Thé des Amants

I have to say, I am moderately surprised this is a black tea. I honestly wouldn’t have realized to taste it. It definitely tastes like cinnamon, with the apple fruitiness, but doesn’t remind me strongly of chai. It isn’t spicy enough. I like it, though I probably wouldn’t bend over backwards to buy more.

Dry leaf smells very much of sweet cinnamon. There are tiny little pieces of orange in the black tea mix but I wasn’t getting much orange, just cinnamon. The little orange pieces are very cute and tiny.
Brewed this as instructed, 195F Western style, for 4 minutes.
This tea tastes like you took a Red-Hot Candy and steeped it in hot water for a bit.
There is a lot of cinnamon on the nose and more of a sweet subtle cinnamon in the flavor.
The liquor is a clear orange color.
I really didn’t catch the other flavors that are suggested on the package because I was tasting mostly cinnamon. This is definitely the tea for cinnamon lovers :)

From the Steepster Select Box; November, 2014

Hello Steepster! I didn’t post any notes at all yesterday, which is extremely odd for me. I woke up feeling okay, but then I noticed that my first cup of tea tasted weird. As the day went on, I started feeling like a cold was coming on – headaches, fatigue, body soreness, etc. Luckily, today I feel much better! I guess there’s something to be said for rest, drinking tons of bottled water, taking Emergen-C, and having chicken noodle soup for dinner.

Anyway, on to the tea. This one is from one of my Palais des Thés samplers that I purchased on MyHabit a few days ago. I must say, the scent worried me as soon as I opened this tin (especially since I have three versions of this tea – black, green, and rooibos). It smells like red hots or Harney & Sons’s Hot Cinnamon Spice. The tea itself consists of small black leaves with a few pieces of dried fruit (I assume apple). Basically it smells like cinnamon candy… I steeped about 1.5 teaspoons for 3 minutes at 200 degrees.

The tea liquid smells like cinnamon candy as well… Womp womp. It does have that candy cinnamon flavor, but luckily it’s nowhere near as extreme as Hot Cinnamon Spice. I can actually taste the base tea underneath too, which is smooth and mostly nondescript with a slight wood note. I wish I tasted the apple, almond, or vanilla here… I must say, I am a bit disappointed, as the description presents this tea as more of a fruity/sweet blend with some spice, not as a cinnamon tea. I guess I should have known since it’s basically a Valentine’s tea. :P

I tried a sample of this in their NYC store the other day. I didn’t like it. All I could taste was baby powder and lots of it. I have had that experience with one other French tea Fauchon’s Afternoon in Paris, or maybe it was Garden in Paris…. anyways, I’d love to compare the ingredients in the two to narrow down what it is that my brain translates to baby powder. I smelled the tea dry and it smelled lovely, but it didn’t come through that way in the taste for me. Pity too, I usually love almond flavored things.

Great tea I’m drinking at work.