Twinings

Aaaaa chamomile, what would I do without you? So far, I have found that this is the most effective blend of chamomile for me to deal with overwhelming feelings of anxiety and depression. It also tastes really sweet, so that’s a pickmeup in itself! My favourite blend of chamomile. The packaging is also gorgeous!

It tastes pretty good. It could use a little more bergamot and the black tea could be a bit stronger for my tasting. But, it is an enjoyable cuppa. Impressive for an easy go to bagged tea.

3rd taster of the starter box I received a few days ago and definitely the worst (although I was looking most forward to trying this fruit infusion) : already in nose a lot less interesting than the other tasters (blackcurrant&blueberry or strawberry&raspberry), as I cannot get mango anywhere and the strawberry is very subtle. Then, after steeping it 4 minutes, this is basically an infusion of the hibiscus backbone…neither mango nor strawberry is present. It´s sweet but fortunately not overly sweet (neither is the taste or smell artificial), so it´s easy to drink, has a nice colour and that´s about it. Quite little reason to repeat!

The second taster of the small Twinings taster box. Another hibiscus-backbone fruit infusion, but here the hibiscus doesn´t overpower the blackcurrant and blueberry, as this infusion is named. I´m not a big fan of blackcurrant, but here its strong flavour is reasonably balanced (with the hibiscus?). Cannot get the blueberry though. Overall a more than decent fruit infusion.

The other day, my husband “discovered” a litle taster box by Twinings he had received once and had put aside in his bag. I am now doing the tasting of the 3 different fruit infusions, starting with this “strawberry & raspberry”. Both the tea bag as the steeped tea smell nicely, nothing too artificial (quite common with these fruit infusions), and this is fortunately confirmed when drinking it.
The only thing that starts to bother me with the "better "of these fruit infusions (in my opinion when taste isn´t artificial) is that they seem to be all aromatised hibiscus infusions, so the hibiscus is key and the name of the infusion is the aroma which makes the difference between the different infusions, in this case strawberry and raspberry. Very easy to drink, although I prefer infusions a bit less dominated by the hibiscus…

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If there’s one advantage to having a cold, it’s forcing me to be a bit more creative with my tea. This isn’t a particularly exciting tea at the best of times, being straightforward chamomile and mostly dust at that. No whole flowers here! In an effort to try and help myself sleep and soothe my throat at the same time, I added the juice of 1/4 lemon and 1 tsp of honey to a cup I’d steeped for 3 minutes. It’s actually delicious, and breathed fresh life into a normally boring supermarket staple. I sometimes find chamomile too sweet, and I worried that the honey would push it over the edge, but the fresh lemon juice brings it back from the brink and adds some much-needed balance.

I still didn’t sleep very well, on account of not being able to breathe, but my throat felt soothed for a while at least.

Very gentle, smooth and easy going green tea. It has no astringency nor biterness. There is a hint of sweetness in the background. I recommend this green tea for people who dislike green tea for its distinctive taste.

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I heard good things about this one, so I decided to pick a box up on my last trip to the supermarket. After my disappointment with Salted Caramel, I’m glad I did – this one is so worth it! Twinings surprise me sometimes. I mean, a lot of their teas are fairly low-quality bagged affairs; very heavy on the hibiscus if they’re fruit blends, and pretty much always fannings if they’re black. I don’t mind their Everyday as exactly that – a gap filling “normal” tea that I can drink without concentrating and not feel bad about, but they’re hardly renowned for producing brilliant tea. They’re a supermarket brand, after all.

Some of their green teas are a different story, though, and sometimes it feels like they’ve concentrated all their effort on those at the expense of other parts of their line. They can still be hit and miss, but the hits (and there are some) are really worth trying. This is one of them. It absolutely nails lemon drizzle cake, beginning with a sweet lemon flavour, moving into beautiful creamy, spongy pound cake notes, and finishing up with a heavy dose of icing sugar. It’s a brilliant dessert tea, and a flavoured blend that really and truly lives up to its name. Lemon can be a hard flavour to get right – sometimes it tastes like bathroom cleaner or cough syrup, and that’s hardly desirable. Here, it manages to walk a line between artificially candy-like and too sharp/sour, resulting in a pretty perfect lemon flavour. It’s like lemon you might have baked into a cake, tempered by the sweetness it’s surrounded with, but not overpowered by it. The cake and icing sugar flavours could rival any produced by high-end boutique or gourmet brands, but what it makes me wonder is this:

If they can flavour teas like this, why aren’t they doing it all the time? There’s a lot of filler among the killer in Twining’s range, and this blend proves that they can do better than they let on. Unless it’s just a happy accident, but somehow I doubt that.

Make more teas like this one, Twinings!

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Nothing fancy today, because I have an absolutely awful cold and basically can’t taste much of anything. This one’s an old familiar comfort tea for me – I know exactly what it’s like, and it doesn’t matter that my tastebuds can’t really do it justice. I should probably add that fate conspired this weekend, because I had picked out some other teas to try, then I got sick, and then my neighbour came round and asked if I wanted her tea selection box since she doesn’t like tea, and I was obviously all over it. More so because it means I can save those other teas for a time when I feel better.

Anyway, the tea. It’s sweet and malty; classic assam. Is it the best assam I’ve ever tried? No. But it’s one of those formative teas that got me interested in the first place, so I have it to thank for that. As a bagged black from a large supermarket brand, it’s pretty good.

I was away for the weekend, and this is one of the teas they had where I was, so I gave it a try. French Vanilla Chai? That sounded interesting. But I don’t really like vanilla so it was just okay for me. I also added honey cause I couldn’t find any sugar. I think I was also tasting the cardamom, which was also a downside for me. Won’t be having it again, but it was drinkable.

Very nice tea, the citrus flavors of orange and lemon really come through nicely and are very refreshing.

Intriguing even bit mysterious, romantic tea. It has smoky, woody aroma to it and smells like tobacco, honey. Mild taste and mild strenght. Good for late afternoons. One of my favorites all purpose tea.

A nice cup of Earl Grey. Fragrant, floral but delicate aftertaste. No astringency, no bitterness so common in many Earl Grey teas. Good tea for someone who isn’t into strong flavors.