Kaneroku Matsumoto Tea Garden: Cinnamon Wood Smoked Black Tea

This was my most anticipated tea in my last Yunomi order. I am a huuge smoked tea lover and the idea of using cinnamon wood to smoke a tea was impossible to resist. Finally cracked it open today and the hisssss of the compressed packaging was so satisfying. The dry leaves were large and lightly curled, and I knew they’d expand to show bigger leaves. I was a bit nervous at how intense the smoke was on the dry leaf, a little peaty, a little too backyard propane bbq. I could sense the cinnamon faintly, it almost smelled like cinnamon oil rather than ground cinnamon.

The brew was exquisite! it wasn’t as intensely smoky as I feared when smelling the dry leaf, but the smokiness lends itself to a sort of lit incense quality when playing with the cinnamon spice aspect. The cinnamon is a little hard to describe, it’s clearly there, but not in a way it would be in a chai or an autumn inspired blend. It has a veiled quality, very much present, but in a subtler, more spicy and almost numbing way, like a cinnamon oil. The combo of the smoke and the hint of warming cinnamon makes this medium bodied tea so intricate and fun to drink. It really make me want some pulled pork hahaha.

I also read on the package that they use a traditionally cultivation method called Chagasuba, which just means that the tea bushes are grown in cultivated grasslands and the tea is shaded using the grass, as well as used as compost to enrich the soil and reduce the environmental impact. Cool!