Twinings

This tea was very different than what I’d expected based on the sachet overwrap. They really focus in on the chamomile and vanilla, and sort of downplay the spice element a lot but in reality this barely tasted like chamomile and the vanilla was a much softer and less creamy touch than you might expect. Instead notes of cinnamon, cardamom, and the more roasty earthiness from the chicory pop out. It tasted so familiar to me, and I had a hard time pinpointing what it was reminding me of – but I think maybe like a mix of horchata and gingerbread? There was a festive sort of undertone.

TTB. Being an American that is allergic to dairy I am constantly seeing dumb things with dairy in them. When I first came across this bag tucked away amid the many others I immediately dismissed it. “What have they done this time?” Was my first thought. Maybe added butter flavor like they did in that Buffalo sauce. But curiosity got the best of me and I took it back out.

The flavor is strong with mint but the vanilla finds its way around your palate. It’s quite unique actually… Mint overpowers so much generally that it’s all you taste and while this starts out with mint in your face the vanilla slides up quietly and leaves you with a gentle mouth feel in the after taste that is really quite nice.
That all being said I do grow and sell my own mint. And this mint is a bit stale in comparison

This tastes like a lot of the berry or red fruit flavoured teabags from Twinings with a bold, sweet and jammy flavour coupled with the tart punch of hibiscus. It’s not particularly unique in any way, but I still enjoyed it for that straight forward strawberry and hibiscus flavour. It has a slight citrusy undertone from the lemongrass and that almost creates a Strawberry Lemonade vibe – but ultimately it’s too much red fruit to totally nail the lemon. Fine, though. As advertised.

I was not sure what to expect from this teabag, but I liked it a lot. It’s actually much more of an orange tea that turmeric, in my opinion. Very fresh and sweet with a flavour that reminds me a little bit of Tazo’s “Wild Sweet Orange” blend. Not overly tangy, but just a little bit of that element. The star anise is also quite present (again, I’d say more than the turmeric) and that only adds to the overall sweetness of the blend, but I think it creates a nice depth that gives need weight to what would otherwise be a very bright, surface level sweetness from the orange.

There is a bit of a grounding, earthier taste present here and the slightest little bit of spice, but it’s so in the background compared to the other two flavours. It makes me wonder why Twinings decided to focus in on the turmeric with the positioning for this tea. But, regardless, I think it’s actually very nice (if you like anise, anyway).

Beautiful bergamot taste.

I made a cup of this for myself and my friend tonight. We both enjoyed it, enough that we both commented on how tasty it was and my friend even said that she was going to buy a box.
A nice combo of lemon and ginger, not flat or boring but rather bright and zesty.
I would happily sip this one again any time!

Very light, slightly grassy green tea flavor.
Surprisingly dark for a white Tea.
Steeped longer than I normally do, still not bitter at all.

A classic and comforting cup in one of the beautiful pieces of local pottery I picked up during this visit home; the rich rust-coloured finish and crawling white glazes were already quite stunning, but it was the debossed leaves that really pushed me over the edge and made me add it to my mug collection!

I drank a lot of tea on these front steps over the last two weeks; it was really nice starting or ending the day with something cozy and freshly brewed while enjoying the crisp prairie air and sunsets and sunrises. This blend of first and second flush darjeeling is definitely very smooth and malty, with lovely floral undertones and a bit of that muscat note I love so much. It was easy drinking, and felt crisp and appropriately autumnal for the change of seasons we’re currently going through! There’s also just something so deeply solid about a straight black tea paired with a good book or, in this case, manga!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOt87orEtxU/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59wcc2Ml-yk

Another that I drank with Marika this past weekend! After all of our gongfu sessions we moved to the big ass teapot portion of the evening, and this was first up. It was definitely a nice darjeeling with a lot of delicate, refined feeling malt and honey notes and a sort of autumnal “crunchy leaves” kind of undertone. Medium bodied, but crisper in the finishes. Certainly a type of tea I can see hitting it off really well with a more British style high or afternoon teas with little finger sandwiches and pastries.

