Hot Cinnamon Herbal

On Saturday afternoon, I went to the Toronto Tea Festival.  I had the pleasure of learning about tea shops in Toronto, and even across the province!  This tea was a gem I discovered at the festival.

The details:

Type: Rooibos

Bought at: Stratford Tea Leaves – Order online HERE

Description: This is a highly popular flavoured tea at the tea bar in Stratford.  It is a blend of three types of fresh cinnamon, orange peel and sweet cloves.  It is remarkably assertive and bold.  It boasts a very complex cup that rewards you with flavourful aroma and a lingering spicy sweet aftertaste.  Enjoy natural fresh sweetness without the sugar.

*NOTE: The Hot Cinnamon tea available online uses a black base, whereas the one I bought at the festival (and am reviewing here) uses a Rooibos base.

What I think:

This dry tea smells incredible.  It’s sweet and very spicy, just like cinnamon hearts!

The tea steeps to a lovely deep orange, and smells just as strong as it did in the bag.  Upon first sip, I think “Valentine’s Day.  This is a Valentine’s Day tea”.  The sweetness hits your tongue first, and I find it very hard to believe that this tea doesn’t have sugar in it.  This is easily the sweetest tea I have ever laid my lips on.  The spiciness of the cinnamon tickles my tongue and lingers in the back of my mouth for a long time.  It is incredibly similar to eating cinnamon hearts, down to every last detail.  My friend and I actually joked that this must just be ground-up cinnamon hearts.

This is such a flavourful, powerful tea and I think the natural sweetness from the Rooibos base is perfect.  I’m not going to add sugar to this as there’s no need!

This tea is easily my new favourite.  It beats all the others by a long shot.  It’s very powerful, very bold, beautifully sweet and tastes exactly like cinnamon hearts.  Did someone say Valentine’s Day?

Birthday Cake

This is another one of the cake teas David’s Tea recently came out with.  To be honest, I’ve had some bad experiences with rooibos teas but decided to try this one anyway…  And I’m glad I did.

The details:

Type: Rooibos

Bought at: David’s Tea

Description: What’s the best thing about birthdays?  It could be the presents, or spending time with loved ones, but let’s be honest.  It’s all about the cake.  With vanilla icing, and lots of sprinkles.  And this sweet and festive rooibos blend brings the taste of birthday cake to your cup any day of the year – sprinkles and all.

What I think:

Yum!  The dry tea smells so sweet.  Close your eyes and you’d be convinced you were about to bite into a delicious birthday cake, complete with tons of vanilla icing.  This one, just like the Ice Cream Cake, has sprinkles in it.  It’s important to note that this tea is extremely fine.  The first time I made it I used my pincer, which let out about half my tea.  Needless to say, straining the tea afterwards wasn’t the most pleasant experience.

Just as I’m about to take a sip, I notice the nice, light smell of vanilla.  Maybe even maple?  This one, although it has sprinkles and ice cream bits just like the Ice Cream Cake, doesn’t have a layer of residue on the top of the tea.  The tea tastes great; I feel like there are hints of maple and caramel.  I was expecting more icing, but I’m tasting a lot of cake batter.  Definitely not a bad thing since birthday cake batter is always delicious.  This tea is creamy as well, but not as sweet as the Ice Cream Cake.

After my great experience with adding milk to Ice Cream Cake, I know I need to try this one with milk too…  And again, it’s a nice touch.  The tea’s creamier, which goes well with the taste of cake batter.  Unfortunately, I think I might have added too much milk as it’s distracting from some of the flavours I initially noted and enjoyed.

This tea smells like a birthday cake and tastes like a birthday cake with maple syrup poured over it.  It has definitely changed my opinion of rooibos.  If you’re new to rooibos, this is definitely something I’d suggest as a starter!