Neither spicy nor sweet, cinnamon flavor at its barest.
Amount of grounds:
2 tablespoons per 10 oz of water
Brewing time:
8.5 minutes
Additions:
None
Reusing grounds:
Not tested
Using grounds in food:
Not recommended. Contains husk.
General Thoughts:
General feeling about the roast
At first, and starting with the cinnamon, these two almost seemed quite similar to begin with. But once I went the other direction, from double chocolate back to the cinnamon, the similarity disappeared. The "sweetness" of the double chocolate really kind of makes some bitterness and blandness of the cinnamon flavor stand out. On its own, the cinnamon is okay, but when compared to something like the double chocolate, it really doesn't do well.
Oddly, starting out, the hazelnut didn't seem to have much hazelnut flavor when drinking it against the cinnamon. Something about the cinnamon just made the hazelnut taste chocolatey. As I progressed through the cups the difference became stronger, but I just thought it was an interesting first note. I like the hazelnut better than the cinnamon either way.
The aroma coming off of the maple is very sweet compared to the cinnamon. The actual flavor of either is not sweet, but the maple kind of tricks my brain into thinking it is, and I do prefer the maple over the cinnamon. The maple tastes a little less "clashy" than the cinnamon. As I get to the bottom half of the cup, I can taste a tiny bit of the bitterness of the chocolate in the maple that I used to pick up more when I first started this whole journey, but the cinnamon lacks that.
The battle of the cinnamons! Well, not much of a battle, but more like a tickle fight. Neither one has much of a chocolate flavor to it, and with both of them having cinnamon, it just about boils down to how the spice of the cayenne, or lack thereof, affects the overall flavor.
In the plain cinnamon version, the actual cinnamon flavor is a bit stronger. It's a little closer in quality to the cinnamon flavor found in baked goods (the "warm and sweet" variety) and it stands out quite a bit in this test. The Maya, on the other hand, the cinnamon flavor is a bit more muted and the spice of the cayenne seems quite strong in the flavor. In the aroma, it gives a hint closer to that of cinnamon candy or gum. But before that spiciness kicks in, there is a brief moment in the flavor where it comes across as quite similar to the plain cinnamon version with that "softer" version of the flavor. Between the two, I prefer the Maya overall, although in this particular side-by-side, it just kind of makes me fell "meh" about both.
There's not a lot to say about these two that hasn't already been said. The mocha has a cigarette smoke flavor, and the cinnamon is neither the spicy variety nor the warm and cozy variety. The mocha, being what it is, does have some chocolate flavor that comes through, but in the cinnamon one, the cinnamon flavor pretty much eclipses it. I'm not a fan of either one, so I'm having a hard time picking which one I like best. Or dislike least. I prefer the cinnamon aroma over the mocha, but I prefer the mocha flavor over the cinnamon. I'm trying to think, "If I had to pick one of these to drink for an extended time, which one could I tolerate better?" I think they'd both make me give up drinking brewed cocoa if that were the case. This may truly be a tie even though the experiences are different.
Out of the fall flavor sampler, this is the pairing that I've been looking forward to the most.
Taking a whiff of the dry grounds, the cinnamon smells a little muted, but it's there and warm and cozy. The peppermint smells absolutely amazing. After brewing, the added flavor of both is slightly subdued and I can smell the chocolate coming through a bit more.
The cinnamon one is decent, although the brewing process seems to have knocked some of the cinnamon flavor and scent out of it. If I didn't know it was cinnamon, I'm not sure I would identify it as such. I would probably be thinking, "there's something familiar here, but I can't tell what it is." Anyway, as I noted with the smell test above, it's the "warm and cozy" sort of cinnamon, like in a cinnamon bun, not the "spicy" variety you find in candies or gum. Actually, it's not quite like a cinnamon bun, either. It kind of reminds of the time where I thought it would be a good idea to put a teaspoon of ground cinnamon in my tea one morning, but it turned out I was wrong. Something about the smell reminds me of... "grandma's house in the 70's"? Oh! No, it's something closer to the basement of the house where I used to go to get my hair cut when I was a kid. I know all of this sounds terrible, but it's really not bad. It's just the weird thoughts and feelings the flavor evokes for some reason.
The peppermint one is also decent, but the strong peppermint scent that was in the dry grounds seems to have mostly baked right out of it in the brewing process. It's more subtle and subdued. There's something in the scent when I bring it up to take a sip where it makes my nose crinkle a tiny bit. A slight pungency perhaps, that feels out of place with the coolness of the peppermint, but on its own it would be fine.
It's hard to pick a favorite between the two. I don't see myself drinking either one long term. This one may be a tie just because they were both a bit disappointing compared to what I had hoped for either one.
While the cinnamon one still isn't one that I'd ever want to have a big bag of, it's still much better than the pumpkin spice. Side by side, the cinnamon almost has a slightly sweeter taste to it. And I don't dislike it as much as I previously thought. Going with my very first impression of it, it's "decent". The pumpkin spice, on the other hand, comes across... I don't know. I kind of want to say "bitter", but that's not it. Sour? It's like the smell is slightly sour, but the taste isn't.
I had a little bit of a weird experience with this one in that these two tasted way more similar than I thought they would. I think this was due to two reasons.
First, I have a little bit of a cold, so I'm probably not detecting the full flavor that I normally would. And second, I had completely forgotten until I finished it that I was comparing the vanilla against cinnamon, NOT pumpkin spice! The whole time I was thinking, "This pumpkin spice doesn't taste as strong as I remember!"
I think the reason why I didn't pick up on it being cinnamon right away is because of how I've always categorized it as kind of a bland style of cinnamon without the spice of candy and without the brown sugary sweetness of a baked good. That, and pumpkin spice has a little bit of cinnamon in in anyway. It also goes to show how much the mind moulds the experience based on what it's expecting to find.
Anyway, all of that being said, the end result is that I still like the vanilla better than the cinnamon, but I think it kind of highlights what I thought was wrong with the cinnamon in the first place. It's blandness. Bland. Bland bland bland. And now that word doesn't sound like a word anymore. Ha!