BlueKittyMeow

Initially, I was a little scared off by the flavor. The ad copy says that it uses natural vanilla flavouring, but to me this smelled kind of artificial (but I think I’m over-sensitive to this kind of thing). I don’t doubt that it’s natural, I just don’t care for the mix, scent-wise.
Brewed up, the liquor is gorgeous. I love the deep red-gold burnt umber of rooibos. Just seeing that is an instant comfort that I associate with being tugged under to sleep.
The scent brewed is much better – the two scents meld and become toasty bringing the best of each out.
The flavour is oddly fruity with an apple undertone (note to self: try blending up an apple rooibos. Rooibos always seems kind of like apples to me – anyone else have this association?).
I’m getting vanilla here only at the finish, at which point it lingers. Super tea snob that I think I’ve become, I have to say that I don’t care for it. It still tastes unnatural to me, more like a vanilla syrup than anything else. I think that I really for the most part don’t care too much for adagio’s teas.
As a decent tea to sip before bed (yes, at 2:30 AM), it’s perfect as something to put me to sleep. (I still like the flavors of rooibos by itself best).

I tried this neat – not bad, a little heavy on the chocolate powder. I added milk and honey. It was surprisingly thin bodied. The flavor was kind of boring and uninspiring. Meh.

I have a super sore throat today, so I figured I’d try something soothing sounding. The samples that Thomas from Fusion Teas generously sent along arrived today :) So, I brewed up a pot of the Apple Pear Tulsi. The leaves smell like a warm spiced apple pie, not too spicy – I’m really sensitive to cinnamon and this definitely isn’t too powerful in the mix.
Brewed, this smells wonderful – like I’ve just come into a dark wood lined hallway from the rain. It smells wet or damp, but in a nice spicy way, like an autumn night storm, and unused mysterious rooms.
Apple! A really nice apple flavor, not fake tasting at all. Nice and fall-like with earthy undertones. There is a slight slight hint of a minty flavor. The rooibos flavor is seriously backgrounded, which I actually like – it supports the other flavors rather than competing with them. Apple is the most prominent flavor, and the other kind of dance around it. Nice and relaxing tea.
ETA: I added some honey to this to help my throat and I actually like how it changed the flavors (not usually a honey in beverages fan). It brought the fruit flavors more to the front and made the pear flavor (which is a phantom flavor created by the apple and pineapple, there is no actual pear listed) come out much clearer.

First off, the leaves smell incredible. This is the greenest, freshest smelling black tea I’ve come across! There is so much life in the leaves. There is a huge hit of sweet dark black licorice here.
I know I won’t get through many steepings tonight, so I’m doing this western style. 3 Minutes/steeping.
First steeping: The color of the leaves and the liquor is incredible – a gorgeous copper oxide toned rusty hue. Scent – This is overwhelming – powdery, like Italian lemon cookies with carmalized sugar tones and – oh! Baking chocolate. And a hint of something like apple blossoms. Taste – Totally blown away. It tastes like powdery dark chocolate. Nutty, carob-y, with a toasted finish. This is so neat – it’s completely unlike any tea I’ve ever tried before. The talk about a coffee substitute for tea could lead here for an interesting discussion. Really unique. Some other time (not this time! Not the first time!) I want to try adding a splash of milk to see how my “tea as coffee” theory works in practice.

Second infusion: Scent – More chocolate, less licorice. A little more toasted, a little milky. Flavor – Slightly more bitter, a touch of astringency at the finish. It actually really works with the chocolate flavors. As a description of the chocolate flavor, it is so full it’s hard to believe that there isn’t actual bitter chocolate added. There’s a little bit of a berry flavor too.

Third infusion: Okay, I totally wimped out here and bowed to the tyranny of taking more ibuprofen on an empty stomach than I really should and drank the third steeping with milk. It was surprisingly good. The milk definitely covered some of the flavors, but it made for a really comforting and bracing drink. This is really too nice to add milk to but… I could definitely see grabbing this as my morning tea, milk and all.

