Caramel Apple Cinnamon Bun

I REALLY loved this blend, my friend sent it to me in a lovely friend /care package which was super sweet and so so so appreciated. I liked the subtle sweetness, I tend to use a bit less than recommended but I can see where other people are coming from when they’re finding it a bit sweet. I think that it’s super cozy and lovely and it reminds me of Remus Lupin oddly enough. I think he’d love this blend.

2022 Spring Tea Swap – Day 20
From Emilie!

There is something almost floral in the aroma of this blend, but I can’t place it. I taste a bit of caramel and the apple/cinnamon combo, but I’m missing the pastry. (I really wish I had a cinnamon roll in front of me right now. That sounds amazing. Instead, I’m having chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. They are just as good as I expected.) That unexpected floral flavor and smell is really throwing me. It doesn’t fit somehow and so this cup isn’t everything I want it to be. Emilie sent enough for another cup, so we’ll see how the next round goes!

I think I knew I would like this tea. I first saw this tea on Steepster, and then on a blog I love called, steep. sip. repeat, who said this tea was one that really stood out to her last year! So I obviously became super curious about it.

Smell: The fragrance of this tea blew me away. This tea only has like 6 simple ingredients, yet it smells like a yeasty apple cinnamon bun. Or even like an aromatic apple pie perfume; however, this tea has zero artificial or natural flavouring in it. So I do not know how Deb nailed the cinnamon bun smell; crazy, exceptional stuff! :)
Prep: I brewed this tea nice and long and then added milk and sugar to it
Taste: This smells strongly of cinnamon now, which I like, and as far as taste goes, it tastes strongly of cinnamon and apples. The cinnamon surprised me since, of course, I expected a caramel apple cinnamon bun tea to have a lot of cinnamon, which I love since I am a cinnamon fiend, but it caught me off guard since a lot of teas with warming spices sometimes are not bold enough, but I found the cinnamon in this to be perfect and warming.

I also think this tastes a lot like refreshing apples. Through the tea community, I have learned that just adding dry fruits to tea blends might not add enough flavour; however, Deb really nailed the apple portion of this tea using no artificial or natural flavouring so kudos to her! This tastes like I am biting into a fresh apple or something; unlike other apple teas, where it tastes like I am drinking a bunch of chemicals.

The only tiny criticism I have of this tea is that I wish it was stronger in the caramel aspect. Again, the caramel might come through more if I just had it black; however, I think it needs a stronger caramel note for me, personally. I wish I had some dark brown sugar I could sprinkle into this! Ou, that would be perfect.

Otherwise, this tea impressed me. I will purchase more of this!

Sipdown! (45)

Yay, drinking some Deb teas! She just released an amazing-looking Winter Brunch collection last night, and even though I am so tempted I’m not going to order anything… (sob)

I have like 20+ of her teas and haven’t even tried most of them yet! I did drop Sips by and sign up for her subscription instead, though, because I love her and want to give her my support. Plus all the tasty treats! ❤

Anyway! I was a bit worried while steeping this one because it smelled so strongly of bee pollen (which I didn’t even realize is in this blend), and I hate bee pollen… It smells/tastes almost fishy to me? Or like wet dog?

Happily, this mug is the same as the others and I can’t taste the bee pollen. Definitely captures the cinnamon bun part, with just a little bit of apple thrown in. I don’t really get caramel, but it is quite sweet. Really it’s too sweet for me, which is why I wouldn’t reorder this one. Plus I have some other yummy cinnamon and cinnamon apple teas!

Sipdown (1291)!

Not a “true” sipdown per say, but I drank a cup of this an hour or so ago during a morning meeting and now I’m going to send the last cup of it off to someone else in a teaswap. So, kind of a sipdown! I’m counting it, though.

Thanks for sharing VariaTEA – this is definitely the kind of profile that would have pulled me in based on the name alone so not having to blind buy a larger bag ended up being a great thing for me. Overall, I actually enjoyed the tea and I do strongly agree that it tastes like a sweet and bready/pastry heavy “Cinnamon Bun” with just the right bit of apple notes as well. However, it’s not really caramel-like at all to me, and that’s disappointing because what I was most interested in was this idea of a “caramel apple” with cinnamon, as opposed to a cinnamon bun with a bit of apple and extra sweetness branded as ‘caramel’. There was also something about it that was a little bit oatmeal-like to me in terms of flavour as well, and I enjoyed that note and thought it worked really well with the cinnamon and the apple.

Overall, it’s a very enjoyable cinnamon bun/cinnamon apple oatmeal kind of profile. I just, once again, feel a little let down at the promise of a caramel profile that didn’t quite land and I wish there was just a bit more of a tart green apple (rather than the baked apple flavour present here) taste to the tea that would make the composition a little more dynamic.

Thankful to have tried it, but I definitely don’t need a bigger bag of it.

Advent Calendar Day 10

Ooo, this is yummy! Cinnamon is a tricky flavor for me, as it so often ends up overpowering everything else and coming across like I just melted red hots into my cup. But this blend does it WELL! Not sure what wizardry is at work here, but the aroma of this tea is exactly like walking past Cinnabon at the mall…not just cinnamon, but a yeasty, bready scent with a hint of icing sugar. And the taste is on-point as well! Not really getting the apple flavor here, but I don’t mind because it tastes like a sweet, delicious frosted cinnamon pastry even without any sugar added. Really want to try this as a latte, because I think that would be amazing!

Not quite sure what happened here. I can smell the cinnamon, I can see the apple pieces…but I taste neither. It’s just extremely sweet caramel. I added a bit of honey, but not enough to skew the flavor profile this much.

Sample from variaTEA. This one was alright, but not over the top amazing. I didn’t find it too sweet, but I wasn’t really getting caramel appl from this. Instead it just really felt more like a cinnamon bun tea….but not the delicious one from steapshope :(

This is my hands down favorite tea! I am obsessed. This is a staple in my cupboard. I make it hot, as a tea or a latte. I haven’t tried it iced yet, will try to come back and update when I do. :)

I asked both Sil and Roswell Strange if I should make this or Coconut Maple Custard as an iced latte and both said Maple Coconut Custard. So this got made as a plain tea. I want to like this but something in the smell is throwing me a bit. Plus, this has a strong sweet note but it falls flat. I get a whole lot of maple and then apple and cinnamon bun icing with a dash of cinnamon. It has all the components but I just need the flavor to be more rounded out. It’s sweet on sweet on sweet and while I want to like it, I don’t.