Twinings

I really like lemon and I really like ginger, so this should have been a favourite of the five In’fuse flavours, but this one lacks some sweetness which would take the edge off the sourness of the lemon and the zing of the ginger.
A bit stronger on the orange taste?
Perhaps a little honey?
Or more infusion time?
NOTE – On my second try, I did infuse for longer & I liked it a little more. There was a hint of orange coming through, which I didn’t get the first time.
On the other hand, the ginger was stronger too & left a gingery aftertaste in my mouth, which wasn’t unpleasant, but not as refreshing as the other flavours.
I can imagine it being great if you have a sore throat, especially with some honey added.

In trying to kick my Coke Zero habit, not that I drank a huge amount (1-2 mini cans at work), but sugar substitutes are turning out to be mostly pretty bad for you. So I was looking for a cold drink with no added sugar, but that would give me the refreshment & energy boost I need on a hot day at work.
I was commenting to a workmate about this & coincidentally, she had just bought a pack of this cold water infusion, which Twinings released in five flavours recently. One sniff & I was ready to try it myself, hence…
It tastes strongly of Ribena (blackcurrant) at first, but the longer you infuse it (definitely at least 10 mins), the more the blueberry & apple come out & the better it tastes.
You can reuse a few times too (I have gone up to 4) but if you plan to do that, keep the infusion times to the recommended 3-5 minutes otherwise there’ll be no flavour left by the third infusion…
It tastes great if the water is iced, but if that’s not an option, you can still drink it at room temperature too. How good is that?
Next, the other 4 flavours…

This tea reminds me of my tea with my nana. Not that it was necessarily this specific tea she served us, but it was always strong black tea with milk. It could have been the Aussie icon, Bushells, but more likely it was Tetleys, because despite living in Australia from when she was 12 until she passed away at 91, she was English to the core.
Drinking black tea takes me back to times spent with her and makes me miss her a lot, but also reminds me that she is still sending comfort in the form of a good, strong cuppa.
And this IS a good, strong cuppa. Nana would have loved it!
The first thing you notice is the very dark liquor and rich aroma. I nearly always add milk to black tea because I still find it hard to drink it without. But I think in this case it works well, resulting in a strong but malty smooth taste, compared to some other EBs I have tried, which were astringent & bitter.
There is only one other EB I have tried to date that I prefer, & that is Madura Estate tea (from the north coast of NSW). But it’s a pretty close-run race…

I wanted to love this tea. I tried another rooibos, orange & cinnamon tea & really enjoyed it, but unfortunately it was a sample of a discontinued line.
So when I found a similar offering from trusty old Twinings, I thought, Wooo hooo!
The first smell of the dry bag was WHOOOAAA, cinnamon! There was little else.
Once infused the liquor was a lovely coppery colour & initially the aroma was completely opposite the dry bag smell – a divine strong orange, with occasional whiffs of cinnamon.
The taste was… disappointing. Thin, is how I’d describe it… Yes there was some orange, and a little cinnamon, even a bit of nuttiness from the rooibos, but there was something missing. It didn’t have the well-rounded mouthfeel of the other tea I’d tried.
My conclusion: to paraphrase Mr Darcy from Pride & Prejudice – “Tolerable, but not tasty enough to tempt me”… Another one for the “It’ll do until I find something I like better” list.

My quest continues…

NOTE – This is not the same as the UK (& USA?) Orange & Cinnamon Spice.

Yay! My first tasting note on my new tea adventure!
I had high hopes for this blend – I absolutely love the tart flavour of cranberry (favourite cocktail, a Woo Woo, or Vodka, Cranberry & Cointreau for those of you who don’t know). And pomegranate comes in close, so what’s not to like, right?
The liquor was a deep cherry red, almost like a good shiraz, and the aroma was really rich & well-rounded. The cranberry came through strongly, but there wasn’t much pomegranate there.
Now for the taste – which was a bit of let down…
The strongest flavour was hibiscus (which I don’t mind, but it wasn’t the point of choosing this tea). But just when I was thinking, meh, there was the taste of cranberry on the back of the palate, which lifted the whole mouthfeel to refreshing. I never detected that pomegranate though!
So I’m still searching for the perfect cranberry (& pomegranate) tea, but this is a good option in the meantime.

