Twinings

This is a pretty good backup to PG Tips. The loose leaf is better than the bags of course, but harder to get in Canada. The tea in the bags is often dust quality tea so you really have to be careful when brewing it not to over steep.

I find Twinings is often overpriced since it’s an import here, but it’s far better than any of the bland supermarket Orange Pekoe/ Ceylon teas that are the alternative in Canada.

And as always with black tea make sure your water is actually boiling when you pour it on for the best flavour!

Before steeping, the initial smell of the tea concerns me. There seems to be a lack of bergamot….ingredients say “bergamot flavoring” rather than bergamot oil. There is a definite citrus scent, though I am not sure how that will taste in combination with the bergamot.

The tea was a very dark color when brewed and had a strong citrus, almost lemon, smell. I may have let it steep too long, after reading other reviews I was afraid that it would taste weak if only steeped for 2 minutes. It really didn’t taste like a typical Earl Grey which is a problem for me. I think I would enjoy this tea with added milk and sweetener, but I do not enjoy it plain. Unfortunately, I could not distinguish the bergamot.

After having spent much of the afternoon with my great aunt and mum discussing how I have developed a selective tongue for tea, we raided my aunt’s tea cabinet. It was incredibly tempting to pick up her Mariage Frères package, but I kept digging for something I hadn’t seen before. Lo and behold, I found a tin of loose formosa oolong from Twining’s!

Hell knows if they make this anymore, because I sure can’t find it? It may be precisely because it was so old (it smelled alright, but the leaves did look a little more dead than usual, and we pried the lid with a screwdriver) that it didn’t sit too well. Even when using a very fine tea infuser, bits of tea were filtering through to the bottom, so I reckon the leaves had been broken badly up over time. Either way, added a little more than usual, and brewed it with just-boiled water. Definitely didn’t let it sit too long, either, because it got very dark very quickly, which I found unusual. I always drink oolongs straight, too.

The scent was straightforward, and kicking up associations with black tea over green tea in that it wasn’t vegetal. As you all probably know (I dare not lecture on tea, since I’m newbie enough), most oolongs move from bitter taste to sweet aftertaste. While I was picking up smoky and woodsy notes on this one, the sweetness definitely didn’t kick in, unfortunately. And as I already noted, it was darker than I’d expected.

Had I more time, I probably would’ve tried a couple more steeps to see if it would soften up a bit, but maybe this is a matter of the leaves more than me. My aunt told this story of how, in college, she’d sent her mother a card with a picture of a pencil on the front that said “You may call this a pencil,” and on the inside, “But I call it a hint,” because her mother rarely ever wrote her. After much serious contemplation, my darling great grandmother sent back a card of someone climbing up a rock wall, with the front saying, “You’re trying, trying, trying…” and the inside said “…Very trying.”

I suppose this is my attempt at trying tea something!

This’ the last teabag of this. I like it enough that I might go and buy a full box. I’d get the full loose leaf, except that it doesn’t seem that anywhere around here sells it. The only Twinings loose leafs I’ve found are for Earl Grey and Gunpowder Green.

Besides, Tealicious seems to have plans for their own version of Lady Grey, so maybe I’ll just hold off on getting more until they come out with their own and try that first.

The dry teabag smelt just like regular earl grey, however, wet, you could definitely smell the other citrusy fruits.

Surprisingly smooth! Although the citrus seems to be more in the smell than the taste. Well, you get more of the… acidic taste, and not so much the taste of the individual fruits, I suppose.

Decided to add some honey… Hmm, maybe that was too MUCH honey. Now I can taste nothing other than honey and tea. Mm… well, give it a moment and you can still sort of taste citrus in the background somewhere.

Aah, yep, the taste’s returning. I think it just needed to cool a bit more (the pot’s warmer than my cup, after all). I like it. Probably would go better if I hadn’t dolloped the honey like that. Like it waaaay better than Twining’s earl grey.

