Posted by Gravecat at 10:28 pm under Tea Reviews, Twinings. Comments (4)
I’ve actually been meaning to start doing this for a long while now, though I’m not entirely sure what took me so long. As someone who has acquired a frankly obscene amount of different teas (and continues to expand said collection at any given opportunity), and someone who also enjoys spending time writing reviews of all and sundry on this blog, it seems like a natural conclusion to make a start on some tea-reviewing.
Before I begin, I’m going to make a number of concessions; I’ll say this now, so if anyone suggests any of the above later, I can point here and say, “Well, at least I was honest.”
1. It has been suggested that I’m gay for Twinings. I’ll of course deny any such accusations, but it’s true that they do make up a large portion of my tea collection.
2. My taste in teas — and in food in general — is much like my taste in movies; base, simple, unsophisticated. Don’t expect something akin to wine-tasting bullshit here, this is written by the common people, for the common people.
3. I know that fruit teas (or “infusions”, or whatever) don’t actually contain tea leaves, so probably aren’t technically tea. I know this. I don’t care. See point #2.
With that said, I’m going to make an attempt to review something I just grabbed out of the cupboard on a whim: Twinings Cranberry & Sanguinello Orange, from their “fresh & fruity” range. I’ve already got a number of other offerings from this range, which span the line all the way from disappointing to fantastic, so while I’d consider this range somewhat hit-and-miss, it’s generally worth checking out for the sake of the hidden gems.
I had pretty high hopes for this particular one — while I may not be the biggest fan of cranberries (I don’t dislike them, but they’re firmly planted in the ‘neutral’ territory of neither like nor dislike in my mind), oranges are one of those things that I’d be honestly surprised if anyone disliked. Oranges are fucking great. So with that in mind, surely anything that contains oranges would be equally superb? Well, not quite.
I’m going to first comment on the smell, while avoiding tedious tropes drawled out by wine-tasting sorts. The bags themselves smell musty and unappealing, like a dusty old attic that’s been undisturbed for decades (and yet may once upon a time have contained fruit), while the finished product is… similarly disappointing, the vague scent of oranges overpowered by something unfamiliar and while not outright unpleasant, certainly not terribly appealing.
The taste, while a great deal improved and largely unlike the smell in most regards, is best described as painfully average; the sharp, clear bite of the orange shines through as one would expect, but it feels somehow stifled by the myriad of other flavours, certainly not as “refreshing” as the box would have you believe. I honestly couldn’t begin to muddle through the other mix of uncertain flavours, but the fact remains that this feels like too much in too small a package, and rather than just letting the primary flavour shine through, it’s bogged down by too much excess.
Overall, it’s not necessarily a bad experience, but it’s one that I find purely average and unremarkable in almost every respect, not nearly as exciting as the vibrant box photography implies. It’s okay, but that in itself is the main problem — it’s only okay, not something so much better that it could have been.
Miranda — April 20th, 2010 @ 12:59 am
Were you preparing this hot or cold? Based on your description of the flavor, and my own experience with similar fruity teas, my guess is that this would taste a lot better over ice. Colder temperatures sometimes bring out the natural sweetness in flavors like this so it tastes milder and subtler. For that matter, how long did you steep it? Sometimes that can make a huge difference.
Gravecat — April 20th, 2010 @ 1:19 am
Hot, all the way. I actually lack a freezer entirely, so there’s simply no potential for ice-cubes in this place. As for the latter question, I’m… not entirely sure. I just tend to wing it in that regard, and leave the tea-bag to do its thing for about as long as seems “right”. I’ve acquired a pretty good sense for it, and am rarely wrong, at least with my own teas.
With that said, I could always try adjusting the timing, to see if that’d make much of a difference. I’m skeptical in that regard because I’ve never been able to personally tell the difference at all (except with green teas, which tend to be a lot more fickle), but let it not be said that I’m unwilling to try.
Lu — January 7th, 2011 @ 2:13 am
And nearly a year later, I remember that the proper name for a ‘fruit tea’ is “tisane”