And for the fourth steeping, well… I’m way too tired and so I’m donating the fourth steeping to a soak for my broken finger.
I used up three green tea bags I needed to get rid of, added pan-away essential oil for anti-microbial effects, rosemary, tea tree, frankincense, and eucalyptus. I made a tea of these and then threw it in the freezer to chill. Soaking my finger in this really brought down the swelling and helped a little with the pain. Yay! I’m adding the leaves and the long concentrated final steeping of the Laoshan Black (around 6 minutes with minimal water) for tomorrow.

Amazing. And if that one word isn’t enough, I’ve outlined my entire tasting experience with this tea below. Seriously though – Amazing.

The leaves smell incredible. They are so fresh smelling, with some creamy overtones and some sweet hay notes.
For the first steeping I did around 4 seconds (after the initial rinse). The flavors are very smooth. OMG this is lingering on my tongue. This has serious body that comes out in the finish. There is a light jasmine flavor that gives way to a carmel aftertaste. It is the caramel flavor that lingers buttery afterwards. There is a hint of some kind of vegetal sweetness at the back of my throat. And this is the first steeping? Woohoo!
Finally! A really nice tea :) This is so exactly what I have been looking for.
For the second steeping I did another 3-4 seconds.
Wow! The liquor smells absolutely incredible. It is just sweet, buttery, toasty… it literally smells like buttered toast in my cup. But there is that fresh greenish scent on top of that that keeps it from being cloying or overbearing. I’ve been chasing down a tea that is like an oolong I had years ago. This tea is the kind of tea I’ve been looking for. This infusion is even thicker and toastier than the first.
Flavorwise, this is even more buttery with some seriously vegetal notes coming out. They blend together like fiddleheads in butter. Seriously good pairing. There is a slight salt note too under here, I think related to the buttery flavor.
Third infusion: scent – even greener and more buttery. flavor – a little more flowery. the butter flavor toned down and the overall taste got smoother and subtler. This infusion is more like the first than the second. There is an interesting spicy flavor here, an almost earthy pepperiness.
Fourth infusion: I brewed this one for 7 seconds. Scent – more creamy, less buttery. Flavor – more floral, nice creamy aftertaste (literally – I’m tasting cream here!)
Fifth infusion: I increased steeping to around 13 seconds. Scent – a drier toasty scent, slight caramel notes. Flavor – a little fruity, like frozen peaches. Slightly warm woodiness.
Sixth infusion: 20 seconds. Scent – buttery and woody. Flavor – Caramel, woodiness, and cedar notes. Darker, woodier, like a wet forest, toasty and creamy. Salty/sweet aftertaste.
Seventh infusion: 25 seconds. Scent – very lightly floral and sweet. Flavor – It’s funny, I’m really just getting straight up cream this time. No real other notes. Just a nutty creamy taste.
Eighth infusion: 35 seconds (I went by color here). Scent – Yay, the smooth buttery scent is back. Green and buttery, with that brussels sprout with butter kind of note. Taste – the fruit flavors are starting to come out – it’s kind of like popping an entire rambutan in my mouth. There is the sweetness of the fruit flavor mixed with some astringency of the outer shell/rind. Interesting…
Ninth infusion: 52 seconds. Scent – Buttery, vegetal, slightly woodsy. Flavor – I’m getting much woodier flavors at this point. There is a hint of sweetness that comes out at the end – almost salty and sweet at the same time. This is a completely different tea than the first five or so steepings but it is good in its own right. I like the finish of nuts and cream.
Tenth infusion: 1:05 Scent – Buttery and floral this time, like candied violets. Sugary almost. Flavor – Floral, nearly minty, and of course, buttery. The floral taste is really purple and zingy. Violets, I think.
Eleventh infusion: 1:25 Scent – Buttery with walnuts. Taste – Walnuts again. There’s some astringency feeling here that contributes to that. Walnut infused unsalted butter on toast. That’s this steeping. Oddly specific? Yes. Totally accurate? Yes.
Twelfth infusion: 1:50 Scent – Buttery creamy walnuts. Slight slight hint of blossoms.
I’m thinking of the Ezra Pound poem, In a Station of the Metro – “The apparition of these faces in the crowd / Petals on a wet, black bough.”
That would be the scent profile – wet blossoms on dark rain infused wood of a walnut tree with a hint at the creamy nutty flavor of the walnuts themselves. Flavor – Nutty. Walnuts. Bark. It tastes just like it smells. Perfect. Modernist tea. I am totally in “The Burial of the Dead” mode now, picturing the rain pouring down (lit geek note: I am one of the few who will argue that the rain actually comes in The Wasteland. Therefore, for me, my rain association is valid). Back to tea.
Thirteenth infusion: 2:15 Scent – very faint. Again, rather nutty/buttery. Taste – this last steeping just has a nice subtly warmth to it – a nuttiness. This one is less astringent than the last, so it’s still reminding me of rain and trees, but now it’s a much more “garden” like experience. Not so much bark flavor/feel as a smooth sweet taste.

