Tangerine Ginger

The wonderful Rabs sent me a package due to being one of the three finalists in her geek pride day give away. I must say, she has an excellent knack for packaging things. Everything was beautifully wrapped and neatly labeled. Thank you Rabs for putting on this contest, I am so excited to play the game!

After reading the instructions and noting that I must drink whatever I roll by the end of the day, I decided to try my luck.

First roll is: “1”

1 is the worst number in this game. I guess it shall be good to get it over with! (Trying to look at my bad look with a positive note). The tea to be tasted is Rishi’s Tangerine Ginger. A tisane…shoot, I could really use some caffeine as my husband and I have been running around all day and I am beat! Ah, well, thus it must be.

I’m a little scared of ginger, and these leaves smell like their is quite a bit of ginger present. But I do enjoy tangerine, and hope that this flavor comes through the strongest. Sniffing the leaves a little more, I am reminded a bit of sweet and sour chicken that was served two nights ago at the graduation party I attended. Not sure how this will play out in the wet leaves, or in the tea.

This tisane brewed up a deep crimson/blood orange color. I steeped it for 4 minutes at 205F. It smells mostly citrusy, but I’m still getting something that reminds me of chinese take out….

The taste is strong in the ginger department, almost a bit like biting into raw ginger and than following that ginger garnish with a blast of tangerine flavored hot water in the aftertaste. (Sorry if I seem to be tripping over my descriptions tonight, it’s been a long day). I don’t hate this tea, but it isn’t one I’d pick to drink again. It reminds me a bit of Teavana’s Wild Orange Blossom as far as the citrus taste goes, just add ginger to that and it would be about the same. I may try this tea iced next time, as there is enough for another large cup hot or an iced mug full. Maybe I’ll pair it with some fried rice :)

Thanks again Rabs for this fun tasting experience. I’m enjoying playing the game, and am hoping to do at least a tea a day :)

Picked up some of this yesterday from the London Tea Room (99% sure that their non-tea room created blends are Rishi). I’m a sucker for anything orange or orange-related so I HAD to try this. I’ve had no tea today and so I need something but I feel like it’s about 9pm (even though it’s not) so the thought of having something caffeinated makes me sad. Conveniently, I have this!

OMG, I hope this tastes like it smells. It smells like a just peeled a tangerine (I should know – I’ve been working my way through a 3lb bag of them the past week and a half). Honestly though, it’s an herbal. I don’t EXPECT to like this.

The herbal juice is a dusky rose/brown – which is good because I always end up with the bright red herbals and those taste like cough syrup. There’s a touch of warmth that I think is the ginger in the smell but looks like this won’t be too overpowering. We are on the right track!

Hmm. Well, after taking sip I check out what Rishi says is in this. Yep, hibiscus. That’s pretty much the cough syrup taste I fear from herbals. This has a slight hint of it but it is right on the front end – it hits the tip of my tongue. So enough that I know it is there but not enough that it makes this icky. Mmm, though taking a larger sip I get more tangerine taste. The ginger is warming and cuddly but not like eating pickled ginger or anything. And as it cools I don’t know if I’m ignoring the hibiscus or it’s fading but I’m pretty much fully on board with tangerine ginger now.

For an herbal this is pretty darn good. I can’t say I’m totally in love with it but I do like it and think it is good. I’d probably even buy more. It does make me want to experiment a little with blending this with a mild black because I think if I could get this flavor into a real tea plus the added depth of actual tea taste, we might have a winner.

ETA: 2nd steep @ 5:30. The tangerine is pretty much gone, but so is the hibiscus. Now this has a lovely candied ginger taste.

So sorry for spamming your dashboards, everyone. I just looked, and the vast majority of tasting notes on mine, at least, are from me…. :D:D

This was today’s random selection from my box of teas from LiberTEAS! Thank you!

The dry tea smelled sharply of ginger, and unlike DavidsTea’s Strawberry Ginger, I wasn’t getting a weird artificial smell from it, which was good. I also smelled citrus, although can no longer remember how strong it was, nor exactly what citrus fruit it reminded me of, and there was only a 1-cup sample packet so I used it all (although it sure looked like there was enough for more than one, the packet instructions indicate to use the whole package for 8oz. of boiling water).

Watching the colour changes as this one steeped was interesting – started off green, then turned pinkish, before settling into a deep pinkish purple colour. Although the instructions indicated a 5-minute infusion, after 4 minutes I took out the teaball as I was fairly certain it was strong enough…

Holy doodles. Strong enough can’t accurately describe what I just tasted. Uh… I think I need to water it down :| Major hibiscus alert too – so tart!

Hmm, too lazy to get more water. Small sips it is!

