Buttered Cinnamon Raisin Toast Black Tea

This tea flippin terrifies me. I can’t stand the taste of anything burnt and snow bud tastes very buttery to me… but it seemed to be calling to me… taunting me really… "Come on, you know you just have to try me!

The aroma of the raw leaf is sweet, raisiny. But there’s also a cinnamon toast aspect to it. Yes, not just cinnamon red hots. This REALLY surprised me because cinnamon can be a very selfish, demanding, bratty flavor, but this definitely has a fresh baked bread aspect to it. No butter though.

The liquor is a slightly red brown color and the aroma is that of the raw leaf except for the addition of a fairly strong black tea base.

Ok, this does not taste like a cup of burnt melted butter… YAY! Black tea- check. Raisn- check. Cinnamon- check. Toast- more in the texture than the taste, but it is there. Now for the butter… I can’t fathom butter in a tea so I’m having a hard time identifying it… or even deciding if I can identify it… but I think I detect it in the texture along w/ the toast…

Dry this tea looks like assam and I can see the pieces of cinnamon and raisins. I also smell the black tea with cinnamon and abit of raisin. After steeped I can pretty much smell the tea the same way. And I can taste the black tea with some cinnamon and abit of raisin also. I think this tea is pretty good.
Ps. anyone willing to trade for abit of florence from harney and sons?

I chose as my dessert tea tonight because I haven’t had it in awhile. I’ve amassed so many teas to sample since I first got this that it has fallen to the wayside. Poor neglected tea!

This is still yummy, but the overall flavor seems thinner and less robust than I remember. The cinnamon seems to have eaten up the raisin-y plummy taste! But that’s okay—I love cinnamon.

I may need to double up on the leaf next time to get more of the “raisin toast” flavor.

My order from 52teas came yesterday! I’m so excited! I don’t have to ration my tiny samples anymore. :) I really love this tea. Nice roasted flavor that isn’t overpowering, subtly sweet and cinnamony. Mmmm!

Frank, if you’re reading this..out of curiosity, are the flavors used in this tea vegan? I think I read somewhere that they are unless otherwise indicated, but I was just wondering.

Another sample cup from Kittenna. This. Smells. Amazing! However, even with a short steep, I find that the taste of this one is closer to burnt cinnamon toast than delicious buttery cinnamon toast. Ah well, at least i was able to try it!

(totally enjoying just sitting here smelling it though lol)

I have come to absolutely adore this tea. It’s so unique, and while I am often skeptical of what teas are supposed to taste like, this one is seriously spot on. It’s one of the most interesting and well-crafted flavored teas I’ve ever tasted. Good with milk, but I never sweeten it. If I feel like slightly burnt toast, I just deliberately oversteep this one :)

I gave it to my friend. She told me it tasted like a band-aid.

On the 9th day of Christmas, 52teas gave to me, Cinnamon Raisin Toast Flavored Black Tea.
I was so excited to see this in the sampler as I haven’t purchased it, but I’ve been eyeing everyone’s notes and drooling over this one for quite awhile. I just haven’t caved as it wasn’t a limited edition tea, so it wasn’t one I was worried about getting before it’s gone.

I drank this this morning on my way to work, and thought the cinnamon and toast flavors came out well. I could taste the sweetness of the raisins, which is amazing btw. I think I like this tea better than the toast itself. I can’t stand raisins, unless they are covered in yogurt or chocolate, then they are bearable, but I love the scent and flavor they added to this tea. I hope to order a pouch of this to keep around for the rest of the cooler months. Who am I kidding, the frigid cold months, left of winter.

Anybody to read my tasting notes knows that flavored teas are a pretty touch-and-go thing for me. I’m very picky about the authenticity and strength of things; it doesn’t take much to turn me off of them. 52teas.com scared the bejeebers out of me when I first saw it, but I had pretty resounding success with quite a few blends from that site, and I suppose I’m getting more adventurous, because the recent Select deal saw me taking the opportunity to order EIGHT bags from Frank on the cheap — stuff I thought I might not otherwise get, just to try it. Plus, it’s always nice to support a small business owner!

I didn’t realize zoomdweebies was such a huge site, either, until I went poking around. Gonna have to explore that more later for sure!

Reading tasting notes about Frank’s tea always makes me curious about shelf dates. Hey Frank! If you’re ever in the mood (for whatever crazy reason) to give yourself even more work, some blended-on dates might be handy.

The reason I mention this is because I think the flavor profile of these flavored, blended teas probably shifts across a spectrum the longer they sit on the shelf. Some of the tasting notes for this, people mentioned smelling butter when they opened it, or cinnamon. I got neither — the dry leaf smelled pretty much exclusively like raisins, and raisin seems pretty likely to increase its presence over time. I worried it would be like the raisin oolong (which I have, and which is actually a decent tea — it sets out to accomplish ‘raisin tea’ and achieves it with flying colors, it’s just a flavor that I, personally, tend to want only intermittently).

The cup as it’s steeping smells more like what I was hoping for — still mostly raisin, but there’s a nice shot of some spicy cinnamon in there to flesh things out now, too. Mmm, yes. The longer it sits the more I like the way it smells!

I’ve noticed that Frank’s black teas have a mild astringency that I might not care for in a plain leaf tea, but which really works to the benefit of the flavored teas I’ve tried. It seems to tighten up the flavors a little bit, at least for me — make them seem a bit more crisp.

Now that things have cooled off, I can state with authority that you ought to let the cup cool a bit. The flavors have come into line, everything seems to have smoothed out and gotten more balanced. Really a big fan of the smell coming out of my cup.

So glad I ordered this one. :) It’ll probably disappear fast!

On to the next one!

OMG this smells amazing. More raisiny and buttery than I expected. There’s a very rich smell to the dry leaves. The butter actually reminds me of hot buttered rum (which I’ve never had) — its just smells heady and intoxicating like there’s alcohol in it.

The cinnamon is more apparent once it’s brewed. The scent sort of alternates between cinnamon, raisin, and butter. Maybe a hint of “toastiness” too?

As for the taste, well, the cinnamon seems predominant and it’s more like red-hot cinnamon than cinnamon toast cinnamon to me (but I’m not a big cinnamon fan so maybe my taste buds are biased). I don’t hate it, but it doesn’t taste raisiny, toasty, or buttery to me. I guess I was expecting it to taste just like liquid buttered cinnamon raisin toast. But this cup seems to be lacking in balance. I will play with it more. Maybe it’s just my frame of mind, or my tastebuds may be off since I am a bit congested this am.

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This new tea is my reward to myself for attempting to mountain bike today. Can’t say I excelled at it or even enjoyed it much, but I survived. From now on it’s smooth, flat paths for me. And for today, since I’ve been athletic and extroverted enough (neither are my norm!), it’s back to my regularly scheduled tea, books, and maybe a hot bath later.

(ps – that gobbledy gook above started as a divider to separate my tasting note from the personal part, but then I decided to create a typographic replica of the how the MTB trail felt… lots of bumps and hills and roots… apparently that’s what makes it “fun” :-\ )