Wow. Really, that’s all I have to say. This tea was incredible. It was the most amazing way to relax after a frankly awful day. My broken finger still isn’t anywhere near healed and I got my pupils fantastically dilated (the doctor said he had never seen anyone’s pupils go like mine did) and got nauseous taking my pain medication on an empty stomach. Woohoo! Awesome day! Anyway, taking the time to sit an experience this tea was just wonderful. I learned that tea can still be fantastic and I’m just extremely picky about the tea I like. It was really disheartening drinking teas that were fine, I couldn’t complain about them, but they weren’t the tea I was looking for. I’m so happy to have found this tea and excited about the other teas that just arrived from Verdant Tea, waiting in the cupboard.

It smells very spicy and cinnamon-y and tastes that way too. There is far too much cinnamon for my (cinnamon hating) tastes. The mouthfeel is surprisingly light as well, versus how dark the tea is. Of course, I just finished a cup of coffee, so take this with a grain of salt. If you like cinnamon, then you’re ahead of me in liking this tea.
Not bad otherwise, just too much of a kick for me,

This has a super strong scent – I’m guessing it’s the bergamot? Upfront info: I’m trying to give Earl Grey, a tea I’ve never loved, a second chance.
To me this just tastes like rooibos though. Really nice red rooibos. I’m woefully uneducated on earl gray, I just know it’s never been my favorite (back from bagged tea days), so I’m not sensitive to bergamot, but I’m not tasting it.
A really nice cup of rooibos tea though! But then, I’m a red rooibos nut :)

Oooh cinnamon scent – in a good way.
Taste-wise, this is a really nice savory type tea. And black pepper! I’m in love. Black pepper flavors in wine are what I especially seek out. In a tea? Perfect. And the cinnamon which was close to too much in the scent is just the smallest note of heat in the flavor. I avoided this tea for a while, afraid of the spices – I’m sorry I waited so long now. This is a great mid-morning tea,
This is super balanced, energizing and relaxing at the same time.

So, I didn’t get to taste this infusion, but this tea absolutely saved me today.
I crushed my finger in the automatic car window today and broke the bone. Serious serious pain. Also, gross alert, I know this is a tea review website, not a med school bandage review site or something.
So, my crushed bleeding finger is looking awful, I’m screaming and my sister gets me back in the car and hurries to the ER. Without really thinking about it (again, serious pain), I unscrew the lid to the travel mug that I was cold steeping this tea loose in and stick my hand in.
I kid you not, the tea seriously helped. The cold was soothing and there were so many leaves in there it made a kind of herbal leaf layer around my hand that soothed it as best as one could hope.
I’ve got a splint now and actual medical painkillers for the break and all, but for the first few hours of terrible? It was all Silver Needle, babe. This is my new favorite tea.
…
If only I had gotten to drink it :( No way I could do that after having it open with my fingers in it in a hospital.
Long story short – Silver Needle and I are now bffs. <3

No notes yet.

This smells deliciously sweet. I love the mango scents.
The flavor is light and green – no particular flavor is jumping out at me, but it’s refreshing and relaxing at the same time, which is a huge plus for me, since it’s 12:23, I have work to do but I have a splitting headache. This is pretty much the perfect tea for right now :)

I tried cold brewing for the first time last night – I set up a pitcher with silver needle and let it sit in the fridge overnight.
This is so refreshing! I love that there is no heat involved – it seems like magic or alchemy. The flavor is pretty good and it is so novel for me to have tea cold.

