Le Marche Spice Tea

My local kitchen store had all their loose leaf teas on sale for ONE DOLLAR! :o That was suppose to he for 50g, but when i got there I found 2-4 oz bags for $1 no tax. Oh my. Unfortunately there weren’t many flavoured ones left. But I did grab this one which i thought would be a gem and then some teas for the travelling tea box.

The dry notes smell very spicy, mostly of cinnamon, almost like cinnamon hearts, but not as sweet smelling. Once steeped it stills smells spicy.
On the first sip its still very hot and I mostly get a black tea taste :( booo, with the yummy spices taking a back seat. I prefer when the tea taste takes a back seat to the flavour aspect of Tue tea.
Unfortunately the black tea stays at the forefront. This isn’t a horrible tea, by any means, but with the smell its not what i was expecting. I’m not sure if this is making its way into my cupboard. I will probably have to have it again to make that decision, for now it goes back into my sip down pile.
Can’t really complain since I did only pay $1 for 2.4oz of it.

Hmm, I think I was expecting a bit more from this tea. The tasting notes suggest a lot more fruit, but I’m only getting the slightest hint of orange, and mostly just lots and lots of cinnamon. I’m also not sure about this black tea base – for a 4 min steep there’s a lot more bitterness than I would like or expect, and I’m not getting much earth or malt or other black tea flavours.

I think with a lot of cinnamon notes, I’m also wanting some other flavours to round it out and give it a more full mouth taste. Something more like a masala chai. Which maybe is unfair to this blend, but it just seems like there’s some back of the mouth flavour that should be there but isn’t.

This isn’t bad, and the more I sip at it the more I like it, but I’m not impressed either. I wonder if playing with the steeping will resolve some of the bitterness. Maybe some milk and sugar would help it along too.