Trying this for the first time…..I’m enjoying my morning cup but it’s probably not something I would go out and buy over and over again. I prefer Morning Thunder or PG Tips for bagged tea in the morning. I added milk (as I do with nearly all black teas) and it overpowered the taste of the tea. My water was just “hot” and not freshly boiled though, so that may have something to do with it.

Edit: For my second cup, I steeped the tea with the milk rather than splashing it in once I was ready to drink it. BIG DIFFERENCE! Tasty.

this is horrible… thank someone at twining’s for discontinuing it. Although it’s not the worst tea I’ve had from them.
So there ya go. Little tiny plus.

blech… is there actually any tea in there?
and since this is not going to be a nice review and I don’t want to get in trouble on here…
www.mad-tea.com
for my REAL opinion

looks askance at photo Is this the only Twinings blackcurrant black tea? I’ve only had this at Eric’s – twice – three times – and his box doesn’t look like this. Perhaps it dates from 2008.

Anyhow! This does what it says on the package. It’s like a nice Assam (not too robust) with a shot of Ribena, only not as sweet as I imagine that to be. No acidity as there can be with fruit-flavoured teas (but when is blackcurrant ever acidic?). I don’t know how other people do it but with flavoured black teas I usually steep for a minute max the first go-round, or the flavouring doesn’t last until the second steeping.

I prefer my Earl Grey to be light on the bergamont and so find this to be completely acceptable.

Today, I sweetened my cup with tupelo honey which brings out lovely citrus notes.

I do wonder what it is with the ’don’t drink with milk’ warning.
Is it something akin to not feeding the Gremlins after midnight??
Still I have to admit I have wanted to,….wanted to rebel b/c the gently cocoa aroma
does whisper ‘milk would be nice’ to me. But I have been good!! I’ve not sucummb. Probably more b/c I tend to drink this one when I can’t sleep and have had a crap day. And I certainly don’t want to become an evil gremlin on those kind of nights.

This one is gentle lavendar and has a light cocoa flavor. Lovely, and herby and I always end up asleep so perhaps its been doing its job ;)

I want to put carbonated water in this one. Its got to be like 7-up tea!
But while the lemon and lime gently take turns jumping on your tongue (like
they were in a bouncy castle) don’t forget to notice that sweet little orange blossom that does wave gently in the background. Good stuff.

It takes going through a phase or being stuck at a tealess house.
Then someone goes ‘oh we have this one’ and then i will indulge.
And sometimes wonder why its a love/hate relationship between Chammy
and myself. The honey and vanilla make things very sweet in this one and
make it very drinkable. So I can always enjoy a few sips (with a funny cham aftertaste)
without any issue. But then chamomile always appears at some point and domniates the tea, and I recall why this one doesn’t live in my tea-universe.

Fruity but not really distinct.
Not bad but didn’t set me on fire.

Wow. So rating this tea while sick was an aesthetic misstep. This tea has a really nice lemon-ginger flavor/aroma. I had some last night to help pass the last hour at work and it was so enjoyable I immediately had a second mugful. Still not as good as actually infusing ginger and lemon into hot water, but nice for a non-caffeine pick me up.

This continues to be part of my sore-throat medicine regime. For purely medicinal reasons I have been dissolving one or two tablets of “Fisherman’s Friend” menthol lozenges in my mug – I assure you this is not for taste, but rather for delivery method. You find a remarkably similar post to this regarding Twinings Pure Peppermint

Got this to help my sore throat and cough. Nice flavor, a bit dull. Theraputic effect as desired, nothing special beyond that.

This continues to be part of my sore-throat medicine regime. For purely medicinal reasons I have been dissolving one or two tablets of “Fisherman’s Friend” menthol lozenges in my mug – I assure you this is not for taste, but rather for delivery method. You find a remarkably similar post to this regarding Twinings Herbal Revive: lemon and ginger

Minty, but oily. Used this to help my sore throat, did the job.