Enjoying Tea, Cinnamon Black Tea

Enjoying Tea Description:
This tea is made from top grade orange pekoe Ceylon with cinnamon flavoring. The Ceylon tea is grown at the altitude of 7000 feet above sea level from the Sri Lanka region. When brewed this tea produces a bright coppery color liquid with a sweet cinnamon flavor and with touches of mild astringency. A fantastic tea, great for relaxation.

Price: $5.99/4 oz

My Review:
This tea was included in the package with a recent teapot purchase. I nearly missed it. The packing box was filled with packing peanuts. When the package arrived my wife removed the boxes my two new teapots were in and didn't know to search through the peanuts. In her defense the tea comes in a tiny, tiny, but cute one ounce tin.

I opened the tin and was met with a fresh cinnamon scent. Looking in the tin there are obvious cinnamon pieces throughout. The black Ceylon tea base is powder coated in cinnamon, turning it brown and looking more like a wet Yunnan black tea leaf. The leaf pieces are pleasantly large for a Ceylon black tea. This is not dust.

With the leaf in the press, I added boiling water and steeped for three minutes. The brew is a deep orange/red. It is bright and clear.

My experience with cinnamon black tea runs two extremes. My first encounter was also one of my very first purchases as a teen. It was Bigelow Cinnamon Stick. The scent of the Enjoying Tea version brings back memories of Bigelow. It was bagged and a bit two dimensional as I recall. My other experience was with Harney & Son's Hot Cinnamon Spice. That one is very sweet and very potent. It is like drinking liquid Red Hots.

Sipping this is very different from either of my earlier experiences. The cup smells richly cinnamon and that is just how it tastes up front. It never reaches extreme levels and quickly gives way to an earthy Ceylon base. I don't recall Ceylon ever emoting earthy to me before. It does have a good bite to it. Adding a bit of sweetener mellows it out. It has some degree of cheek tingle.

I am pleasantly surprised. Cinnamon black tea is not something I would think to pick out on my own. I found this to be an enjoyable cup that sits squarely in the middle of my previous experience. It is not too flat and it is not so over the top. Nice cup.