On a side note: My dachshund, Mycroft, is mad about this tea. He was trying to drink it through the thermos. I let him have two tiny tea leaves from the second steeping and he loved them. I wouldn’t let him have any more than that little taste because of the caffeine, but he loved what he got. Weird, huh?

This smells so interesting – sweet and… something else. Savory? Worcestershire sauce? Soy Sauce? Something really bizarre… maybe it just reminds me of a meat spice rub. I’m not against savory teas, I really like New Delhi Delight from Davidsteas.
Flavor-wise, I can taste the rooibos which I like. Otherwise… I’m not sure. It’s kind of a weird savory tea. There is a hint of something minty which I think must be the holy basil.
Again… not bad, just VERY different!

The leaves smell really vegetal – I’m not sure what exactly… almost like squash leaves.
They are long and curled and twisted up – really neat looking.
Brewed this smells JUST like buttered brussels sprouts. I love it. Super awesome.
This has a nice toasty flavor and a touch of mild astringency that lingers as mouthfeel. After all that, a buttery flavor and feeling lingers on the tongue. I love this tea :)
I steeped it for 2 minutes for the first steeping.

For the second steeping I did another 2 minutes. The second brewing is much lighter, and to be honest, I didn’t think much about it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like it, I was just distracted while I drank it.
I’m putting together the press materials for my film right now, and that’s occupying much more of my brain than tea analysis right now :P

I’ve been avoiding this tea for a while – the idea of Jasmine kind of scares me, it doesn’t seem like something I’d like.
The leaves smell great though – along the buttery lines I like. I’ve become wary of adagio teas that smell nice to me though – they usually end up tasting flat. And I’ve found the opposite to be true as well – teas that smell mediocre taste fantastic to me.
Okay, so I was scared of this tea.
The taste is actually pleasantly floral. It has the scent of gardenia to me. The initial taste is buttery, then the floral notes come out, there’s a touch of bitterness, and then it resolves into a toasty flavor with a little bit of an astringent sensation. The more I drink this the more I like it.

This is the kind of tea I would make a pot of in the afternoon if I had one long single task ahead of me, like a writing session.

The scent of the loose tea is super cinnamony with with serious chocolate overtones and vanilla notes. I have no idea where the chocolate is coming from but I really like it.
I tried it neat first, but I usually drink chai with milk.
Brewed up it still smells mostly like cinnamon. I am slowly coming around to cinnamon but it’s not my favorite. I’ll try to to be biased :)
Neat, this has way too much cinnamon for me. I didn’t taste any of the rooibos here. With milk and sugar, it’s not a bad drink. I won’t re-order it, but it wasn’t awful (yup, rousing praise. I just really don’t like teas with too much cinnamon. If you like cinnamon, this would probably be the tea for you).

The leaves smell awesome!
I am having the worst most fibro-tacular day moving someone into a new house. Serious energy is in order, so I’m really putting this to the test.
Brewed up this smells really grassy – it’s actually really similar to wheatgrass shots, which I love.
It tastes like… wheatgrass! No, really, it has those deep chlorophyll notes to it. It has no bitter aftertaste, and actually doesn’t have much of a flavor at all, aside from the “green” tastes. I like that about this though – If I’m drinking something for energy, I just want a quick “zing!” rather than something super flavorful or cloying.
It’s actually pretty refreshing.

I love the visual mix of ingredients – the little peppercorns are awesome!
Brewed up this smells incredibly of cinnamon. Full disclosure: I am not a cinnamon person.
Flavor-wise this was fairly thin and somewhat cinnamon heavy. I ended up adding milk and sugar which tempered the cinnamon and actually made it taste more interesting.
Not the best chai I’ve ever had (I’m looking at you, Thai Chai!), but still drinkable.

Second try for the Jade Oolong. I went with 185 degree water and a super short steeping (30 seconds). I also warmed my cup first with the water and also did a 20 second rinse of the leaves.
I really shouldn’t have messed this up. Now for the moment of truth…
I’m not picking up on much in the way of scent. There’s something that kind of reminds me of wet trees or a wet bag (not bad). There is a slight hint of buttery sweetness.
Flavor – slightly spicy, slightly floral.
There is a nice mouth feel. It’s not bad, definitely not like the first cup of this I made.

