Brioche Organic Tea

I have been wanting to try this tea for so long! I decided to treat myself to a cup this morning since I have a long day of homework ahead of me. The best thing about this tea is the aroma – it just smells like a cup of comfort! The dry leaves smell heavily of almonds and baked bread with just a hint of cinnamon. The tea liquor aroma is of warm cinnamon bread. The flavor has a lot going on, but it’s very well balanced. Initially, there is an almond and cinnamon flavor with a baked bread finish. The aftertaste is malty and nutty. Adding sweetener brings out a little more of the cinnamon flavors, but adding milk kind of dulls the flavors a little too much. The milk does make it more creamy, though. Our local co op has the big, flaky almond croissants and this tea reminds me of the way those taste. Thank you, Shelley_Lorraine, for a sample of this tea!

-Dry blend has medium black tea leaves with sliced almonds, pieces of cinnamon bark and small orange petals.
-Dry leaves smell heavily of almond and baked bread with a hint of cinnamon. Tea liquor aroma is of warm cinnamon bread.
-Tea liquor is a cloudy medium golden brown color.
-Almond and cinnamon flavor with a bready finish. Malty and nutty aftertaste.
-Best with sweetener. Milk optional.
-Very good tea. Lightly flavored. Reminiscent of baked croissants with a hint of nuts and spicy cinnamon. Flavors are well balanced.

Here’s Hoping Tea Box

Sickly sweet- Seriously I can’t finish the cup. It kind of made me nauseaus. It’s a little disappointing since I’ve heard so many good things about this particular tea.

Tea #2 from the Here’s Hoping TTB

I’ve been wanting to try this tea for awhile, it seems I lucked out with this being the second tea I pulled out. After taking my first sip of this tea, I understand why so many people have recommended it to me, it’s absolutely delicious! It really does somewhat remind me of brioche, even though it has been years since I’ve had any. This tea has a very rich flavor with an almost buttery feeling to it and the almonds taste like almonds. That may seem like a silly thing to say, but so many times almond flavor comes across as artificial and somewhat gross. I’m really glad I ordered some of this in my first American Tea Room order, I can see myself quickly going through two ounces of it. It also gives me high hopes for the herbal version I ordered as well.

Unimpressed with this tea tonight. I was craving this as a strong dessert tea but it tasted watered down tonight. Maybe it needed some sugar, maybe it got too much air and light. I gave it to my hubby to drink. At least he enjoyed the cinnamon spice in it. Off to brew another cup.

More geek pride teas to come in the near future. Life has been hectic and I haven’t been logging my teas.

So I’m sitting here with a second steep of this tea sitting about two feet away on the table next to me and I have to say: THIS SMELLS SO FANTASTIC! The scent keeps wafting towards me and it smells like a bakery has opened up in our kitchen.

When I first started drinking tea, I loved anything flavored. Flavored teas meshed especially well with my habit of taking a sugared-and-milked tumbler of tea on my morning commute, too. But since getting more into tea and having no more morning commute, I’ve become super-picky about my teas, especially the flavored ones. So it is with my picky hat on that I say: THIS TEA IS DELICIOUS.

It smells like one of those little square flaky pastries, the ones with the cutting across the top and a light icing drizzled over them? I have no idea what they are called but that’s what this tea smells like. Yum. Even the second steep, while smelling more bread-y, smells like fresh sweet pastry.

The taste isn’t as sweet as the smell but it definitely has a lovely almond-paste-ish flavor and some notes of faint, light bready in the first steep. The second steep is leaning more towards a nutty-ish cinnamon & sugar toast but is equally desserty and delicious.

For a flavored tea, this has a nice, full flavor. It’s not a single note tea. Nope, there’s almond and light cinnamon and bread-y and the flavors kind of tumble over each other, making this taste really nuanced and interesting, especially for a flavored tea.

So yeah, even holding this to my extra-critical-of-flavored-teas standard, I must give this a very enthusiastic thumbs up.

This one’s from Sil.

It’s a nice almond-vanilla tea, but… it’s just not really for me. I like it, but I don’t love it. Right now I think I’d rather have something spicy or earthy, not a liquid dessert. :)

Got this in a swap with TastyBrew. Thanks, TastyBrew!! I was so excited to try this. I mean, pastry? Sign me up!! It smells amazing, like almonds and sugar…like…..Forever Nuts from DavidsTea! Oh no, not Forever Nuts! I’m not a big fan of that tea. At least here there is a proper black tea base. ;) I can also get almond croissant and butter flavors from this, which is nice, but I had a really hard time not associating this tea with Forever Nuts. I wonder if I had never tried Forever Nuts what I would have thought of this tea.

This is from the Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox

THIS IS SO YUMMY. I very clearly get the light baked good flavor. Oh, Yum! I wish I had more of this to try. I am so glad I got to try this sample!

Once brewed the tea has a beautiful amber color. Wonderful.

Thank you for setting up the teabox Tea Sipper!

What a tea to wake to this morning! It’s lovely. I could smell the cinnamon and sweetness when I opened the packet and it was so nice that I actually pulled it back to my nose to sniff it again. Wonderful!

195/2 min. As usual, I steeped lightly having learned my lesson with several other strong black teas. It turns out that this was perfect for me. I haven’t been really into blacks lately as I don’t enjoy astringent or, even worse, bitter black teas. This isn’t one of them. It’s so nice. It smells sweetly of cinnamon and apples. Kind of like a pie. The taste, however, is just like a croissant aux amandes from my days in Paris. I feel transported. It’s amazing. Sweet and nutty, with a depth that fills your mouth and your senses. It’s really wonderful. I can’t pick out much of the black tea taste, which surprises me. If I didn’t know it was a black tea, I would say it’s an herbal. It’s just really, really nice.

Another sample courtesy of Doulton!!

I thought this tea tasted like french toast with cinnamon, maple syrup and a pat of butter! I brewed it for one minute longer than recommended so I could put in a little sugar and half and half for a dessert tea, and there was no bitterness or astringency. I also liked that the flavorings tasted very natural and were not cloying or heavy handed. Very comforting and indulgent. What a treat!