Hot Cross Bun

Hot Cross Buns are in the grocery store now and it reminded me that I received a packet of this from a friend. In our region they show up when Lent begins until Good Friday. I don’t recommend drinking this along with a Hot Cross Bun because your brain gets all muddled with flavors. On it’s own, it does indeed reflect a bun. There’s a bready/yeasty flavor along with candied citrus.

First time as a latte… wow! This tea is perfect for latte-ing! A light bready note accompanied by cinnamon – always a winner with me – orange rinds and raisin notes. I can’t get over how accurate it is, yet a million times better than an actual hot cross bun! The lapsang adds just the barest hint of smokiness, really making this feel like a toasted hot cross bun and not just a generic spiced fruits tea. I have a splash of cream and brown sugar added to my latte because I felt like being extra decadent, and it is honestly incredible. Occasionally the cranberry will come across more and take me out of hot cross bun territory, as it’s not an ingredient I’d associate with them, but other than that I’d say it’s a pretty great match! I’m forever grateful to Bird & Blend for sending me this tea to try (I hadn’t even placed a recent order, a whole pouch just turned up on my doorstep one day out of the blue with a hand-written note), because I am in love and not being a fan of actual hot cross buns, I never would have ordered it myself, and I would have seriously been missing out! Gah, I could drink this all day. Yum.

This was a freebie with a Bird & Blend order.

The brewed tea smells like nice holiday spices. Wow, there are a lot of flavors vying for my attention here. It’s kind of like a mulled wine flavor. I’m hit with a wine/fruit punch kind of flavor with some rooibos, then lots of spices I can’t seem to pick out individually beyond the cinnamon.

Beyond the cinnamon, I don’t understand the name. It doesn’t taste at all like bread or a bun to me.

This is some British stuff I am unaware of I guess. Sorry Izzy and otherr UK members.
It reminds me mostly, based on Google Images, Czech “mazanec” but smaller.

Anyway, it is a nice cup of tea. Pretty much rooibos in, with less than half mixed with black tea. The blend when dry smells mostly like candied oranges and spices. I guess mostly cinnamon.

And tastes likewise with added bready-buttery taste. Oh well. So tasty. Smells wonderful, tastes wonderful. Honestly I am impressed.

I got a sample of this from tea-sipper last year before I was posting reviews on here. Since I had no written record, I didn’t remember what I thought of it, and I bought more. That was a mistake. There is just such a strong, unpleasant smoky flavor, and the other main flavor is a strong orange. There’s nothing bready or cinnamon about this. I swear the formula must have been different before because I would have remembered this level of dislike. If you like smoky teas, maybe you’d like this, but it’s sadly not for me. I find it very unpleasant no matter what I do to it.

Hmm… I don’t get this one.

It’s supposed to be hot cross buns, which I haven’t had, but they seem like a sort of dinner roll/cinnamon roll hybrid.

Mostly I just get slightly tart orange with a hint of spicing. However, then the lapsang smokiness comes out at the end, and I don’t understand why it’s there? Smoky sweet buns…?

It’s not terrible, I just don’t understand the thought process. I’ll probably set this one aside to pass it on to someone who’ll like it more.

Autumn Harvest! So this is my other blend that includes lapsang souchong in it, and I only have it because it was a free teabag that was included with one of my orders (so both of the blends that I ended up with were freebies or promos, heh). This is technically one of their Easter seasonals, which may make it seem an odd choice for autumn, but the cinnamon, apple, orange, and cranberry are all flavors I very much associate with the fall season, myself.

I’m hoping this one might be even more subtle on the smokiness than the Bonfire tea; it is also a rooibos/black blend, but in addition to rooibos and the lapsang souchong, it also has some Ceylon tea in there, which I’m hoping may cut back on the smoke note a bit? The dry leaf still smells a little intimidating, though… I do like that I can make out some vanilla creaminess in the scent which should pair nicely with the strong orange I also get in the aroma, but there is obvious smoky notes there, too. It makes me think of the burning pine wood smell from winter time, actually. Hopefully the fruitiness and sweetness will dominate in the cup.