Good and aromatic. Not too sour. Rich, deep flavour. Medium like on my scale.

I don’t drink this tea as often as I should since it is one of my newfound favorites. The last time I made it, I think I let the tea sit too long. The taste was a bit overwhelming… At least I’ll know for next time.
10/12/2018

My mom gave me a packet of Twinings Jasmine Green Tea tea bags, and I tried it today. It doesn’t have as much as a flowery scent as the tea leaves. The flowery taste is slight, but it doesn’t linger very long. I think I’ll stick with tea leaves
10/05/18

Tastes like artificial fruit flavoring and…pencils? Extremely astringent even though I brewed it for less than three minutes. I’m going to make something else now…

308/365

This is the last of the Cold Infuse flavours I bought to try, and my least favourite of the four. They’re right in suggesting that watermelon is the primary flavour, because it absolutely is. It’s a little too candy-like to really be refreshing, though; there’s a cloying sweetness that’s just too much, especially after you’ve taken a few successive sips. Mint is the secondary flavour, and I don’t much care for it as a flavour in general, so I’m fairly ambivalent about it here. It’s okay, and works with the watermelon (it actually helps to regulate the sweetness a little, so in some ways I wish it were stronger), but it doesn’t freshen things up enough or really bring the other flavours to life. I was hoping for lots of strawberry, but unfortunately, I didn’t get it. It’s fleeting at best, and mostly I can’t really taste it. The watermelon really dominates. I’m glad I tried this one last, because if I’d gone for this one first I probably wouldn’t have bought any more and some of the flavours are really spectacular. I suppose there’s a black sheep in every family!

Ehh, tart and not drinkable unless you love hibiscus or add a lot of sugar. The raspberry and strawberry flavours are very obvious and real-tasting, however the hibiscus ruins it. While it is one of the better tasting fruity herbals (distinct strawberry and raspberry flavours rather than generic berry or artificial flavours) it still isn’t for me.

301/365

I lay the blame for this one firmly at the feet of Arby, whose tasting note for this one meant that I immediately had to seek out a box – fortunately, it was pretty easy to come by. This is a chamomile-based sleep/bedtime blend, but is slightly unusual in that it also features spiced apple, vanilla, and passionflower.

I really like it. It’s sweeter than such blends usually are, and not as obnoxiously herbal. The apple is nicely prominent, and It’s almost juicy, in the way of apple juice (the kind that’s not from concentrate.) The vanilla adds a softening creaminess, which is always welcome, and the chamomile is pleasantly buttery which works well with the creaminess as well as the apple. The spicing is fairly mild, but there in the background. Taken as a whole, I’m reminded quite a bit of the spiced apple juice I made last autumn with another Twinings blend – Spicy Chai.

I haven’t really tried enough of this to comment on its sleep-inducing properties, but I will say that I slept really well last night, which is unusual for me. Long may it continue!

296/365

Another of the Twinings Cold Infuse blends. This one isn’t quite as unique as the other two were, but it’s very juicy! It reminds me a lot of Ribena, but I’m guessing it’s a bit healthier. There’s lots of apple, which is a big plus in my book. It’s just in the right side of candy-like; sweet, but still distinctively apple-y. It’s definitely green apple, too – there’s a nice sharpness to it that contrasts well with the sweetness.

The blackcurrant is second in terms of prominence. It adds a slightly sharp tartness that works well with the apple. The whole thing is rounded out nicely by the blueberry, which is really very subtle, but there in the background if you’re looking for it. It adds an edge sweetness and works really well with the other two flavours. It’s super fruity, super juicy, and just all round nice. Glad to have tried this one.

