and I think that the combination of the orange and cinnamon is the source of the sweetness.

As I continue to sip, the sweet all appears to be upfront, but the spice lingers. Top of the mouth, back of the tongue kinda spice, not unpleasant, but very enjoyable. I know that this is marketed as a Christmas tea, but to me it screams Cinnamon Heart, Valentines day tea!

Bottom line – get it, drink it, enjoy it. There is a lot going on with this tea, between the sweet start and spicy finish, but all that does not matter, as it is just a plain old enjoyable tea. Now excuse me while I go and hide the rest of the teabags so I can keep them all to myself!

You can purchase the Sweet Orange Spice directly from the Tea Forte website.

The smell in the bag is soooo good, I could barely get my nose out of the bag to brew the tea.

Nice red color in my cup. The smell is of cinnamon and cloves. The rooibos base is pleasant, not over powering. This is a good caffeine free alternative for night time drinking.

This tea is an example of a rooibos done right, thanks TeaFrog!

You can purchase the Fireside Rooibos directly from the TeaFrog website.

Recently we received a shipment of teas from Distinctly Tea, a company in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. I exchanged several emails with Distinctly Tea, the net effect being a very interesting assortment of samples being sent for review. Among these, one caught my eye personally – the Lapacho Vanilla Chai.

We are always asking the tea companies to send something different – there are only so many “Silver Needle” teas that you can review, and Distinctly Tea has definitely come through on that front. The Lapacho tea was something that I have never before seen, and I have seen a LOT of teas! So I decided to give this one a try.

The primary ingredient (base) is Lapacho Bark – something I have not encountered before. Usually that leads me to do a quick bit of research – but I was looking for something to go with my morning eggs so I grabbed this to try. The scent was distinctly cinnamon and vanilla – two things I enjoy. The sweet vanilla scent was so subtle as to almost not being detectable, but that made it more intriguing, so I brewed up a quick cup using boiling water, and steeped it for 6 minutes.

The liquor was a clear golden flavour, and the scent of the brewed cup was subtly spicy, with no hint of the vanilla after brewing. It smelled vaguely like a spiced indian chai, and indeed, most of the ingredients reflected this, but it was not an overly strong smell, which I believe is a reflection of using the Lapacho Bark as a base.

The taste was very pleasant. Not a hint of bitterness anywhere, and a sweetness from the spicing. Anise stood out to me, with a sweet black licorice undertone, but not so present to turn off anyone that does not like black licorice. All in all, the cup was very enjoyable, and I found myself relaxing into it, and enjoying every drop. I could not identify anything that I could particularly attribute to being the taste of Lapacho Bark, so I got curious and decided to check out exactly what it is.

It turns out it is the inner bark of a tree used by Incas for many different types of ailments. It is used as an antibacterial, antiviral, anti-fungal and anti-many other things. It seems that in great quantities it may have some undesirable side effects, however, in small tea quantities, no problem.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable tea, and I would recommend it to someone that is looking for a alternative to a black tea chai – it is subtle and relaxing with no bitterness or drying in the mouth – I would imagine it would be a great finisher to a Yoga session or Meditation!

You can purchase the Lapacho Vanilla Chai directly from the Distinctly Tea website.

Today I’m reviewing to herbal teas from Mighty Leaf and I’m excited because they are one of the few companies I know of who offer high quality in sachets.  Perfect to have in a pinch if I’ve forgotten my finum because they tea pouches are large enough to let the tea infuse properly. 

Opening the package and I can immediately tell that I’m going to love this tea.  The citrus smell is intoxicating.  It has Egyptian chamomile in it and the flowers are whole and appear to be really fresh.  There’s no dust in the pouch at all, just pretty bits of herbs and fruit.

Steeping it at 205 F for the full five minutes because I want to get every golden bit of the tisane infused.  The color was immediately a light yellow then finally went to a nice golden orange.  Love the way rosehip warms up the color of a brew.  Can smell all of the other herbs now and they are balancing out the citrus perfectly.

Yeah! It tastes as good as it looks and smells, I was right, this is a great blend.  I can feel my heart rate slowing, the days stress leaving me…  Would it be insane for me to let this tea pouch dry out and use it as a sachet in my lingerie drawer?  hmmm… yes, it smells that good.

Now on to the African Nectar.  Rooibos is a friend of mine, we go back a long way and she’s never let me down.  This tea pouch fine enough to contain the rooibos, helps that it’s a higher grade so the needles are longer.  Blends looks like it’s mostly rooibos, with bits of the other ingredients.  Can see the marigold in it, which is good (I have a ton of marigold at home and add it to most of my teas, just to up the health benefits of my teas).

This blend has so much of a citrus scent that I can barely smell the rooibos, expecting that will change when I stop analyzing the pouch and add water to it…

Steeping this one the same as I did the Chamomile Citrus, boiling water for five minutes.  The rooibos is darker wet so now I can see the other herbs as well as the stems.  Excellent leaf to stem ratio though, Mighty Leaf did not disappoint.  It’s infused to a nice dark, reddish brown and it smells divine.  The rose and hibiscus are now dominating the scent and the citrus smell is completely gone.

It tastes like rooibos but I think the rose is killing it, bit too flowery, almost perfumey.  Letting it cool.  The pouches are completely biodegradible and they literally look like the sachets that girls use to scent lingerie (do guys do that too?).  Tea has cooled now and it still has that rose taste, fantastic if you like flowers in your tea, not working for me though.  Still a really good quality tea though, impressive.

You can purchase the Chamomile Citrus directly from the Mighty Leaf Tea website.