Orange Spice (Organic) (formerly The Spice is Right)

Got this from the ‘christmas treats’ sampler. I suppose it’s ok for someone who likes spiced tea, but it’s not for me.

Disclaimer: I’m far from a tea connaisseur/enthusiast. My notes are not meant to be a review for the tea community, but rather for myself so I know what to buy or not buy again (I wish there was a way to keep notes private).

Not a huge fan of a spicy types of tea, and not much for cinnamon either but it’s not too bad. I can drink a small cup and be satisfied but I wouldn’t buy it again. (Was given to me as a gift)

This is a strongly spiced tea! So if you like subtle don’t even try this. Very cinnamony and I had to add a bit of milk even though I love cinnamon. l like it, others won’t.

Wow this tea is nasty. It’s got this strange kind of taste to it that reminds me of cinnamon apples… but not the naturally good way. It tastes just like soggy apple jacks cereal. Grossssss

Amazing taste, a touch of sweetness with a spicy heat you notice between sips.

This tea came as part of a sampler I got for my birthday and honestly it’s extremely underwhelming. I don’t know why they bothered calling in a green tea when just looking at it you can see that it’s 90% cinnamon chips with a few sad little tea leaves hiding among them. It tastes like cinnamon bark tea and not much else. Meh.

#ProjectTeaWall

So I worked it out the other day, and there are just over 50 different teas currently on the tea wall that I haven’t tried. Overall, I’ve tried over 200 of DT’s various offerings – but product knowledge on those blends doesn’t do me much good when most of them aren’t sold anymore. So, I’m starting #ProjectTeaWall – the goal of which is to try every single tea currently on the tea wall that I haven’t yet. Yes, even the ones that I’ve avoided because I typically hate the ingredients in them. Which, it turns out, is like 80% of the teas I haven’t tried.

So we’re starting with this one: I stopped in store today to get some samples to begin with the project and while I was there I also caved and got the rosy pink “gold dipped” Nordic because even though I don’t have space for it with the staff discount that wasn’t a good enough excuse not to get it.

I asked one of our associates to recommend a good green tea for an iced latte. Unsurprisingly, the category of tea that I have the most untried teas in is the Green Tea section. There are nineteen blends in total from that section I need to tick off. After his first recommendation was a tea I’ve tried (Ceremonial Matcha) this was the one we settled on. When I was going through the Tea Wall trying to figure out what I hadn’t tried yet I was actually surprised this was one I hadn’t tried: but I guess I never got around to it ’cause when it was released Hot Lips was also still on the wall, and I was stocking that one at the time. The two were pretty similar, and so this is one I just never got to.

Gotta say, as an iced latte I do think I like this better than I liked Hot Lips so maybe that was a bit of a missed opportunity overall in waiting to try it for so long. The reason I like this one better is very obvious to me though: Hot Lips was primarily cinnamon and this is primarily clove. Good, sweet clove! For anyone who doesn’t know this about me yet; I don’t like spiced teas very much ‘cause I can really only handle spices like cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, etc. in SMALL amounts and generally on their own. Clove is the exception to that; I fucking ADORE cloves. In fact, I’ve been known to pick cloves out of tea leaf and just suck on the cloves for a few hours.

So other than that really wonderful clove note, this does have cinnamon among other spice elements. I couldn’t taste the chili pepper but I got cinnamon undertones. It reminded me a little of cinnamon candy hearts, and that was likely because in combination to the cinnamon notes this had a really sweet finish. Kind of like honey? If I didn’t know better I’d say that the associate had added agave to this but I literally saw him write the no sweetener identifier on the cup, and watched him make it; there was no added sweetener. This just has a really sweet finish, I guess. I’d say that overall that’s the element of the tea I like the least: I wish it was less sweet/cloying overall. Those spice notes/elements taste just fine without the honey like finish. Still, happy I finally crossed this one off the list! It wasn’t as scary as I thought it’d be, for a spiced tea.

Friendly reminder that I am currently not numerically rating teas because I’m seasonally employed for DAVIDsTEA and that would be a conflict of interest.

When the green tea and spices decide to dissociate from each other and pretend they’re not living in the same cupiverse we all pay the price, especially my tongue.

I think this all initially stems from DT’s belief that lots of cinnamon is all it takes to make a good spice tea. Seriously.

They also discount the role green tea plays when it’s thrown in with strong ingredients like citrus and cinnamon:

“Is there any flavour combo more comforting than orange and cinnamon?” Oh, don’t get me started.

I accidentally purchased four ounces of this tea instead of my intended two, and I can’t express how happy I am for it.
It smells like Fireball candies, and tastes that way too, minus the burning tongue. The cinnamon is just perfect. Overall, it’s warm with a touch of sweetness. I’ll likely be nursing this all fall and winter.

How can you read the name of this tea and not have the theme song of the Price is Right stuck in your head?

This tea sounded promising but didn’t live up to its hype for me. With cinnamon, green tea, orange peels, cloves, and chili peppers, you’d think it would be a feel good tea with enough spice that keeps you warm and tingly inside. In reality, it felt like I was drinking liquid cinnamon hearts. It was waaayyyy too spicy for me. I am not a fan of overly spicy teas so I did not enjoy this one.

I wanted to like this tea but unfortunately the spice was not right for me.