Yesterday, after riding the new Alien Swirling Saucer in Hollywood Studios, my husband and I ventured over to Epcot for a little of the Food and Wine Festival. Seeing as we’re passholders with plans to spend a longer time there in a few weeks, we just popped into a few shops around the World Showcase to look for anything they might have gotten in since we were last there in May. (We don’t do summer in Disney. Too hot. Too busy.) Twinings added some little drawers across from the register that you pull out to find some loose leaves under a plexiglass with holes in it for smelling some new teas. They only have 4 available to smell. As soon as I got a whiff of this, I was sold. It smells heavenly if rose. I want to wear it. I want to bathe in it. For now, I shall drink it! The aroma is so lovely and strong of rose, if you aren’t a fan of the fragrant flower, then this isn’t one for you. It tastes more of rose than black tea, and I find it absolutely amazing. The quality of tea is also new from Twinings. The tea comes in little pyramid bags filled with nice sized leaves. Looks like a much pricier tea. Apparently, it was a limited edition flavor in the UK, and now it is only sold in the Twinings shop in Epcot. Just one of the many unique Twinings finds I’ve purchased at Epcot. Highly recommend to rose fans!

If you want a light mint tea, without much other flavor then this is the one for you, Its not bad just not much mint kick to it I prefer.

290/365

Only one thing to say about this: awesome!

It’s very candy pineapple up front, much like those dried crystallised pieces you can buy in health shops. As it strengthens, the coconut becomes the (slightly) more dominant flavour, although not in a way that’s soapy or overpowering. If anything, it’s very clean and fresh tasting, and deliciously tropical. This one would have been perfect on those hot days we had recently, and I’m a little sad that I only discovered these in the last few days.

The green tea base is very subtle, although probably the cold brewing helps with that. It could also be that there’s just not that much green tea in each sachet, although there looks to be plenty of something green, but it’s so finely shredded, it’s hard to tell what it’s supposed to be.

Love it, though!

Coldbrewed. One teabag, 450mL cold water, 15 minutes

hmm this is too acidic for my liking. I do find the English do black current exceptionally well, but the hibiscus is overpowering the fruit. I can taste lots of blueberry and current flavour, however I think I would taste more subtitles if the hibiscus was toned down and replaced by dried apple or something else with some sweetness. Next time, I’ll have this with sweetener and hope it brings out the blueberry.

289/365

I found these in Sainsbury’s the other day. I’ll admit that while I’ve not been actively looking in the tea aisle, I’ve walked down it often enough and I don’t remember ever seeing these. That makes me think they’re a fairly recent release, and yet the timing seems a bit odd. If I’d known about these, I would have been all over them during the hot weather we had recently. They seem like the perfect thing. Anyway, today was warm still, so I took the opportunity to try them anyway. Maybe we’ll have an indian summer, and they’ll come in to their own then? Part of me hopes not, since I absolutely love autumn.

To provide a bit of context, these are silky pyramid-style affairs, specifically intended for rapid cold brewing. I can testify to that – I added 1 bag to the recommended 500ml water for my walk to work this morning, and it was ready to drink within 20 minutes or so. Possibly sooner, except the bottle was in my bag and I wasn’t really paying attention. I opened it when I got off the bus, and it was perfect at that point. The packaging states that these are heat treated to be “safe” for this method of brewing, and in all honesty that’s something I’ve never really thought about before. I’ve cold brewed teas in the fridge for years, and figured they were fine because the temperature is controlled. I suppose you could add these bags to water that wasn’t very cold, and then walk around with it, and that might be a problem, but it’s not one I’ve ever considered.

In terms of the flavour, I was really impressed. I went in to it with mild trepidation, given that it’s a bagged offering from a big commercial brand, and one that specifically states that it contains hibiscus. I needn’t have worried, though, because it turns out it’s exactly what it claims to be. The initial sip is very lemony, in the way of freshly grated lemon zest, which is then followed by an epic candy-rose flavour. It’s sweet, but not overpoweringly so, and not too floral. As someone who isn’t big on floral teas, I can say that with confidence. It’s not subtle, but it reminds me very much of turkish delight in that it’s a scent almost as much as a flavour. A really immersive experience, if you can say that about a tea. Added to the fact that it was really quick and easy to prepare, it’s very much a winner with me! I’d quite like to try it in lemonade or sparkling water, just to see what the carbonation does for the "lemonade"aspect, but I liked it so much, I went looking for other flavours straight after work. They could very well be my new obsession…