Blood Orange

This “tea” kind of makes me angry. So this will be a sad review. Apologies, in advance!

It’s not juicy, yummy, tangy blood orange at all. It’s dusty, chalky, vaguely orange-flavored, chewable baby aspirin!! :(

I find it unpalatable, unfortunately. I tried mixing it with real teas, but it just ruins everything.

Bad, bad herbal blood orange! :P

I know why a full sample tin of this was passed on to me as a “giveaway”—it’s an “acquired taste” only a few can appreciate, I guess _{(i.e. because it’s awful)}. This tin needs to move on again—or I may just toss it to save anyone else the trouble and disappointment.

Poor Blood Orange—destined for the trash heap.

Received this in sample form from Adagio. Didn’t love it the first time I tried it – that was hot, steeped 9+ minutes because I forgot about it… This, I’ve iced with a bit of sugar and added a splash of seltzer for a little fizz. It’s good. Not something I want to buy – the hibiscus is a bit too overwhelming, and I’ve tried better teas which are similar – the Turkish Apple Vanilla from Fusion Tea Room comes to mind. But you know, it’s good. I’ll drink the tea, but I won’t order more.

Loose
Appearance: dark red-brown hibiscus, large apple and orange chunks

Aroma when Dry: peppery blood orange, fruity
After water is first poured: bright blood orange, tangy notes
At end of steep: warm blood orange tang

Tea liquor:
At beginning of steep: light sunset purple
At end of steep: deeper sunset purple-pink
Staple? No, still looking for a proper tart version
Preferred time of day: unsure, first tasting
Taste:
At first: tart, slight astringency, closing on an odd sweet note, the apple maybe?

As it cools? Apple and berry notes surface, and overwhelm the others

Additives used (milk, honey, sugar etc)? No
Lingers? Yes, the apple high in the palate, some of the orange notes

Blah. This is the one tea in the box that I wasn’t looking forward to. It tastes kind of like this grapefruit chapstick in a little pot that I was given once as a gift at church. I do not enjoy eating grapefruit and so this is a total no for me. I think the only grapefruit or grapefruit thing I’ve ever enjoyed was Lupicia’s grapefruit green, which is simply amazing.
It is sweet, fruity, a bit sour, and a ton of grapefruit. The underlying notes remind me a bit of their citron flavoring that I really love. But nothing can match the other flavors so it is just overpowering. It is not awful or terrible, just not what I like.

The fragrance out of the sample tin (another Adagio Herbal Sampler sample) is of sweet orange. Borderline baby asperiny, but not really quite crossing the line, which is nice. I like, v. much. Big pieces of orange peel in the chunky fruit mix.

Garnet colored liquor. Hibiscusy aroma with an orange overtone.

Flavor is tarter than anticipated (and I brewed at double strength). There’s a very big rose hip constituency here. Second flavor is probably the orange, but for a tisane with this name I’d want it in first position. Third, a hibiscus/apple tie.

Jaded me, not overly excited by fruit blends these days, is willing to give it another try but as much as I hoped it would surpass the Berry Blast, it’s lack of orange pow is holding it back.

I love blood oranges. I love tea. Teavana’s Tarocco Ruby Orange is one of their only teas that doesn’t disappoint me. I prefer that one to this one, hands down, in an herbal blood orange tea battle.

This just tastes sour. Nothing else. It smells so good, but it just doesn’t deliver. Oh and when it was first brewed it REALLY smelled like cereal, which creeped me out. I might give it another try and steep it a minute or so longer, or maybe use a bit more. I used a half tablespoon, knowing that Adagio recommends just one, which to me is not enough for a big chunky herbal.

My friend has not led me astray in all the other teas she gave me to try, so I hope I can work something out with this one, especially since it’s my favorite citrus fruit involved!

Now this one I really forgot I had. It was unopened in the back of my cupboard. It was one of my first loose teas… it came with the Adagio IngenuiTEA herbal sampler gift set that was my introduction to the world of loose leaf tea. I bought another packet for iced tea for the summer… and promptly forgot about it.

I’m not a big fan of hot fruity teas, but I was in the mood for something different tonight. It tastes like… warm orange juice. Which isn’t great. This rating is mostly for the iced version.

Sample 1 from Meghann M!

I LOVE blood oranges, but after their sour apple tasting NOTHING like apple, I’m not real hopeful.

2tsp/16oz boiling water/10min. Half hot, half in the fridge to chill.

This is the hot attempt.

The liquor reminds me of grapefruit juice. Hm… Interesting. The smell does smell like orange, but I can also smell apple and cranberry.

Well, this is better than the sour apple! The orange is actually there. But there’s too much other schtuff in it. Not real accurate, but I think it would be good (again not real accurate though) mixed w/ a black tea. Yes, I know, I don’t even really like non dessert or chai black teas lol.

