I love ginger and use it quite often when cooking (tip: to make grating your ginger easier, freeze it first!), but a tea based on ginger? Now that sounded interesting. I had an order that I was putting together for DT’s that just needed one more tea to reach the free shipping level so I decided to throw this in just for kicks and see what happened…
Dry this tea smells of ginger with pepper and sweetness all mixed in. I had a hard time picking out the rosehips but the orange and licorice flavors would peak out at me every once and a while… though they got a bit lost in the stronger aromas from the other spices (not that I mind… the name of this one does include the word “Heat” in it :D).
Steeped the liquor comes out a clear pale yellow-green while the aroma becomes much more subtle. The ginger is still there and the orange comes through now, but the scent has lots most of its spicy heat that really called to me in the dry tea.
Oh there’s the heat… that first sip warm and tingly from the ginger and the pepper but sweet and not overwhelming. In actuality it’s not really that spicy at all, just enough to heat up your mouth and then cooling down right away to a pleasant lingering buzz. This is definitely a sweeter tea than I was expecting with all the spiciness in it, the licorice and orange help to cut down on the ginger and round out the flavors of this tea nicely. You can get a hint of the green tea that this is based on every little bit but it’s not a predominant flavor note. Nor can I really find the rosehips, oh well.
This tea, it changes during every sip I take one note giving way to another in an intriguing play of flavors… I like it, and though I can’t see myself drinking it all the time, I hope to keep some on hand for the foreseeable future.