However, and I’ve said this time and time again, I think living in Montreal I really am incredibly spoiled by my proximity to Camellia Sinensis. Kevin’s expertise in Darjeeling is just exceptional, and what he sources every year is so fresh and unparalleled compared with other Darjeeling I’ve experienced. So this is fine, but maybe less impactful feeling that just going to the shop and asking for whatever his favourite thing of the season is.

I think y’all know how I feel on Detox messaging with tea, but shoving all of that aside the actual ingredient profile of this blend was interesting to me. I sipped on it during the morning at work today and I actually enjoyed it a lot. It’s very lemon forward in a bright, fresh way. Not too sweet, but not overly sour/tart either. I liked that there’s was this very light, gentle earthiness and herbaceous quality to the backend of the sip from the inclusion of things like the milk thistle that kept this otherwise highly citrusy tea pretty grounded feeling. I felt like it would have been very good with a little honey.

Our hotel in London gave us free cheese and tea every night, and we always chose this one! It was relaxing to wind down with some warm chamomile with oat milk. This doesn’t get good reviews, but I found it to be lovely! Just what you expect from a chamomile.

A nighttime cuppa on an evening when I just wanted something smooth, simple, and relaxing. This ticks all those boxes! Just good quality peppermint with that silky vanilla note weaved throughout.

I saw a Reddit post a few days ago from someone complaining that Twinings had added little mint candies to this tea and, if you’re looking closely at the leaf in the tea bags, I can see where the confusion would maybe be coming from because there are super tiny white balls mixed with the peppermint. This is not candy, though. It’s actually encapsulated flavoring. Basically, a solid version of flavouring that “melts” into your tea as its steeped. Much less common than the liquid flavouring that’s usually added in tea production which then coats all the ingredients.

There are pros/cons to both types. Encapsulated flavouring is much less aromatic, so the dry leaf aroma of a blend could be significantly less impactful if this type is used. That can be a big deal for physical tea shops where customers might be smelling the tea out of tins before purchasing it. However, since this blend comes only in prepackaged boxes that seems like less of a concern. One of the pros to encapsulated flavouring is that it tastes much longer for any sort of flavour loss to happen due to aging. If I had to make a guess, I think that might have been why Twinings made the change? Regardless, to the best of my knowledge there has always been the same flavours in this blend and it’s just the format of them that has been updated.

Anyway, after reading through that thread I decided to pull this out and make myself a mug. It’s just so wickedly smooth and creamy/buttery with such a crisp, cooling peppermint. I love this blend a lot!

This is basically just peppermint tea with vanilla flavouring, so I wasn’t totally sure how significant the impact of the flavouring addition would be. I wanted to try it anyway because I’ve had some other good experiences with buttermint flavoured snacks and tea blends from London (looking at you Bird & Blend’s Buttermint Matcha).

Well, it turns out the flavouring does make a big difference because this was a REALLY stand out cup of peppermint tea. Very, very smooth with a lightly cooling finish. The crispness you sometimes get from a peppermint tea was replaced with a silky flavour that was sort of equal parts butter, sweet cream, and French vanilla. It reminded me loosely of these Scottish Caramint candies I used to buy from a tearoom I used to frequent when I was still living in Regina. Much more peppermint forward in the tea, but similar vibes.

Like, at the end of the day it was just a fancy peppermint tea and there is for sure a ceiling of quality when it comes to something like peppermint. Didn’t make me like it any less in the moment, though!

I was really intrigued by the combination of strawberry and cucumber in this blend, and it turns out that steeped up it’s actually incredibly fresh and juicy tasting! My experience with Twining’s other strawberry teas have been that they’re quite tart and sometimes almost saccharine, but this was just right. Sweet but not cloying, and just a little tiny bit floral leaning. The cucumber doesn’t necessarily distinctly taste like cucumber but it has that sort of cooling, crisp sort of feeling to it. Really rounds out the sip and provides a lot of freshness and balance.

One of the best decaf teas I’ve tried; it’s very true to the Chai flavor without that “off” decaf flavoring. A little cinnamony, cardomomy, nice.

Sipdown (2903)!

