Sipdown, 188. I was originally planning that my sample of this would make me two cups (since my black tea sample did), but after scooping out the tea for this cup and looking at what was left I decided to make it one cup. There are a lot of big pieces of orange and hibiscus leaves in this that take up a fair amount of room, so I think tea-wise there are probably the right number of oolong leaves for this serving. Just to be safe I am steeping this for 2 minutes.
It immediately started smelling like citrus and ginger, and after it was done it was a deep pinkish-maroon color which I was honestly not expecting. I mean, it has hibiscus so I guess I should have, but it was still surprising. It smells fairly hibiscusy along with the citrus and ginger notes.
The flavor is interesting and not entirely what I was expecting. My cup was pretty hibiscusy and tart, but with a decent helping of citrus and a bit of spicy ginger. There was also something giving it a lingering sweetness (nice to counteract the tartness of the hibiscus) that might be the ginger. Unfortunately I couldn’t taste the oolong base at all in my cup. I see now that there is also supposed to be berries (cranberries, blueberries), but I didn’t really taste them as distinct either. I could see this as a refreshing herbal tea but this one it’s quite for me. Maybe if I plucked out the hibsicus leaves!
