This tasted like olives to me. Canned black olives. Not what I was hoping for.
I was expecting this to be kind of like Trader Joe’s Cinnamon Tempest black tea, which kind of has a Red Hots quality to it but which I really enjoyed. Dry, it smelled VERY cinnamony – a little bit on the artificial side, and perhaps lacking in the vibrant citrus notes that pulled Cinnamon Tempest together, but cinnamony. But once it started brewing… olives. I mean, I could sort of taste the rooibos (which is not, to be honest, my favorite base under the best of circumstances) and I could sort of taste the cinnamon. But the dominant note was olives, and that killed it for me. Maybe I just have weird taste buds – it seems like most people have had very different experiences with this tea – but it’s definitely not for me.