Orange Tea starts with a black tea base, then real fruit pieces and peel go in for scent and bite. The flavour reads citrusy first — orange, lemon, bergamot — and settles into something rounder underneath, with date, honey and a nutty edge holding the malt of the black tea in place. It's the kind of cup that works equally well plain or dressed up.
Where Orange Flavoured Black Tea actually comes from is hard to pin down. Flavouring tea leaves with spices, nuts and other additions goes back centuries — chai and Earl Grey are the best-known results of that tradition — but this particular combination seems to be a more recent addition to that long lineage, without a clear point of origin. Tea & Coffee packs its loose tea, tisanes and coffee fresh to order.
It carries caffeine, roughly 45mg per serving, enough to notice and worth keeping in mind if you're brewing it late in the day.
To brew it, add the loose leaf to an infuser or filter, set it in a mug, pour water at a full boil (100°C) over the leaves, and let it steep for three to five minutes — closer to four is a reasonable middle ground. Serve it black to taste the citrus and malt clearly, or add milk, sugar, honey or lemon if you prefer it softer.
