Thanks to E. Alex Gerster for this sample. It was not my cup of tea but was interesting to try!

This tea smells lemony, but not intensely so. The lemon is a bit artificial smelling, more suggestive of lemon lifesavers or other lemon candy than natural lemon-scented herbs or actual lemon fruit. There is a hint of the black tea base detectable in the aroma, but just a hint of it.

The base tea tastes smoother than most other black teas from Twinings; I suspect this is an effect of the lemon and acid, because adding lemon juice to a harsh black tea has a similar effect of cutting out the astringency and some of the bitterness.

I thought this tea too sour for my tastes. It has added citric acid, which I don't like. I strongly prefer blends that use lemon-scented herbs to impart a lemony fragrance without adding sourness. Ajiri's blend of lemon verbena with Kenyan black tea (which is stellar, I might add) comes to mind. I also prefer Bigelow's Lemon Lift to this one--it's more lemony smelling, yet much less sour, and more complex in aroma.

I tried this tea both with and without milk. Although it's not sour enough to curdle the milk (at least as I brewed it, for 2 minutes, on the low end) I found the milk really muddled the flavor--I would not recommend adding milk to this one.

Add your own review

Login or Sign Up to comment on this review.