Tea Information:

Leaf Type: Black

Where to Buy: Dammann Freres

Tea Description:

Blend of black teas from China and Ceylon, marigold petals, cinnamon, vanilla, apple, almond, ginger essential oil.
A rich cup, perfect on a crisp frosty day.
Recommended brewing time : 4 to 5 minutes

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

This is by no means the best tea I have sampled from Dammann Freres as of late, but that is only because I was lucky enough to do a swap with a lovely Steepster from Paris! I can not begin to tell you how yummy the box smelled when I opened it! Oodles and bunches of teas from Paris which combined into smelling like something from a fancy french confectionary! I was in heaven! Needless to say I have sampled a few so far but this is the one that I grabbed when I had time to do a review. There are others from Dammann Freres I have enjoyed far more but this one does not disappoint.

Sometimes I feel it is good to review one of my less favorite teas from a company because I figure if one of my less favorite is still worth purchasing, still tastes good, then as a whole the tea line itself is quality.

Now I have to confess, I do not have much, if any prior experience with the Dammann Freres tea line. As a matter of fact, before this trade I do not believe I have ever had any tea from them.

This tea offers a warm and welcoming cinnamon aroma but the flavor is not over bearing which is nice. The strong flavor of cinnamon could easily take over but it does not. There is s sweet almond candy flavor, but again is not overwhelming.

The black base is nice and bold enough to be noteworthy through a myriad of flavors.

The ginger is light, which is good for me as I am fairly sensitive to ginger flavor and generally do not like too much ginger in a tea.

I find the vanilla note a little difficult to detect but it is there and more pronounced after the tea has time to cool for a while, it seems to present itself more if you swish the tea in the mouth. It does mix well however with the other notes.

While I am not sure that Dammann Freres totally hit the mark with this one, again my baseline is in comparison to only a few others from their company. I must say a couple of the others I have sampled from them were so amazing that it is difficult for them to live up to their own tea selection when considering this specific tea. I guess we can’t fault them for that!

I do notice that none of their flavor notes seem artificial and I noticed that in the tea description they mention ginger essential oil! Some of you who know me know I adore essential oils and find them to be the best method for flavoring anything! Therefore Dammann Freres gets props from me for that!

I am looking forward to reviewing other teas from them, and can’t wait to review a couple of my favorites! This, its good, but so far isn’t going to make it to my personal favorites list, then again I am not a huge fan of this flavor profile so please take that into consideration when placing your own order.