Autumn Morning

This tea smells so lovely out of the tin. It does have a very strong smell, but it’s a burnt sugar, caramel, nutty smell that I love. It’s made with Irish Breakfast so it’s a full-bodied black tea, malty taste which means it is possible to oversteep it.

But! It’s lovely. It’s sweet, warm and has a lovely almond flavour. It feels like burnt butter or burnt sugar, the crispy bottom of a cinnamon roll, that sort of thing. I enjoy it because the sweetness has a real depth and taste to it, it’s not just blindingly sweet. It’s lovely in autumn, but also perfect for any time of year.

I was initially attracted to their Toffee black in the store, based on the tea that was in the sniffing jar, but once I smelled it in the tin, I had to pass because it smelled stale and weird. The sales associate pointed me to this tea instead, which is newer, and hence, lacking in any pertinent information on their site. It smells so roasty and nutty, kind of along the lines of Forever Nuts from DAVIDsTEA (which also smells a little bit like ATR’s Brioche) so I thought I couldn’t go wrong.

Unfortunately, this seriously lacks flavour once steeped. I can just pick up on a hint of nuttiness with each initial sip but the rest is just tea and nothing more. The dry leaf is interesting, like a mix between twisted leaves and CTC pellets, with some nuts and flower petals thrown in to the mix.

But I found something today that kind of saves teas like this. So, there is a localesque business that makes flavoured honeys, and I found their ginger honey at Save-on-Foods the other week. So tasty, like fresh ginger, and/or those Chimes ginger chews. Really great on toast, and I’m sure it would be great to glaze salmon with and whatnot. Anyway, I went to Farmers Market today for the sole purpose of seeking out their booth since they have a ton of other flavours, and came across their Pumpkin Spice honey. Grabbed that off the bat, but it was tough since I was also eyeing their Espresso Vanilla Bean and Chai ones.

Long story short, I added a spoon of it to this tea and it’s glorious. It woke this tea up and breathed some life into it. I’m normally not a fan of honey in tea but I’ll definitely be drinking this tea with these flavoured honeys (I need to grab more flavours too!) from this day forward.