The steeped tea is an interesting deep amber color, not quite as red as I was expecting for such a rooibos heavy blend, so the black tea does seem to at least have quite a bit of influence on the brew color. The aroma does have a bit of the pine wood smell, but it actually smells far more like creamsicle than I was getting from the dry leaf. The flavor is… interesting. It doesn’t particularly taste smoky, which I appreciate, but I am getting an overwhelming pine flavor, which surprises me; the only other time I’ve had that flavor was in some very citrusy white teas. I tend to not mind this flavor unless there is a lot of artificial lemony notes, because paired with those then I just taste cleaner, so it doesn’t bother me, but I do find it a little odd in a blend that is supposed to be mimicking a baked bread. I would’ve expected something more malty, creating a more bready taste in the base? It just seems strange and I’m uncertain what it is doing here. I do get that creamy vanilla/orange flavor mid-sip, but I’m not really pulling out any of the other fruits, like the apple and cranberry, which seem utterly lost. The cinnamon is also really subtle; I sometimes pick up just a hint of it in my mouth after a sip, but rarely while I’m drinking.

I feel like the elements didn’t quite all pull together as they should… what I’m getting is a creamsicle tea with some lingering slightly smoky pine notes, and for what it is, it’s actually really nice, but that is just not Hot Cross Buns to me. The base needed to be maltier and fruitier to live up to the namesake. I like what I’m tasting, but it isn’t what I was expecting, so I find this one a bit average.

I’ve been looking for a tea to drink before going to sleep, I don’t know if it’s some kind of curse-of-the-late-twenties, but I’m having such a hard time going to sleep if I drink tea in the evenings (but tbh, my fucked up sleeping schedule isn’t helping). like, am I becoming more sensitive to caffeine? it’s a nuisance, and for some reason I thought this was caffeine free? but it definitely smells and looks like it has some lapsang souchong in it and I have zero complaints about this. and while I’m not a huge fan of the very smoked lapsangs, I love it when they are in blends, there’s something so warm and cozy-baked-goods-ness about them in blends. cinnamon, currants, ah yes. half-way through the cup I put in some almond milk and /chef kiss/ it was perfect.

additional notes: I’m surprised yet not surprised by the 93 rating I gave this one. I wanted to write another note to say I love this more than I remember… I didn’t remember the 93. The ingredients are really cohesive here, maybe getting better with age? or maybe they just taste better together on actual Easter day (had this yesterday). And I swear I can taste that Hot Cross Bun frosting…

I’m starting Easter early with this tea. There are only three days of work this week, so that’s more than enough reason to celebrate. Also, I just realised that I still have my sample of this tea from 2015, so I’m catching up with that before I start the 2016 version I got with my recent Bluebird order. So, anyway. The tea.

I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup. It looks predominantly rooibos based to me, although there are a decent amount of ceylon leaves also present – maybe 70:30. The scent of the dry leaf is massively fruity, mostly orange. It reminds me a lot of undiluted cordial. I left this one for around 3 minutes before I added a splash of milk.

To taste, it’s actually more flavour accurate than I was expecting given the scent. It does remind me of hot cross buns, particularly when you first open a packet of fresh ones. I can taste orange (lots!), a pithy kind of taste that could be citrus zest, apple, cranberry, and currants. There’s also a hint of cinnamon lurking around in the mid-sip, but it’s not particularly prominent.

The vanilla is more of a scent than a flavour for me, but it does translate as a mild creamy flavour that’s very reminiscent of the white cross and maybe melted butter at a push. I’d like that to have been a bit stronger, but it’s there and I’m happy for that. I’m aware that this blend contains some Lapsang Souchong, but again it’s not a big part of the overall flavour. I get flashes of it every now and then, and they make me think of toast – or toasted hot cross buns, maybe. Love.

What I’d have liked here is more of a “bread” flavour, to go with the fruit and spice, creaminess and smokiness. That would really have set this one apart for me. As it is, it’s just a bit too fruity (orangey) to really capture the true flavour of hot cross buns. It’s close, though – so close.