Strawberry Orange Scone

It took me forever to get around to trying this sample. It was kindly sent to me by generous Angrboda. Thanks so much! 

Today I had a long and exhausting day of work. We are opening a new retail store For our company, and dealing with all of the publicity and making sure everything is in order is wearing me out. I am both very nervous and excited about it. It is the first store that is opened by mostly my efforts and responsibilities so I want it to go really well. To calm my nerves and be able to enjoy what is left of the night before I go to bed, I made myself a nice big cup of this!  

The scent is very orange charged. I didn’t find any strawberry or scone in the dry tea scent, still it was very pleasant. The scent reminded me a lot of some fruity orange Tic-Tacs that we have in Ecuador. 

Once brewed, the liquor was a dark burgundy color and gave of a sweet orange scent that smelled like orange cake fresh out of the oven. Unsweetened it was smooth and orangey with just a bite of astringency. Sweetened it tasted like orange cake, with enough orange flavor, but non of the tartness. I never really got the strawberry, but the baked good part of it was somewhere in the background.

Overall it was very enjoyable. It reminded me a lot of 52teas rainbow sherbet tea, which I love, so this is a good thing! Too bad I only have a sample (though it is quite generous) of this! I will miss it when it is gone!

I dug this out from the bottom of my stash this morning. Literally, it was the last pouch on the verrrry bottom. It’s been a really long time since I last had a cup. According to Steepster, my last tasting note on it was about 11 months ago. I’m excited to see if it’s still as tasty as I remember!

The dry leaf aroma is still going strong: orange and strawberry and sugary sweetness over a black tea base. This is the “old” 52teas black base. But you know what? It’s still delicious! I don’t think their former base was ever bad really. Just fickle. Luckily, this cup wasn’t fickle in the least.

I added a splash of skim milk and a bit of Truvia. Mmmm!!! This tastes like a strawberry orange scone all right! Why haven’t I drunk this up yet? It’s utterly scrumptious! The orange and strawberry flavors are about equal. The milk added a nice creaminess that doesn’t overwhelm the other flavors. And this former black base has a nice cake-y, scone-like quality to it. It’s completely YUM!

Wow, I’m so glad I decided to brew this up today. What a treat! If anyone else has a pouch lingering somewhere in their stash, I strongly recommend you pull it out and make a cup. It yields a tasty surprise. :)

Orangey and bakey… this one is pretty good :) Looks like I wasn’t particularly fond of this the first time I tried it, but I also steeped it for a mind-blowing 4.5 minutes compared to the 2 I used this time. I don’t particularly taste strawberry, but it tastes an awful lot like the (chocolate) orange scones my mom made a little while ago. And a bit reminiscent of Butiki’s Two Friends, at least in terms of the orange flavouring. Glad I have a cup’s worth left (well… maybe I’d rather a sipdown, but at least it’s a tasty cup that remains).

Hey look, I’m first!

This one was half of an order and the one out of the two that I was least interested in. Mostly, it was just the blend of the week that day and I threw it in because why not? Now that I’ve got them, though, I was more curious about this one than the other one. Especially since nobody else has written about it yet, so I don’t know what to expect. (Don’t say ‘strawberry orange scone’. I may have my occasional blonde moments, but I had gathered that much.)

Anyway, the reason I decided that I might as well give this a go as well is the fact that it seems to be largely fruity. With 52teas, the fruity blends are the ones I’ve generally had the most luck with, and the strawberry and orange combination appealed to me. The scone here is less relevant. If it tastes like one, great. If not, no big deal.

The aroma of the dry leaves definitely has orange in it. It’s very pungent, almost nose-stabbingly sharp. It’s mostly orange and then I found a bit of strawberry underneath, but not much of it managed to get through the wall of orange.

After steeping it’s a far more even mix of strawberry and orange, although still mostly orange, but now I almost definitely get something that reminds me of baked goods. How extraordinary!

The flavour is again largely orange, but somehow more peel than actual fruit. That’s a shame, because I find that orange peel is often slightly bitter, and I’m getting that sort of bitterness here. It may, however, also be ever so slightly overdone on the steeping compared to my normal steeping length, so I can’t be certain it’s not a combination of the two.

I can also definitely find the strawberry and I’m rather reminded of that lovely green blend I had over the summer which was also flavoured with strawberry and orange (hence the combination’s appeal), although somewhat more mildly than in this one.

