Kimberley's Kyusu

Hey there Teacups! I’m back today with another Let’s Talk Tea post and this time around I’m going to be reviewing Whittard’s – Halloween Orange Gingerbread Tisane. This blend  has been put into some spooktacular limited edition Halloween packaging for their 2019 Halloween collection and when they contacted me and asked if I wanted to give it a try along with the other blend in the collection I honestly couldn’t have said yes any quicker. Since I started my tea journey Whittard have always been a favourite of mine and I never thought the day would come when they would approach me and ask me if I wanted to collaborate with them.

Their Orange Gingerbread blend is a tisane inspired by my personal favourite autumn treat, gingerbread. It contains: Ginger, Cinnamon, Pumpkin,  Apple, Brittle Pieces (sugar, hazelnut, invert sugar) , Sweet Blackberry Leaves, Liquorice Root, Orange Peel, Flavouring, Almond, Sunflower Petals and it smells absolutely divine. Despite the fact that pumpkins are such an iconic element of Halloween you nave really see them included as in ingredient for Halloween teas so I was very excited to see it on the ingredients list.

Here’s what Whittard have to say about this blend over on their website: ”Fangs at the ready. We’ve concocted a devilishly delicious infusion for Halloween, blending whole pumpkin and apple pieces with ginger, cinnamon and a flourish of orange peel, and finishing it off with a scattering of sweet nuts. It’ll have you howling at the blood moon…”

Ingredients: 23% Ginger, 15% Cinnamon, 15% Pumpkin, 15% Apple, 8% Brittle Pieces (sugar, hazelnut, invert sugar) , Sweet Blackberry Leaves, Liquorice Root, 4% Orange Peel, Flavouring, Almond, Sunflower Petals.

Tea Tasting Notes

I expected to instantly smell gingerbread as soon as I opened the packet this tea was in but instead I was greeted with the strong aroma of what I can only describe as freshly made lemon curd which doesn’t make any sense really considering there isn’t even any lemon in this blend. The dry leaves also had quite a strong ginger aroma which excited me more than anything because I knew before I had even taken my first sip that this was going to be such a delicious and heart warming tea to drink which is absolutely perfect for the freezing cold autumn days we are currently experiencing here in the UK.

Those of you who know me well will know that Gingerbread is my favourite autumn / winter sweet treat so when I saw that this was part of Whittard’s 2019 Halloween range I couldn’t have been happier. I’ve had a lot of gingerbread inspired blends in the past both teas and tisanes and while I have enjoyed them they have all fallen a little bit flat for me, but that was far from the case with this blend. This is by far the best gingerbread inspired tisane I have ever had because it manages to perfectly replicate ever single aspect of freshly baked gingerbread.

The ginger and cinnamon are the stand out top notes for me but I expected that with it being a gingerbread inspired blend. I honestly would have been disappointed if they weren’t the top notes, as it wouldn’t be gingerbread otherwise. The bottom notes for me were the apple, the pumpkin, the hazelnut, and the orange all of which were present but were very light. The apple added a nice natural sweetness, the pumpkin added an ever so slight vegetal note an the hazelnut added a soft nutty not that came through mostly in the aftertaste. The orange is subtle but I’m happy about that as just like gingerbread with a little orange zest and it works really well. I can’t tell what ingredient in this blend is giving it a lovley buttery feel but I won’t complain about it.

Because this blend has ginger, apple pieces, brittle pieces and liquorice root all of which add an element of sweetness this blend is very naturally sweet and I wouldn’t suggest adding any honey to it at all. Adding any more sweetness to this blend would only throw it off balance and make it undrinkably sweet so I really wouldn’t recommend it. In terms of preparation suggestions I would simply suggest you drink this as it is because its perfect and adding anything would ruin it. I really hope this comes back year after year as part of the Whittard Halloween range because I’ll repurchase it time and time again.

Overall Teacup Rating: 5/5

If you want to know more about Whittard and purchase some of this absolutely delicious blend for yourself, you can do both here (Be quick though the spooktacular packaging won’t be around for long). As always of you have any questions at all either stick them in the comments or send them to me on Twitter/Instagram @teaisawishblog and I’ll try and answer them all as soon as I can.

Speak to you all again soon. Happy Steeping – Kimberley