Cinnamon Swirl Bread

awe yeah! cinnamon swirl bread is in the house! 4 oz of it. So yes…i’m a happy camper, especially with the resteep value on this one. It was the perfect tea to go along with today’s work fiascos in the morning. I’m really glad i have this now when i want it instead of jsut the memory of it from my swap with tastybrew :)

Just opened my FRESH package of this tea from a joint order with BrewTEAlly Sweet Could this be the perfect cinnamon tea? Perhaps…perhaps…

Full Review coming March 8th on http://sororiteasisters.com/
Here are the snippits:

Janet does it again with her Cinnamon Swirl Bread from sTEAp Shoppe. Her blend of 2008 Loose Puerh and Yunnan Gold Needle Black tea, with just the right mix of cinnamon, cocoa nibs, vanilla bean, and maple crystals make this tea taste like you just toasted up some sweet cinnamon bread!

The aroma that fills your home when you steep it is nothing short of delicious.

Janet really does a great job with her blended teas. She takes great time and care in making sure she has them perfected before putting them up for sale. Her selection has grown slowly but steadily over time and I can say that this blend is masterful. I am not generally a big fan of cinnamon teas, or spicy teas, with the exception of an occasional chai latte, but this Cinnamon Swirl Bread tea is a stash staple.

After Azzrian wrote about this tea on a couple occasions, I couldn’t resist ordering it. I love cinnamon swirl bread. Cinnamon raison english muffins, cinnamon toast, any combination of cinnamon and dough really.

The mailman surprised me with the box of teas from sTEAp yesterday and it took all my restraint to not make this last night, but I can’t have any black teas in the evening or I won’t sleep. So once I got the kitchen cleaned up after breakfast (which is always an undertaking) I rewarded myself with this one.

I wasn’t sure how much to put in my cup as it isn’t listed on the package. I emailed their customer service and they responded within minutes, which is impressive in general, but on a Saturday morning is really amazing. I’m glad I asked, too, as they suggested 1TBSP per 16oz mug, not my normal amount.

I got the water boiling and poured it over my leaves. Oh my. It smelled amazing. Luckily, I only had to wait 2 minutes to try it. This tea is not one of those teas that smells great and then tastes mediocre. It smells great and tastes even better. I have no idea how that bread flavor gets in there, but it’s there. Is that the pu her? I’ve only had pu ehr once and really didn’t like it so I’ve never been back. One of these days I’ll try it again.

Anyway, I love this tea. I didn’t add anything to it (becoming a theme lately!) and it tastes just a little sweet on its on. I bet it’d be good with a splash of steamed milk. But right now I’m enjoying it on its own. And I’ve only been through 1 steep so far, 4 or so more to go.

Ahh, rainy saturday, you can’t get me down today!

UPDATE: 2nd steep, absolutely no loss of flavor. I was scared some of the cinnamon would be lost. Nope. I’m in love.

UPDATE: 3rd steep. Still no flavor loss. Crazy. This time I added some raw honey and steamed milk. Now it’s more like a cinnamon roll with gooey frosting. Dude.

UPDATE: 4th steep. Same as #3. I just realized that 4 steeps of 16oz each is 64oz. I’ve had 64oz and I’m already thinking about when I’m going to make this again, even though I have many other new ones to try. I’ve adjusted the rating to 100. It earned it.

OMG! This tea is AMAZING! Thank you to Azzrian and TastyBrew for writing such good reviews and tempting me to buy this tea!

First of all, let me say, it was awesome that shipping only took 1 day! Probably due to the fact that their address is about an hour away from me, but awesome nonetheless. Makes me wish they had a store, and I could just stop by when I’m up there!

This tea is the most bake-y, bread-y tea I’ve ever tasted. It’s like breakfast in a cup! When I first smelled the dry leaves in the tin, it actually reminded me of an oatmeal raisin cookie, WAY more so than teas named that. Steeped, it is liquid cinnamon swirl bread with butter spread on top! Yes, I tasted the butter!! I have to admit I added some sugar and a splash of soy milk, which made it MORE buttery!