Definitely a bit of a more unpleasant, medicinal and herby undertone to this tea from the echinacea inclusion so I wouldn’t call it a favourite from a flavour perspective, but I appreciate that it was an important ingredient for the wellness direction Twinings was targeting. I did enjoy the black currant flavour though, which I thought was a great balance between tart and more jammy.

Because black currant is so much less commercial (and often perceived as medicinal) here in North America, I do feel like this is a blend sooooo much more suited for the UK. I think between the echinacea, elderberry, and currant this would be a tough tea to pass off to the average North American tea drinker…

Sipdown (2904)!

This was more of a “so-so” experience. I think some of the things it gets right are the amount of rosemary – which is just enough to be noticeable but not enough to be too savory – and the sweeter, softer creamed honey note that the profile finishes with. The honey feels really important to me because it softens what is otherwise a pretty generic tart red fruit flavour. I don’t really mind the red fruit notes, but it’s certainly a little safe feeling to me. I also felt like I could taste the cotton paper of the tea bag, and that was a negative element. Kind of averaged out in the end, I suppose.

Sipdown (2905)!

This flavour of this blend was really, really interesting sounding to me (fig/vanilla), so I was very intrigued to try this tea out even though I wanted to keep my expectations in check. I was worried it wouldn’t taste distinctly like fig at all. However, this was quite nice! Very smooth with that sort of sweeter brown flavour of a fig paste with a creamy vanilla finish. To my delight, it is pretty figgy – just less in a “fresh fig” sort of way. I enjoyed it, though! Especially because it felt a little more on the indulgent side despite really not being very sweet at all. Such an interesting flavour direction given that fig really isn’t a super commercial fruit flavour in the tea world at all…

Sipdown (2906)!

Lets be honest – I didn’t have great expectations for this particular blend. However, it managed to not even meet by bare bones hopes for it. Mostly that’s because it really, really tasted like cardboard. Just very flat/stale without much in the way of distinctly grassy, vegetal, or umami notes from either the green tea or matcha dusting.

This was exciting to me because I quite like ginseng as a focus-aid, and in reasonable levels I like the taste of ginseng a lot too. I actually drink a fair bit of mate (especially in the morning) for a similar reason as I find I personally benefit a lot from the more focus-boosting, naturally stimulating properties…

Taste wise I thought it was fine. The tropical notes are pretty nice with the mango being leaned on more heavily than the pineapple. It’s juicy and sweet in a safe, commercial sort of way. I do get a little bit of that woodier undertone ginseng tends to have, but I think it plays pretty well with the fruit. As someone who knows that’s what ginseng tastes like, I find it easy to dismiss and I would like to think it’s also still mild enough to not be an issue for people unfamiliar with the ingredient too. Unfortunately the finish of this was awfully sweet. Definitely has that signature stevia taste, and I struggled a bit to look past it.

The Twinings store was cool to visit because their in person selection is just so, so much greater than anything we’d ever have in North America – even from the online shop. Seeing their large assortment of straight/unflavoured teas wasn’t surprising, but I was a little intrigued that at least a third (if not closer to half) of the store was dedicated just to wellness/supplemented blends…

We picked up a lot because they aren’t readily available in Canada, so expect a whole barrage of reviews for them as I slowly taste my way through. I started with this one for two reasons though – the first is that I find the wellness function so niche and it kind of intrigues me that there would be a blend catering to it. Mostly in the sense that I wouldn’t think people experiencing the negative symptoms of menopause (ex. hot flashes) would think to turn to a company like Twinings for a solution but also because it’s such a narrow pool of people that I would be skeptical what the financial viability of such a specific tea would be…

The second reason is just that I think the flavour combination sounded really delicious. Peach and sage? Yeah, actually sign me the fuck up for that please.

It did taste pretty good, too! For sure a more herbal and savory undertone and not just from the inclusion of sage – but the peach note was so fresh, dewy and floral. Definitely sweeter and more like a white peach with a more supple, tender flesh to it. It balanced out the herby notes of the sage very well, and added a needed bit of natural sweetness. I did leave in my teabag and so the sage got quite strong over time – eventually overtaking the peach a bit. However, if I’d pulled the bag out after a few minutes I think this would have been a really nice, well balanced mug of tea.