Second brewing – wow, this smells buttery! And caramelly and sweet!
And the flavor is still super bitter.

Okay, enough! I’ve tried this tea for a total of 4 cups, brewed to two steepings each time and each prepared differently.
Conclusion – I really don’t like this tea. Sorry, Jade Oolong, but we are just not compatable :(

This had a really nice fresh moist green scent. I love the little curled up tea leaves.
The leaves opened up into cute little Brussels sprout looking wrinkly leaves.
I like the color of the liquor – it’s a straw yellow green golden color.

Brewed up, this smells a-ma-zing. Buttery, toasty, and even, strangely, slightly jammy. Strawberry jam, I would say, if you pressed me.
Taste wise, it’s a little burnt and a little bitter, but it’s just the first infusion. I’ll do the same length for the next infusion and see if I like that better. I didn’t rinse the leaves first, either.

Second steep I did at 195 for 2 minutes. The leaves really unfolded and filled the entire cup (I have a cup sized strainer I used). The liquor was a little lighter and closer to a true straw color. The scent this time is much sweeter, in a toasty honey way.
The flavor still disappointed me. It’s too bitter. I must be oversteeping this.

I’m not giving up though! I’m going to throw adagio’s instructions out the window and try the :30, 1:00, 1:30 brewing instead.

For reference, I rated this a 16 because it tasted really really soapy and weird to me. But no one else had a similar rating and my sister thought it tasted fine and great, so I’m not going to skew the numbers with what is obviously a bizarre personal reaction to the tea.

Review:
The leaves had a nice buttery scent, with a little bit of dustiness.
When I brewed it up, there was a strange soapy residue on top of the pot. I hadn’t used soap last time I rinsed my teapot, so this was just from the leaves. I don’t know why it was foamy…
The liquor smells toasty with a little bit of a lighter scent, almost citrusy.
Unfortunately, this is going to be a tea I pour out. It is bland, bitter and sour all at the same time. Eww. I’m disappointed – I really wanted to like this. I didn’t even oversteep it!

ETA – I see that I’m the lowest rating for this tea. Perhaps I’m a fluke and there was just some bizarre reaction going on here… I used filtered water in a water rinsed teapot, at the recommended settings. Who knows?

ETA again – My sister tried it and thought it was great. So… I’m out of ideas :)

The leaves smell perfect – that buttery toast scent. And I love how cute and curled and twisted the leaves are.
I smelled the liquor as it was brewing – it went through a couple interesting cycles. First it smelled just a buttery and wonderful as the leaves did. Then it went through a bitter cycle and then caramel notes came out. I’d be interested to try this next time, stopping it after 1 minute.
The final scent of the liquor is a caramel creamy scent.
The flavor I found lacking. None of the butteryness or creaminess came through. There was some nuttiness, but in a more bitter way than I like. The aftertaste has some nice mellow nutty notes though.

Geeze, what is it with me and being so critical? Am I too picky? I think I’m just comparing all teas to the one incredible tea I had a few years ago. I had a small sample of Jade Tie Guan Yin from teaspring and no other tea I’ve had recently has been as good. Yes, it was an oolong and this is a green so it’s not a fair comparison but it was just such an example, to my palate, of a really complex interesting tea.

I went a step lower (185 vs 190) and a tad longer (7 minutes vs 6.5) to see if it would change the flavor.
It wasn’t bad – I drank this distractedly and didn’t end up seeing much of a difference.

This is bizarre! I’ve never had tea with coffee beans in it. The loose leaves have a strange scent that I’m not sure if it’s from the coffee or another ingredient or if it’s one of the artificial ingredients (there is some artificial flavoring in this blend). I love the carob/cocoa nibs in it, I usually really like those and they look so pretty in the loose mix.
The scent of the brewed tea mellowed as I let it cool a bit. It’s less in-your-face bitter and more nutty.
Taste: Yay! Yet another tea I was expecting not to like from the scent that I ended up finding nice. It has a minty grassy tone to it, probably from the mate and nice roasty flavors in it. There are certain barky notes that remind me of damp trees. There’s a really smooth sweet aftertaste to it.

Desert matzos (dark chocolate, coconut, agave and pecans) that my sister just made, go GREAT with this.