Bought this off the Twinings website (on sale, plus a one-day code for free shipping). The caddy is lovely, so even if I don’t like the tea it’s no great loss.
For some reason the website didn’t list the ingredients for this product, and I was a bit disappointed to see “Christmas spice flavouring” on the label. Upon opening the caddy, it smells a bit acrid, maybe like imitation mulled wine flavour (that seems to be a popular addition to Christmas teas around here), and hardly any hint of vanilla.
I used a heaping teaspoon of the loose tea and just enough water to cover the infuser (a bit less than 8 ounces/240 mL), steeped for 5 minutes, added 1 tsp sugar and a bit of unsweetened soya milk. It’s pretty bland – worse than I’d expected when I ordered it, but definitely better than the sickly artificial scent that wafted out of the tin. I think I can actually sort of taste the vanilla. There’s some spice in there, but chai it ain’t.
