Moonlight Spice Orange Spice White Tea

Exhausted and needing a tea fix, I waited in line (!) for tea this morning. The last white tea I had was really tasty, so I said “screw it” and picked this one. Kind of a mistake. There might be hibiscus or something in this, because it was pretty sour, more than I think the orange would account for, and not terribly nice. The smell was pleasant, spicy but not overpowering, but there was very little spice to taste in the cup…and yet, it still came through more clearly than the actual tea. This drink was much better smelled than drunk (drunk? don’t mind if I do! /whiskey).

These are individually packaged tea bags (environmentally bad but soooo convenient!), and when I rip one open I get a very strong sent of cloves…a hit of cinnamon…maybe a bit of ginger. I give another sniff looking for the orange peel smell but I can’t say I really find it. There might be a slight citrus tang sort of rounding out the spicy smells, either from the orange or the dried lime. Overall, a very yummy smelling tea!

No instructions on the box, but thanks to the informative people on this site I now know that white teas should be brewed with cooler water. Unfortunately I don’t have a thermometer, so I guess with the water temperature based on the noise my kettle is making (that lull between the louder sighing noise and the full-on boil).

Steep for ~9 minutes (oops, got distracted making breakfast), and I expected it to be very bitter. Nope, no bitterness, just a delicate spicy-tea taste. I figure the delicacy of the taste is because this is white tea, not the stronger-tasting black I’m used to.

The liquid tea smells like cinnamon and cloves, though I like to think I can catch a note of orange in there, a slightly different zing to the scent. First sip is…hmm a little bland? I try the slurp, that brings out the spice taste a bit more, and there’s a tingle on the front of my tongue. No spicy burn in my throat though. And not much tea flavour (maybe because of the white again?). I sip a bit more, but my taste buds aren’t really getting the flavour much. I know you’re typically not supposed to add things to white tea because it drowns out the flavour but…in goes a little squirt of honey and a tiny dab of cream. I like the result, but it may be because it now tastes like a faintly spicy creamy-sweet hot drink of indeterminate composition. Oops.

Thankfully I have a whole box of this to experiment with. I think next time I’ll try either hotter water or an even longer steep, just to see if that brings out more taste. And be a purist and resist the urge to sweeten-cream everything I drink…

Meh. It’s not bad, it just doesn’t live up to the name. It’s white tea, but I didn’t really get the flavour of white tea. It’s spiced, but all I could smell and taste were cinnamon and clove. It’s orange, but there’s hardly the hint of citrus. I think I’d like it a lot more with less clove, more ginger, and more orange. I might try breaking open a bag and mixing it with some other teas, see how that works out.

Got a whole box of this tea from an old roommate. Yay connections!

I knew once I opened the bag that what lay before me was a winding road of depression, anger, and a loooong healing process. The bag itself smelled like bitter gingerbread, which isn’t up my alley, but I can dig it. Both times I brewed this tea it came out extremely dusty. Sadly, I believe this dust is what led to the downfall of this “white” tea. This was not “delicate” nor “orange”…just “spice”. In fact, you could suck on cinnamon bark and get the same flavor profile that this tea expelled.

Much like any bad tea, though, you can make it better by setting it on fire!

Full review here: http://theteablag.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-think-i-just-got-tbagged.html

This one, like the Green Chai, confused me a bit. The spices are reminiscent of a Chai tea, but I have never added milk to a White tea before. The brewing suggestions on the back don’t even hint at how it would be best. It just tells you how long to steep the tea for. So I tried it with just sugar at first, which I did like. It was very spicy indeed! However, about half way through the cup, I decided it was too strong, and said “what the heck,” and added some milk. This was a good call! The milk took the spiciness and toned it right down to a nice, sweet, creamy flavor with just enough bite. No longer overwhelmingly spicy, I enjoyed the rest of the cup even more! It kind of made me think of the Ultra Spice Chai by Twinings (my favorite!), but lighter. I may have to keep my eye out for this one!

Side note: This tea bag was acquired for free from the cafe at my college when I was charged for the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich I ordered, and then it was discovered that they had no bacon, which meant I had been over charged for an egg and cheese sandwich instead. So, 60c overcharge for a sandwich = free tea bag with my meal. WIN!

Really nice on rainy days. The cloves aftertaste is very nice…

So, I tried this on vacation in South Carolina, where I was annoyed that I didn’t bring enough good tea with me. Instead of Higgins & Burke at McDonald’s on the way down, there was…. a nondescript tea bag from storage that they had to go searching for. So I was really excited to see some actual tea in a cafe across the road from where we were staying. I hummed and hawed before choosing this one and I think I made the wrong choice. :(

The smell reminded me of oranges and cloves at Christmas, which I really liked. The taste was underwhelming. They really took the “spice” part of the title too far. I was expecting more of a citrus flavour. I sipped on this while playing mini-putt, which was a pain because I had to put it on the ground or make my fiancé hold it at every hole, but the bigger disappointment was that I had to walk thru the mini putt office to go to the course and the office had oodles of birds shitting oodles of bird poop in it. The smell was terrible, and as a kid I had a thing where I thought smells would go into my drink or food and I’d be totally put off. That nearly happened. I put on my big girl pants and sipped 1/3 of it, it but when the lovely course owner offered us another round on the house, I had to pitch my tea. Not only was it a nuisance to hold, but it was totally blah, and I didn’t like the spices.

Here’s a nice easy, afternoon sipdown! (186)
I may have under-steeped it, but I’m still being cautious about eating. >:|
This is a rather nice gentle tea though, orange cinnamon, but maybe, I think maybe, I can taste some white tea under there. And that’s rather impressive.

Thanks OMGsrsly for passing this on to me in December! :P

This is OK. I mean, I’ll drink it. I’m not the biggest fan of white teas or orange-flavored teas, so maybe if I like it, it must be pretty good.