I was surprised that you only need to steep it for 2 minutes. It was definitely strong enough to stand up to milk and sugar. Also, it says you can get 5 steeps out of each TBSP. I steeped it 3 times and there was absolutely no loss of flavor, so they’re probably right!

I am so glad I bought the tin! Yum yum yummy!!!

I was thinking about having this tomorrow morning because once again I thought it would be too late to have it. Then I realized I probably won’t get a chance tomorrow since I have a fairly busy day. And that is when I decided I was having this and nothing could stop me. So that is how I wound up drinking Pu’erh tea at 12:15.

In the package, it smelled amazing – like fresh baked cinnamon buns. However, when I rinsed the tea I got a huge whiff of pu’erh and the alarms went off. I began to worry that this would not taste like the delicious cinnamon bun I had been made to believe it tasted like. Luckily, that fear subsided as soon as the tea touched my lips. Immediately I got that sweet cinnamon bread-y goodness that I expected this tea to be. It is amazing! Now I know why everyone loves this. It is a cinnamon bun in a cup, with just a hint of frosting goodness.

Thank you QueenOfTarts for sharing this sample with me!!

You know those “How’d they do that?” shows? I would like to see one on THIS tea. How someone can put cinnamon and completely kill a tea (for me, anyway) and someone else — say, sTEAp Shoppe — can do amazing things with cinammon, like this here tea.

Now this is what I would call delicately spiced. There’s cinnamon in here, duh!, but it doesn’t bludgeon the rest of the stuff to the point that you just feel you’re sucking on a cinnamon stick. I’m interested in also knowing how they get the bread taste. In wine, you know they use yeast, for example in Chardonnay. I doubt they use yeast in tea so … how?

In any event, delicious tea. I was worried maybe cinnamon in tea is not for me. Clearly this proves it wrong. As for the tasting note, you don’t need one from me. Just remember your last Cinnabon. That’s what your tea will taste like.
The End.

PS. Thank you to the amazing Sil for sharing this. Awesome choice.

Sil made this sound so good that I bought 2 oz of it. That’s sorta how I roll with Steepster.

I’m happy I picked this up though. It almost has this thick bready texture to it, as if each sip was heavy in my throat and filled me up. It’s sweet, and cinnamony and I can practically taste warm icing. And… the best part is that this is only the first steep! The instructions were VERY clear that I should resteep this 5 times. Can’t wait to see what magic that does to it.

Sil most awesomely sent this my way after some undignified begging on my part, haha. I wanted to make sure an order would be worth my while.

I should have known that you guys would not lead me astray. The dry leaf smells kind of cinnamon/raisiny, but I usually have a hard time gauging dry leaf smell from a swap since it’s in with so many other teas.

Steeped though, this liquor smells mostly like cinnamon rolls. WOW. How can it smell like bread?! The taste is just as accurate, and punched up with a bit of milk and sugar it is full on cinnamon roll with icing.

I only had one steep of this this morning before leaving for jury duty but I am definitely planning on revisiting this later tonight.

Time to put together an order for sTEAp shoppe, it seems…

Welp. Now I see what all the hype is about. This is a pretty darn delicious tea! It certainly tastes like a delicious, sugary-sweet cinnamon roll complete with creamy frosting. Wow. When I brewed the tea up, I was getting a bit of a classic pu’erh aroma that I wasn’t too keen on, but it has dissipated and isn’t at all present in the flavour. It’s just really, really delicious tea. I used about 2 tsp of tea for an 8 oz. mug… I didn’t really pay attention to the directions.

Also, I have to say that sTEAp Shoppe’s sample sizes are great. Half an ounce of tea, so comparable to Della Terra, although the samples are a bit pricier. If there’s a sale at some point, I think I’d be likely to pick up more sample sizes, though! I have 5 other teas to try – hoping they work out as well as this one!

ETA: I definitely don’t care for the second infusion as much, although perhaps reducing the infusion time from 2 minutes to 1 minute would have helped. The pu’erh flavour makes a bit more of an appearance, and instead of the flavours blending well together, I get a heaping helping of strong cinnamon (like, from a cinnamon stick) plus the pu’erh, and that’s it. Not bad, but the first infusion was quite a bit better. Word is, this tea resteeps for many infusions, so I’ll keep it around and try a few more to see how they fare.