In this article we investigated unintentionally doped (UID) GaN grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) with respect to point defects and impurity concentration. The samples were orange tinted to different extent. Optical analysis was performed by micro-photoluminescence and absorption spectroscopy. Absorption measurements revealed an absorption peak at 1.5 eV related to an internal transition in Mn3+ impurities and a second band with low energy onset at 1.9 eV, both increasing with the extent of orange color. Electron paramagnetic resonance investigations showed the presence of Mn2+ and Fe3+ in the colored crystals. The overall impurity concentration was verified by secondary ion mass spectrometry. Orange tint is associated with an increase of transition metal contamination, especially Mn. Based on these observations we suggest that the orange coloring in the investigated UID HVPE GaN samples is caused by the presence of Mn impurities. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.