Wild Sweet Orange

Jillian Lena sent me this tea.

Here is my review.

http://bit.ly/dlgPeE

Seriously. Look at the picture.

ETA: If you want an actual review, please read the plethora of other reviews on this tea. They paint its portrait quite nicely.

Smells like a cleaner
Did I eat a vitamin?
Tart, sour, orange-y.

Yep, that about sums it up.

I can get behind this one in summer as a cold brew tea. I like adding a bit of sugar too…though I’m also a fan of mixing this with lemonade. Had a bag of this left over that I wanted to finish off. Wheee!

After reading the…um…opinionated reviews on this tea, and seeing that Tazo has, once again, added citric acid to the ingredients, I steeped this for only 45 seconds. It was 45 seconds too long. This tea is not worth drinking on its own. There’s probably a way to doctor it up so that it tastes palatable, but as it is…blegh.
I do enjoy the bright orange color. It makes me feel like a kid. Reminds me of those colored drinks in those little plastic things that look like barrels. 25 cents from the corner store! I think those things taste better than this. Though to be fair, my short steep probably didn’t allow any flavors to develop. The tartness would have been unbearable if I let it go any longer though.

Ummmm…yeah. I am on business travel and his tea happened to be in my hotel room. I was working late in the evening and decided to give it a shot. OUCH. If I steeped my jock strap from 9th grade 2-a-day football practice in creek water, I am not sure it would have been much worse.

I brewed up a cup of this Tazo Wild Sweet Orange tonight and attempted yet again to understand why it gets no love—and indeed a lot of hate!

Okay, so it’s not orange juice, and it’s not tea. Okay, so it’s a tart hot liquid perhaps comparable in some ways to Theraflu—except that it is orange, not lemon or cherry.

Truth be told: I actually like Theraflu!

True Story: I had such horrible morning sickness and my friend did too. She told me to “get that orange tea at Starbucks” because it was the only thing that made her feel a bit less nauseated. So, I did. I thought it tasted weirdly like, wait for it, warm Tang. Gross, right? But not really? I just loved it. But my taste buds were all weird from the morning (noon and night) sickness, so I’d soon grow to hate it, right? No. I still love this tisane, a decade later. The end.

Last night I developed a wet cough – yeah gross, right? It could be symptoms of the horrific allergies I have as a Midwesterner. Or it could be because my husband has been out of town for the last couple days and I haven’t been taking the best care of myself while he’s away. (Staying up late, eating crap because it’s easier, you get the idea.) Thankfully he’s coming home this evening.

My throat is a little scratchy and sore, just enough to be annoying. Times like these I turn to orange juice, however there is none in the house (and I’m too lazy to go to the store). So I reach for this because it’s the closest thing that my lazy butt is going to get to OJ. Sadly, I have a ton of this from my early days as a tea drinker. 3 bags in 8oz of boiling water and iced with sweetener. Its a little better than drinking some disgusting powdered Theraflu-type stuff, but ACK! Must…. choke…. down….

This has been in my drawer forever. I have been afraid to try it. A bagged herbal infusion. Starbucks what were you thinking when you bought Tazo? Hibiscus, blackberry, orange, and spearmint. How could this be anyone’s idea of good? I at least waited until the cup cooled before dumping it out. Gross.

(Should my dear friends who gave me this tea today be reading this, please know that I loved the gift. That it came so thoughtfully from you makes my disappointment harder to bear.)

AUGH! Hibiscus! GROSS! Man oh man … this might be tolerable without the everlasting hibiscus. Tart to being sour, almost bitter. This tisane could strip paint. It smells lovely in the bag, and once the hot water hits it. Smells so refreshing — yet tastes like an axe made of leaden hibiscus. Seriously, that one ingredient ruins sooo many tisanes. So damn tart! And to think there’s lemon grass and citiric acid here, too …

A cup of Lemon Cream Rooios from David’sTea seems like milk in comparison.

Let’s look at the ingredients for Tazo Wild Sweet Orange here:

Ingredients: Lemongrass, blackberry leaves, citric acid, rose hips, spearmint, natural flavors, orange peel, safflower, hibiscus flowers, rose petals, natural orange essence, ginger and licorice.

At least ten tart/citric ingredients. Ye gods. Wild Sweet Overkill.