Curious Cumin

Great herbal tea for an upset belly or when you’re feeling the blahs.

Well, it is one of those days where I do not have much of an intro. I caught a spider and put it outside, I made a giant rice-filled sack to act as a cooling pad, and a drank tea. All the cleaning and redoing of my room I did yesterday left me very sore and worn out, so for the most part today I have taken it easy and tried not to melt in the oppressive heat.

Today I am looking at an herbal blend from Steeped Tea, Curious Cumin, a mix of…well a lot of things: Fennel, anise, cinnamon bits, silver lime blossoms, cumin, turmeric, goji berries, lemongrass, rose blossom leaves, peppermint leaves, pistachios, pomegranate blossoms, cardamom, sunflower blossoms, cornflower blossoms, safflowers, natural flavors. I was…ha…curious to try this herbal blend because it has a few ingredients I am rather fond of, especially cumin, cardamon, turmeric, and pistachios. These things show up a lot in Indian food, which is probably well known to be a favorite cuisine of mine. Plus the description lists it as savory, and I do adore herbal blends with a heavy savory quality, so when asked if I wanted to try a few teas, this one seemed like a good choice. The aroma was a bit of a cacophony, surprisingly sweet and very spice heavy. Notes of nuttiness, fennel, citrus, and flowers give it a strong perfumed finish. Totally not what I expected, a little odd and intense though not necessarily unpleasant.

Steeping in my glass apparatus, the aroma is pretty intense, it has a real weight to it. Notes of cumin, fennel, pepper, turmeric, and lemons. Surprisingly little flower and surprisingly sweet for such earthy spice notes, but fennel is like that. The aroma of the liquid is peppery and spicy, earthy and herbal, with an undertone of lemongrass and flowers. The main note is fennel, with cumin being fairly light.

So with all those aroma notes being so sweet I was expecting a mouth full of syrup, but no, it is fairly savory and earthy, bordering on medicinal. Strong notes of fennel and turmeric, with a middle of cumin and pepper, and a finish of lemongrass and a sweetness that just shows up and lingers. When the tea cools a bit it starts being sweeter in the middle and picks up more floral notes. I am not sure if I like this blend or not, there is definitely a lot going on, and the flavors do clash a little. It is not unpleasant but there is a lot of mouth noise and I found it hard to focus on just one note, also I was a little sad there was no real sign of pistachio in the taste, but since pistachios are one of my favorite things ever, me being sad is only expected. I say give this tea a try if you are a fan of really chaotic herbal blends/teas, or ones very heavy on spices and herbs.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/07/steeped-tea-curious-cumin-tea-review.html

My steeped Tea representative was nice to include a sample of this tea in my most recent order. I wasn’t sure If I would like this one due to anise being so high up on the ingredients list and thus I did not want to commit to a full 50g of this tea.

Interesting how this is called Curious Cumin when Fennel is the most prominent spice. Steeped Tea is trying to promote spice teas that include fennel, turmeric, cumin and ginger and they have a fennel one already (which I did purchase 50g of) so I guess they did not want to promote yet another fennel tea.

Onto the tea: I brewed this up at work: used half the sample in my 16oz timolino. Not sure of the temperature of the water, but the brew time was 4min (wanted to be careful on the strength of the anise). The main taste is anise (although it isn’t disgustingly strong or cloyingly sweet) followed by fennel and other spices. When I think about cumin, I can see how it pulls though. The anise is actually complimentary to cumin and the other spices in spite of my aversion to it.

With that being said though, I’m not huge on teas that are anise/licorice prominent and therefore will not be purchasing any. Once again, I’m thankful my steeped tea rep gave me a sample instead of me spending about $10/50g…