I bought this yesterday at The Fresh Market. It was a limited edition exclusive called All Day Earl Grey that came out in February along with four other teas – a decaf version of this, Strawberry Rhubarb Green Tea, Lemon Biscuit Black Tea, and Fig Whiskey Vanilla Black Tea, which was the tea I actually went there to buy. Guess which was sold out and not coming back? To soothe my wounded soul, I bought the other three flavors on sale. (The decaf version of this was also sold out.)
Since I have been feeling down lately, I decided to try the Orange Marmalade tea this morning since orange scent is supposed to be a big mood booster. As it is a new to me tea and I have had very few teas by this company, I also needed to experiment.
The instructions say to use one tea bag for six ounces of water. I used three for my Stump pot. I steeped once and poured a small amount of tea into my cup to taste full strength. Then I steeped again and added that to the first batch. It wasn’t looking good because the liquor was rather pale compared to the first steep and the scent was muted as well.
I am happy to say that the flavor of both cups was more than acceptable. The orange is STRONG. The tea seemed very sweet – so sweet that I got up and read the tin again to see if there is any sort of sweetener added, but there isn’t. Also, this tastes very orange creamsicle to me, so I am guessing the unnamed “other flavors” are vanilla.
I made enough to try it cold at lunch and will review it that way, too. It is a good choice for iced tea without sweetener, but alas, it is not coming back to the shelves. I bet it would make an awesome tea pop. Perhaps I can look at their usual offerings and put together an orange tea and a vanilla tea and get the same effect. I am not really perceiving the bergamot, so I guess it is a close match to the orange flavor used here.
Edited to add: The Fresh Market called these a store exclusive, but I see it is available on ROT website, as well as the Strawberry Rhubarb Green. It is available online only right now but should be in stores in July according to one reviewer there.
I really didn’t taste bergamot in this. It seemed to blend with the orange completely. But it was good with rather strong flavor for a bagged orange tea! I want to try it as a tea pop.