The Good: Excellent aroma, Great taste (hot or cold), Nothing bad in it, Taste!
The Bad: ? Caffeine Free.
The Basics: Celestial Seasonings proves its worth with Cinnamon Apple Spice, a perfect fruit tea that makes me want to buy stock in their company!
When I returned from the Celestial Seasonings plant in Boulder, Colorado a few summers ago, armed with thirty-five boxes of tea, I was so eager to review them. When I was picking up teas, I made a point to get a good variety and spread out among flavors I had never tried. Should I make it to the plant again this year and should I be able to pick up a similar number of boxes of tea, next year's crop will not be so fruitful (pun intended). There's a simple reason for that; at least five of the boxes coming home with me would be Cinnamon Apple Spice!
Basics
Cinnamon Apple Spice is an Herb Tea from Celestial Seasonings. This Herb tea is 100% natural and as a result is caffeine free - none of the ingredients in it had caffeine to begin with so it did not undergo any chemical process to remove them. This is a deliciously potent tea with a realistic apple flavor and a powerful cinnamon aroma.
Cinnamon Apple Spice comes in Celestial Seasoning's standard stringless tea bags, which are paired together with easy to separate perforations that allow one to separate the tea bags. When I make pots of tea, I tend to use two bags and leave them connected. A box of Cinnamon Apple Spice comes with ten pairs (20 individual) of tea bags.
Ease Of Preparation
Cinnamon Apple Spice might well be an exceptional tea, but it is your basic herbal tea when it comes to preparation. Like the Gingerbread Spice tea I reviewed yesterday, there are no tea leaves listed in the ingredients, so this herbal tea is a chicory-base. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea and could be reused and make a second cup of Cinnamon Apple Spice with almost no loss of flavor. This is a great flavor for the tea bag reuser and I've often found that the second pot results in a tea that emphasizes the apple more than the cinnamon, so apple fans might want to try that! The second cup often comes out about as strong as the first, provided the first steeping was not more than the recommended upper recommended steeping time of six minutes, though it will have that flavor difference. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though a second pot with the same bags will come out about 5/8 strength.
To prepare Cinnamon Apple Spice tea, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour it over the tea bags, in a pot or mug. This tea takes four to six minutes to steep according to the directions and if the water is truly boiling, I've found it comes out quite ready after the four minutes. After six minutes, the flavor does not get any stronger so there is no benefit to letting it steep longer than that.
Taste
This is Celestial Seasonings best fruit tea (to date). The best way to describe the Cinnamon Apple Tea is this; it tastes exactly like what one would expect if they brewed tea with apple cider instead of water. This tea has a strong apple flavor and a powerful cinnamon aroma that live up to exactly what its name implies!
Even better, this tea is so naturally sweet tasting there is no need to add sugar. Seriously, not a bitter sip in this tea, it tastes like it has been sweetened all ready (it has not). Adding sugar to this is overkill. I mean, I've tried it that way (with sugar) before and it did not enhance the flavor of the tea in any appreciable way. This is a great tea that lives up to exactly what it is supposed to be! And it's delicious. Five boxes good . . .
Cold, the tea is just as good and the apple flavor becomes more prevalent that way. Actually, when I made it as an iced tea, I found I did add sugar to it, though it tastes quite good without it. Again, there is a delightful exchange of apple and cinnamon flavors in this tea and it is certain to delight anyone who is fed up with drinking teas that taste nothing like what they are advertised to be. Milk may be added to this tea, but I discovered when I tried (for the sake of research!) to add a creamer to it, the creamer actually overpowered the tea. Adding milk will not do anything negative to the tea chemically.
Nutrition
I am fairly sure I had a home fragrance satchel that had the same ingredients as this tea! Seriously, all the ingredients to Cinnamon Apple Spice are very simple and natural. The top three are cinnamon, hibiscus and chamomile. Roasted chicory comes next, which no doubt contributes some of its boldness to the flavor and strength to the aroma (though the dominant scent certainly is cinnamon). There is nothing unpronouncable in this tea and it is noted as being gluten free (for whom that matters).
In terms of nutrition, Cinnamon Apple Spice is another tea in a long line of teas that contribute nothing but delight to the body. There is no nutritional benefit or detriment to this tea. One 8 oz. mug of this tea provides nothing of nutritional value to the drinker. There are no calories (save what one adds from sugar or milk), no fat, sodium, or protein and no caffeine. This is more of a "sitting in front of the fire, sipping tea" tea as opposed to a "wake you up" tea, so it does not bother me at all that it lacks caffeine (that's usually a drawback in my book)!
Storage/Clean-up
Cinnamon Apple Spice tea is very easy to clean up after - the tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. The tea itself is a medium dark tea, but does not seem to stain clothes or flesh (no comment).
Overall
Looking for a great tea that tastes like apples and spices? This is it. This is the one, look no further. This is a completely satisfying beverage that is flat-out perfect. You know, I usually try to be more erudite, but there's no need for elaboration here. It tastes like apples and cinnamon and it's delightful! This is the best fruit tea I've yet found. Hands down.
For other Celestial Seasonings tea reviews, please check out:
Sweet Coconut Thai Chai
Country Peach Passion
Madagascar Vanilla Red
10/10
For other food or drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2011, 2008, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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