Sunny Citrus

Sipdown! 190/365!

This smells better than it tastes. The aroma is amazing – a bright, citrussy orange aroma, with a background of creaminess. It actually made my mouth water a tad when I opened up the bag. However, ALL I taste is hibiscus. Not surprising, since it’s the first-listed ingredient, but very disappointing given how good this smelled otherwise. I suppose the description of the tea does suggest that hibiscus is the main flavour, with “a fruity hint of orange”, so it’s accurate in that sense, it’s just disappointing. This could have been so much better with the roles of citrus and hibiscus reversed.

So This was served iced at a family member’’s house. I am not a fan of citrus herbal teas so keep that in mind during this review.

Initial Inspection-It smells VERY Citrusy in a fresh lemon and orange kind of way. It smells so strong that it literally burns my nostrils a lot! So use caution when smelling the dry leaf because even while being careful it will still hurt your nose to some extent.

I added several ice cubes to my cup because it was luke warm still but drank it right away so they didn’t have time to melt enough to cool the cup down. This is tart as you would expect. The hibiscus is very hard to taste in this as well. The cup consisted of orange, lemon, fruitiness from the rose hips and a hint of apple. I had to add some sugar to this to motivate me to finish my cup. For someone who likes citrus-y teas this would probably be an average cup. This reminds me of another DT blend that i can’t place one with orange in it and hibiscus.

I had high hopes for this tea. I used a lot of leaf (~2 tsp) so I could use up my sample in one steeping. Coldbrewed about 5-6 minutes in 400 mL cold water.

I get hibiscus, something similar to berry, and not much else. Maybe some rose hip too. I was hopingfor flavourful orange and lemon, but I didn’t find any citrus in my cup. It was more of a really generic fruity hibiscus tea.

I had 50 g of this tea to get through from the SAS. I am glad it’s now gone because I did not like this one. I tried it iced first and found it to be overwhelmingly sour with a general citrus taste that I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The only way I could choke this down was diluted as a tea pop. I will not be buying this one again.

I was given this tea as a gift, which was a little bit of a bummer because I really wanted to try the chocolate cake tea, but this is what was available. It’s still a gift though and I’m grateful for it.

The smell when I opened the bag is like citrus punch in the nose. Like I walked into a cloud of Lemon Pledge. Uhhh… That definitely put me off. I used only one ‘perfect spoon’ and the lower end of the recommended steeping time (4 min). I don’t know why I originally thought that this was a black tea, but maybe the name is something I would call like a lemon orange black tea. :D Something bright to drink in the sunshine, but that’s not what this is. It’s an herbal, no caffeine, which is probably good with how close to bedtime it is now.

The taste is mildly tart, but it smells of vanilla/cream. Kind of like how lemonade is tart but sweet. It’s an interesting combo to the senses. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this one yet.

Sipdown! Wasn’t my favourite and probably wouldn’t buy it again. I was expecting it to be heavier on the citrus… more along the lines of keylime.

Tastes just like an orange creamsicle! Yum. :)

Sipdown!

I had this tea cold brewed the other day. I may have perhaps let it linger in my fridge just a bit too long because it was very tart and had an unpleasant bite to the end of each sip. I also may have slightly over leafed because I was trying to use up what I had left of this. It was still drinkable, and still smelled fabulous, it just was not the best I have had of this blend. It isn’t one I would seek out again.

In an effort to use up my herbals, I have bought a number of stronger tasting fruit teas to mix in with weaker herbals to create iced tea with. I normally really dislike hibiscus because of how tart it is, but when mixed with the other teas it can be pleasant as an iced tea.

For this 2L pitcher of iced tea, I mixed in 4 “perfect spoonfuls” (about 10 tsp) of this tea with 3 perfect spoonfuls (about 6-7tsp) of plain lemongrass tea. I used boiling water and stuck the pitcher in my freezer for 2h, then removed the filter (which contains the tea), then after another 2h when the tea was cool, I moved it to the fridge to further cool off so I wouldn’t forget about it overnight.

The smell of the dry leaves is VERY fruity and citrusy, but the taste of the chilled tea is more tart with a citrus aftertaste. I don’t think my lemongrass mixture would have affected the taste dramatically; if anything I believe it cut the crazy tartness hibiscus usually has to a more pleasant level. I found this iced tea I made to be tart, a little sour, and a bit citrusy, but overall refreshing. Between my husband, his friend/coworker, and myself this tea will go in no time. However, with that being said, I do not think I will repurchase this one due to the fact the hibiscus tartness is the main taste. I will try to cut the steeping time wayyyy shorter to see if that helps, but overall I know there are better teas i can use to mix herbals with and make iced teas.

The addition of vanilla in this blend was quite odd. When I think citrus I think tart and bright, and I suppose that’s why I understood the addition of hibiscus – to really hammer home the tartness. In the end the vanilla is what put me off. Frankly, I’m surprised that I taste so much of the vanilla given that it’s just an added flavoring. It adds a certain richness that I don’t want in my citrus tea, at least not in a citrus-based herbal blend called “Sunny Citrus.”