I clearly see all of the ingredients and they are colorful. And look like dried fruit. This kind of smells like orange. I steeped for a couple of minutes or so. I’t brewed up to a light orange color. I will be experimenting with times. But this tastes like orange with a bite. And I think It’s good.

This tea was amazingly juicy and tasty. I loved the look, smell and flavour of this tea and I think it’s a must try for fans of orange.

Strong yet not too strong and sweet without being too sweet.

I had this tea as part of the ThinkGeek’s/Adagio’s Tea Sampler… Awful. At best it was bitter, you can however save your investment and make it as iced tea. Most tea that has too much of one flavor can be ‘saved’ and then enjoyed as iced tea, perhaps because we cant taste cold things as well.

Was a really ruby red after the full 7 recommended mins, but too tart for my personal preferences…little grenadine and a sugar cube took the edge off. I can see this iced with ginger ale come summer.

Backlogging.

I got this a few years ago, in the tea of the month thing hubs got for me one Christmas. I liked it the first couple times I made it, but then I kind of forgot it in the cupboard. By the time I rediscovered it, I think it was too old – I didn’t like it after that. I always drank it iced.

So this last weekend, I dumped it all in a pan and simmered it on the stove for awhile to scent the house. It smelled awesome :D

The smell of the raw tea is amazing. The directions say one heaping tsp/cup with a steeping time of 5-10 minutes with boiling water. I’m going for the max steeping time because even with a heaping tsp, it doesn’t look like much. Maybe my heaping is not adagio’s heaping. Who knows.

First infusion: The smell is more floral than citrus. That must be the hibiscus. The first taste is tart but is balanced by a sweetness that complements the tart. Very well balanced. This has the distinction of being the very first loose leaf tea that I don’t need to add anything to or experiment with. Definitely going on my will need more of list. The only thing that could make this better would be just a hint of spice. Maybe I should try blending this with the spiced apple chai.

Second infusion: Very little color to the tea, but the smell has more of a citrus smell. Not a lot of taste, though. I guess this is a one infusion preparation.

I LOVE this tea, hot or iced – I make it double strength, and then dilute to taste – I will buy this again and again!

Another arrived this its Blood Orange on to take the pulpit or the chopping block…honestly its quite on the chopping block:( I really expected a much fuller and vibrant flavor, the tartness of fruits, smell of citrus and roses that can rival Teavana’s herbal blends. Its quite to mute, near to a gummy vitamins than kid’s aspirin , I can notice a chalkiness yet still be able to drink quite well provided it has cooled a little. Despite its shortcomings, I can say with a bit of ingenuity like an addition of a little fruit juice or some sugar can make this blend quite drinkable. I say enjoy this tea but certainly it needs a bit of work to rough out the edges!

I finished my sample from Adagio today and I can’t say I’ll be getting more. It’s not bad- just rather unremarkable. I prefer other fruit tisanes to this one. I can’t review how it tastes warm because I only did iced, but I purposely avoided it hot. It definitely has this orange kool-aid, high c orange, or other sugary artificial orange drink aspect going on. Warm orange kool-aid just doesn’t appeal to me, so I opted for all iced.

It works rather well iced- very refreshing and citrus-y with a little bit of tartness from hibiscus (you know, the thing that just has to show up everywhere!). I blended this one a couple of times with honeybush vanilla from Adagio and it worked quite well to create a liquid creamsicle like flavor.

Another swap tea from Doulton! This one is really interesting — it’s heavy on the hibiscus, which for me is usually code for “doesn’t matter what else is in the cup, because it all tastes like hibiscus”, but this doesn’t. It’s very strongly citrus; I was expecting something like the flavor of orange slices and that is there, but mostly in the aftertaste, while up front there’s more of an orange zest going on which is spicier. The hibiscus is serving mostly to bring out that zest flavor. This is a very stern tea, with a peppery aftertaste going as well just in case you were inclined to take it less than seriously because it’s made of fruit.

My mom made this for me once. It was horrible. So I was a bit scared to try this. I did 2.5g/8oz and I think I made it pretty weak, but it kept it from being overpowering and tart. Didn’t even need sugar and that makes me happy. An herbal that doesn’t gross me out! And even better – one I’d drink again!

I got this tea as a bonus extra in a swap from KittyLovesTea. I’m so glad she put it in, because it’s probably not one I would have ordered myself, but it was really rather lovely.

The colour was very striking, a really deep red colour. It was sweet without being sickly, and the aroma was lovely. I polished off the pot pretty quickly.

2nd steep of ten minutes, the colour had faded to a pinky colour now, but it still had a very pleasant aroma and enough taste to make it a worthwhile drink.