26 November 2010

Twinings: Mulled Spiced Tea [Winter Edition] (Waitrose)


Spectre has converted me to tea over the years, and although I drink an ample supply of coffee at work, at home I am a tea drinker. This would probably shock my work colleagues, who tease me about drinking so much coffee! I like my English Breakfast and I think Green Tea with Jasmine is an essential accompaniment to Thai or Japanese food, but my favourite cuppa has to be Chai. I just love the spiced flavours, so when I saw this Limited Edition spiced tea from Twinings I was really looking forward to it.
The box is beautiful, tea packaging isn’t usually special, but this certainly gives out a very sophisticated edge. Not only does the posh box heighten the anticipation, but each tea bag is also individually wrapped. Curiously Twinings Chai tea bags aren’t individually wrapped, but I guess this is a special edition.
I brewed the tea and added, as per the suggestion on the box, a healthy splash of milk. I also added a teaspoon of sugar. Spectre hates that I add sugar to tea, whenever he makes me a cup he says “do you still take sugar?” or “have you given up sugar in tea yet?” even though he may make me multiple cups in one day. Meh.
The tea smelt beautiful and in taste it certainly lived up to my high expectations. I would say that this tea isn’t as strong as Chai, but the depth of flavour is superior. I could pick out the delicate flavours like orange peel, and the nice background citrus taste. At the centre of the flavour were the wonderful spices and I picked up on cinnamon and cloves tingling on my taste buds. The flavours are so well balanced, and the Assam black tea is also not lost, it just works so well with the other ingredients. Essentially the tea is Christmas flavoured and absolutely gorgeous. Twinings have invented the perfect winter warmer for the cold evenings, and the must have drink for any tea connoisseur this Christmas. My only thought when I finished the cup was that the box only had twenty tea bags, and that this was never going to last me over Christmas. I did the only logically thing, I’ve added another box to my shopping list.

11 comments:

Ana said...

Is this available only in the UK?

Twinings Cinnamon + Apple and Orange + Cinnamon are my favourites so it would be very nice if I could find this one as well

cinabar said...

Aces, another cinnamon tea fan! :-)
From the ingredients this tea looks identical: http://www.twiningsusashop.com/christmas-tea.html and I spotted on the American site Apple Chai - wow, not seen that in the UK - sounds yum!

Anne said...

This tea sounds really nice! Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Will see if Morrisons have it, or else a trip to Waitrose is on order again! :)

cinabar said...

Let me know what you think of it. I now have THREE boxes in the store cupboard... think I may have gone overboard. :-D

Anne said...

Bo luck in Morrisons or Sainsbury's... :( So Waitrose it is on Saturday.

However, looking for ths limited edition I found another limited edition from Twinings; rose scented black tea. It smells lovely flowery and has a nice rose flavour which goes very well with teh black tea flavours! Little bit of summer in this snowy weather!

cinabar said...

That rose scented tea sounds lovely - I will keep an eye out for it! After the success of this tea, very much want to try all the Twinings Limited Editions I can get my hands on!

Anne said...

Drinking a nice steaming cup of this right Junow! It is indeed lovey! Just the right thing to warm me up after coming in through piles of snow. Only dowside: I bought the last packet of it, seems to be very popular!

cinabar said...

OMG - I have been panic buying, but my over purchasing has been confined to one branch of Waitrose in the West Midlands... lol

Really glad you like it though, it is gorgeous stuff :-)

SangeetaNancy said...

I passed through England a couple weeks ago and splurged on Twinnings tea as here at home we only get about five varieties,intermittently. I loved this Mulled spice tea so much I have finished my box already!!! I was wishing that I could have some more and I am so happy to see that there is a Twinnings USA shop, I can easily get more from there! Thank you so much for sharing that info!!!!!

Anne said...

Waitrose is currently selling the limited editions for 31.49 instead of £1.99. So if you want to try the other flavours or want to further stock up on the Mulled Spice tea, now is a good time. ;-)

cinabar said...

Geets - No problem, let me know what you order. I've not seen the apple Chai before so I think that is an American exclusive!

Anne - Assuming you meant £1.49? I will have a look in Waitrose later in the week, already had three cups of this Twinnings tea today! If they are on offer - I had better stock up (again). ;-)