I can’t claim that I can really find the scones in this. Knowing that it’s supposed to be there, I can sort of convince myself that I can find something that reminds me of it, but had I been on my own, I don’t think I would have been able to pick it out. Like with the orange peel problem, however, this may also have something to do with the way this particular cup turned out.

I’m probably not finding it in exactly the same way that Frank had wished for his customers, but nevertheless I think I’m still going to enjoy it. I’m definitely glad I gave it a try.

YUM!

I definitely had my doubts about this tea. If I were to visit a bakery and see a strawberry orange scone I probably would pass on it in favor of a lemon scone or something else. The combination of strawberry and orange simply does not appeal to me. I don’t know why.

But it didn’t take long for me to change my mind about the flavor combination because it really tastes amazing. The orange dominates this cup and it tastes sweet yet tangy, and even a little bitter. Normally, I don’t really like that bitter orange pith taste, but, somehow, in this cup, it works. The strawberry is more of an undertone compared to the strength of the orange, but it is nice and sweet, and it is really noticeable in the aftertaste, with that little bit of berry tingle that tickles the tongue.

The pastry flavor of the scone is there too. I do wish there was more of that buttery element to this – Frank manages to do butter flavors so well! I find that this misses butter, or perhaps clotted cream, so I think that this tea is even better with a splash of milk to it to tie it all together and finish the scone flavor for me.

It’s really, really delicious.

Finally getting around to more samples I’ve been holding on to from swaps. Thanks, Tegan Fyretyde even though you have no notes since 4 months ago, I shall still say thank you.

This is more like a half cup of tea because I let the water boil way too long while trying to find a different tea actually.

This isn’t bad. I am glad I didn’t buy it when it first came out because I don’t think I like it enough for that. I don’t get any sort of scone taste, but I do really like the orange in this. It tastes really natural. The strawberry isn’t as pronounced as the orange is. It does give the cup some sweetness because the orange flavor is coming from orange peel for sure and it needs that sweet flavor with it.

I need something that is not orange flavored now, too much orange lately.

Steep Information:
Amount: 2 tsp
Water: 12oz at boiling
Tool: kati loose tea system 12oz
Steep Time: a little over 3 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: chemical, orange, strawberry
Steeped Tea Smell: orange, strawberry, slightly toasty
Flavor: orange, tangy, toasty
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: orange, tangy
Liquor: translucent light orange brown
I don’t like that tang whatever it is.
Not getting the scone, the tea is more toast than bake.

Post-Steep Additives:
agave
sweet, less tangy, now the berry comes out

Rating: 2/4 leaves

BLOG: http://amazonv.teatra.de/2013/03/06/52teas-loose-leaf-black-tea-strawberry-orange-scone/

When 52teas posted that a few more bags of this had been found, I jumped on it (along with the Marshmallow Treat Genmaicha, which I will be tasting soon). It did not have the highest of ratings, but it sounded like something I really wanted to try.
The smell coming out of the bag is a little funky, and I began to get nervous. I don’t really know how to describe it, it was just weird.
I brewed it up and took a sip. Oranges, underlying sweetness. Yum. Enjoying this one with no sugar or milk (which is usually how I take my teas). I have a feeling it will be even better with sugar, but I am sitting in my Lovesac with three chihuahuas on me, so getting up is not the easiest thing.

This morning, I decided to raid my friend’s tea stash (again) and found this tasty-smelling gem. It smells like breakfast—spicy, orange-y, biscuit-y breakfast. I don’t get any strawberry in the aroma of the loose leaf, but perhaps it will make itself known in the brew? I steeped a teaspoon full for about 2.5 minutes, and added sugar and a little whole milk (figured that would help give the “scone” flavoring a boost).

Mmm, yep, good choice. I definitely got the scone flavor, and the orange comes through nicely, with some spice, perhaps? There’s a little sweetness in the forefront of the taste that might be the strawberry… but I can’t really be sure. Strawberry is a tricky flavor, though, and usually gets lost when combined with other flavors, especially one as potent as orange. So I suppose this is as good as I could expect! (Honestly, I’m not even sure you’d be able to taste the strawberries in an ACTUAL strawberry orange scone. I almost never bake with strawberries, because there’s just something about the process of baking that makes them turn into flavorless mush. Anybody else have that experience?)

So, all in all, not a bad tea… but a little ambitious, methinks.

The flavoring is pleasantly but not overwhelmingly fruity, though I don’t taste the “scone” part of it at all. A nice tea to start the morning with.