Crunchy Apple Pie - Black Tea 100 g - Café du Jour loose tea

Does it really taste like apple pie?

Recognisably so. Crunchy Apple Pie is a flavoured black tea built around apple and cinnamon, and both are clearly there: sweet apple first, then the warmth of the cinnamon behind it. It is pronounced without being overpowering, and the sweetness is the fruit and the spice rather than anything you stir in.

The aroma does as much of the work as the taste. Pour the water on and the kitchen fills with the smell of a pie coming out of the oven, which is why this one tends to appear in the winter months — though there is nothing stopping you drinking it in July.

In the blend

• Black tea — the full-bodied base
• Apple — the fruit and most of the sweetness
• Cinnamon — warmth and a gentle spice
• Natural flavouring — rounds the apple pie character off

Brewing

One heaped teaspoon per cup, water hot but not boiling at around 90 to 95°C, and three to five minutes. A shorter steep keeps it light and fruity; a longer one brings the cinnamon forward and the body of the black tea with it. Being a loose-leaf tea it needs an infuser, a strainer or a pot with a filter, and the leaf wants room to open rather than a cramped little ball.

The details

• Type: flavoured loose-leaf black tea
• Ingredients: black tea, apple, cinnamon, natural flavouring
• Net weight: 100 g
• Contains caffeine
• Brewing: one heaped teaspoon per cup, 90 to 95°C, three to five minutes
• Blended and packed by Café du Jour at our own tea house in the Netherlands