Cinnamon Flavoured Black Tea Ceylon Loose Leaf Orange Pekoe Cinnamon Seasonal

This is a fine quality Orange Pekoe leaf tea from Ceylon. Cinnamon is a spice derived from the inner bark of species of Cinnamomum trees. Cinnamon has been known since remote antiquity; its source kept a secret to maintain a long monopoly amongst spice traders. Cinnamomum verum, which translates as ‘true Cinnamon’, is native to India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Being a Ceylon based tea it will happily take milk although personally I prefer it without. A slice of orange or seasonal kumquat would make a lovely addition. According to Pliny the Elder, a Roman pound (327 grams) cost the wage of fifty months labour. Cinnamon was too expensive to be commonly burned on funeral pyres, but Nero is said to have burned a year’s worth of Rome’s supply at the funeral of his wife Poppaea Sabina in AD65. In 1638 Dutch traders established a trading post in Ceylon and took control of the manufacturing process, apparently within 20 years they had built it up to the point where ships downwind of the shore could smell the Cinnamon almost thirty miles away.