Some flavoured teas smell much stronger of its flavour than its taste. And Twinings Pink Grapefruit Mandarin & Lime is a perfect example. It’s the perfect example because it tastes just fine too, so that the delicious smell you inhale every time you bring the cup up for a sip enhances the taste of the tea.

Infusing for 4 mins in 200 mL of boiling water yielded a ruby red liquor that was a surprise. The pale blue of the box suggested a much more gentle colour, something like the pink-orange of pink grapefruit rather than the deep red of blood oranges. Perhaps its ingredients list of ‘hibiscus, orange peel, blackberry leaves, apple pieces, rosehips, grapefruit flavouring, liquorice root, mandarin flavouring, lemon flavouring, lemon pieces, lime pieces, mandarin pieces, and lime flavouring’ would help. The hibiscus, perhaps?

Surprise aside, the liquor smelled of the zestiness of lime and the sweetness of mandarin with the sharpness of grapefruit. This bitterness of the pink grapefruit scarcely came through in the citrus flavours of the tea, though. Instead, you taste more of its acidity (helped by the lemon) along with the zestiness of the lime before mellowing to the gentle sweetness of the mandarin. The sweetness, which came through stronger when hot, gave way to the acidity when cold, although I’d enjoy this as a sweetened iced tea.

The tea leaves almost no aftertaste, only a refreshed palate. If that’s ‘the taste of the Mediterranean’ as claimed by Twinings, I could be persuaded to visit.

This Twinings Pink Grapefruit, Mandarin & Lime Infusion contained 20 tea bags. It was packed in New Zealand and purchased in Auckland, New Zealand in 2014.