Fearing the worst but hoping for the best, I picked up 10 grams of this blend. I tend not to like the cinnamon used at Davids, but I could hardly resist a black tea with apple and vanilla. I always want a good apple tea, so I will try them even when one or two of the ingredients has me leery. Dry, this smells of mulled apples, cooked in their juices with some spice. I made homemade applesauce yesterday with cinnamon and a bit of sugar, and this smells like it but with a bit more kick of apple.
Steeped, I am mostly getting the dry musty smell that I find typical of DT’s cinnamon. I don’t know what it is as I enjoy cinnamon at home in things and find it appealing, but Davids’ cinnamon always smells like old scented wood rather than what I think of as cinnamon. No tea or apple aroma, nor any sweetness or vanilla. Sipped at 3 minutes it was quite weak, so I am steeping longer to try to tease some taste out of this one.
At closer to five minutes, this smells about the same but finally yields a bit of taste beyond the musty cinnamon. I can’t taste the tea but there is a vague flavour overall. Not necessarily apple, vanilla or sugar. Those notes are all drowned out or mixed together into a mess I can’t untangle. As it cools I get more of the apple, but this is a tea I would prefer to drink hot so that doesn’t exactly help.
I have enough for another cup but at the moment this doesn’t impress me at all. I feel as though it could be greatly improved with a better cinnamon or a stronger tea base. Or maybe even more of the theoretical apple and vanilla. Heck, even putting some sugar in here would probably help (given the name). I won’t be re-buying though as at this point in my tea drinking life, a tea that needs help isn’t a tea for me.
