Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
Red hot cinnamon, sweet juicy orange and delicate white tea combine to form a red hot orange white cuppa that’s as satisfying as it is aromatic. Indulge your senses with this week’s tea of the week.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This seems like the perfect evening to enjoy this tea. It’s cold and wet outside, and I’m in need of something warm and soothing.
Well, this isn’t exactly what I hoped for. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s tasty! And it delivers exactly what the name of it suggests: a “red hot” cinnamon and orange flavored white tea. I guess I was just hoping for a little more than just that. I think that the addition of some cardamom and cloves would have really added something special to this tea. As it is, this tea is kind of one-dimensional, but, with the addition of a couple of other spices I think that this could have been so much better.
But, I guess that’s the tea blender in me … trying to dissect a tea and figure out how to make it better. I did that all the time when I was doing the tea artist thing. So rather than dwelling on how to improve this tea, why don’t I just review it like it is!
The ingredients state that the base of this tea is “Premium white teas” which suggests to me more than one type of tea. I’m thinking that this is a combination of Shou Mei and Bai Mu Dan. There are a couple of “needles” in my pouch that could suggest either a Silver Needle or a good quality Bai Mu Dan is in the blend. The tea tastes delicate and somewhat earthy. It is a bit more astringent that I usually would expect from a white tea, perhaps it is the flavors that bring the astringency out.
The cinnamon is strong, but it is not as strong as you might expect with a name like “Red Hot Orange White.” 52Teas managed to keep the cinnamon in balance with the other ingredients, allowing the white tea and the orange-y notes to shine through.
It is the orange that I like the best in this blend, and here’s why. With other spiced orange blends that I’ve tried (and I’ve tried quite a few, it seems like everyone has a spiced orange blend for the holiday season!) the spices seem to overpower the orange, forcing the citrus to play a background note to the stronger spice notes. Here, the orange is balanced with the cinnamon. It isn’t overwhelmed. It adds a very pleasing bright, juicy note of fruit to the cup.
So, while this isn’t my favorite 52Teas blend that I’ve tried lately, it’s not a complete miss either. I think I’m going to get myself some cardamom and cloves and play around with this to make my own “customized” blend and see if I like that better … mostly for my own curiosity (in other words, to see if I know what I’m talking about!)