I forgot to mention how it smells. The aroma is gingery, and strangely, if I poke my nose into the cup it’s almost a bit sour. We’re gonna blame the hibiscus here. I can definitely taste ginger, which is lovely, but there are a host of other weird, strong flavours in there, mixed with incredible tartness and a strange sweet lingering taste in the mouth. Silly girl, when will you learn to trust your instincts and remove the teaball according to smell/sight and not timer? I must say though, I don’t think that this one would be improved a great deal by decreasing the amount of dry tisane used or the infusion time. Definitely not a tea for me. We’ll see if I make it through the cup (doubtful, given the plethora of deliciousness surrounding me).

Ginger AND hibiscus….two strikes right off the bat…but I’m game…maybe this will surprise me…

The color is a cloudy purple…sigh…

I will say the tangerine I can smell is awesome…I can also smell the ginger tho and it’s interrupting my love affair with the tangerine! ah-well…

Tangerine was the first thing I could taste and it was good but interrupted by the tart hibiscus and then I had a rush of ginger that was very gingery/peppery-hot…sigh… then it went back to the hibiscus. I will say this isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be but it’s not something I would buy for myself. I am glad I got to try it tho. The tangerine – what I could taste of it – was great. If this didn’t have the hibiscus in it I would totally get past the ginger grimace :X

i seriously think they need to rename this one to Ginger Tangerine. This is definitely ginger. Not the sweet pickled sushi ginger kind of vibe. This is the hot, I ate too many ginger altoids kind of ginger. (I must admit that I do that. I love ginger.) It has a nice hot ginger aftertaste that lingers. I think this would be a great tea to drink for a sore throat or an upset stomach. I’ve been having my spring time (Florida) allergy attacks, and this is clearing up everything beautifully. While this blend does have hibiscus and licorice in it, they are overpowered by the ginger. I do taste some citrus notes, but they don’t have the same punch as the ginger.

Just in case you weren’t sure about the ginger, the fact that the word ginger appears in this review 11 times should be a clue.

It’s a herbal tea kind of afternoon here, rainy outside…

This came in a gift basket and I was pretty leery of it. Anything with hibiscus in it is not going to be a favorite of mine. I like the ginger and the orange flavor but it is definitely on the tart side. I do not think I would buy this for myself but I did not hate it quite as much as some of the other reviewers.

I’m getting angry this evening and this poor cold brewed iced tea’s gonna take the brunt of that anger. This is gingery-hibiscus hell. I had a few other zingers that I’d typed and then erased since I think that they went too far. I’ll just say that this is definitely not the tea for me. I’ll never repurchase it and am glad that it’s a small packet.

I poured myself a big glass and it was very intense. So I added more cold water to the pitcher hoping that it’ll calm things down a bit. I’ll find out later tonight. I guess that there’s more stuff in this tea than ginger and hibiscus, but that’s all I’m getting atm. Ick. GA

ETA: Tossed my first cup 1/3 of the way through. I’m getting the feeling that Rishi doesn’t go for subtle when it comes to their herbals. Drank the entire “somewhat mellowed” cup but then tossed the rest of the pitcher. What a sad waste of good water.

So my most recent experience with this tisane seems to go against what others have said on here. I’m a big ginger fan, and I just felt overwhelmed by the zesty tartness of the berries, hibiscus, and rosehips. I feel like I can taste the ginger if I imagine really hard.

That said, Auggy makes a very good point about these herbal infusions tending to be inconsistent. I’m thinking that the second infusion may give me a little more ginger flavor as the zingy flavors in these types of infusions usually fade out after the first steeping.

Anyone remember Lemon Zinger? This reminds me of a “fancier” version of that. In a tin :)

The combination of ginger and orange is very… interesting. There are other ingredients/flavors listed (like hibiscus, which is definitely showing up in the color) but they aren’t coming out in the taste.

I’ll probably try this one cold before making my final decision on it. The ginger could make it very refreshing… but right now it’s a “will not purchase”.

purple. and smells like ginger! but just tastes mostly like hibiscus. might be pretty good iced? idk. i only have one cups worth left, and it’ll probably be a long while till i get it again.

Ginger was the stronger flavor and aroma, with tangerine being the secondary flavor and aroma (although the loose leaf had a lovely floral, tangerine aroma). The ginger was sharp, and I’m not sure I’d drink this in the evening if I wanted to relax, but definitely a good morning tea.

What flavor is this? It’s kind of refreshing and a good change of pace tea (well, not real tea). Has the more delightful elements of Thera-Flu, the cherry flavored. It’s just crisp and nice.

This is an interesting taste. It has a sweet tone to it and would be very good for a breakfast tea served cold or hot during those cold winter mornings.

Wow, case of smells great, tastes horrible here. This one followed me home from vacation too and I just don’t think it’s for me. It’s posslbe I made this too strong as I tend to err on the side of more tea but yea…not for me. It’ll be going up for swap soon.