Madison Bartholemew

Taken Plain.
This is the only black tea I can take plain consistently. Rather good darjeelings are the only black teas I can take plain consistently.
It’s a good smooth tea with a sweet middle and woody start and finish. Not woody like smoked… but bite a two by four fresh woody kinda… it’s that flavor all darjeelings have. I can never quite pin that flavor on anything other than a darjeeling and that’s what it’s got.
Yea.

Taken Plain.
It’s not toasty…
It’s not really nutty…
and it tastes nothing like a brulee.
This might be the worst named tea ever… wait I found it!
The only hint of flavors that resemble the name are in the initial wash of flavor. All of the middle and after taste is of fruit and spice which really reminds me of the old blend of Sweet Oolong revolution. It even has that same mildly bitter after taste. This tea is nice if a fun different way until the after taste hits and then I don’t like the flavor at all. The tail end of the flavor reminds me of when I was a kid and wanted to know what nutmeg by itself tastes like and my mouth got all drink and I felt like I needed to drink something.
So I’m going to go drink something else…

Taken Plain and with Mild and Sugar.
Way too much spice… not enough pumpkin.
And no flavor development until milk and sugar are added. Is this a trend with flavored blacks from adagio?
Plain it just tastes like poorly spiced water.
And with milk and sugar it is totally drinkable… but not re-orderable.
sigh Of disappointment.

Taken with milk and sugar + plain.
Without milk and sugar the tea leaves are over powered by the strong spices. Drinking this tea plain is actually kind of unpleasant in the way that tasting cinnamon by itself is dry and bitter.
With only sugar the spices mellow out and become nice. My only complaint is that the spices still over power the tea and it has a very weak mouth. This tea really just tastes like spiced water. It’s nice but not awesome.
Adding milk with the sugar rounds out the body and flavor but they are still not at all robust. The spices become well mixed and the tea flavor pops out a little more.
This is a nice holiday change but if I could have it year round I really wouldn’t be excited because it could have been done much better.

Taken with no additives.
This is my favorite tea. It is rich, sweet and decadent all by itself. This is one of 2 teas ever that I have never gotten sick of and I really believe that is because the flavor is so subtle. The mouth on this is very rich feeling so you don’t just feel like you are drinking flavored water. There is a distinct texture to this tea that coats and feels almost hearty.
And in complete contrast the flavor lingers subtly almost like a breath of sweet air.
After taking the time to season a yixing with this particular treat tea the flavor is slightly bolder but remains subtle and non-offensive. I’ve been waiting to see if the coconut would take an artificial over tone after being enhanced by the pot but it continues to remain wonderful.

Taken Plain.
This oolong is on the lighter side of the fermentation scale but retains a nuttier more robust flavor than pouchong grade without the heavy mouth feel of more robust oolongs.
Nice tea. Very re-steepable.

Prepare plain with 140 degree (not listed on the slide bar) water and whisked immediately.
I could not get this stuff to froth. Maybe it’s the heavy starch in combination with the powder but I’m not really sure why.
There also seems to be a much heavier consistency that isn’t allowing the tea to remain suspended so I feel the need to continue whisking just to get the particles off the bottom. Which isn’t very fun.
The flavor profile is a little more bitter even with the cooler temp water but I’m going to continue to muck around with measurements hoping to find something awesome.
This tea really does taste like toasted rice tea in powder/it’s kinda matcha form which is very neat.
I just have to figure out how to brew this SOB.

Taken without milk or sugar.
This tea is nice and mild enough to drink everyday. The three flavors of green mingle well with vegital being slightly out in front followed by sweet and then toasty… which is present but only barely so and more as an aftertaste.
It re-steeps enough to make the price point good.
It’s definitely not my favorite but it’s good enough.

Taken without milk or sugar.
I’ve never had lavender tea before so the first sip was kinda shocking but when you get used to the tang of the lavender it’s not so bad. For this tea the chamomile exists as a toasty base flavor for the lavender to shine off of. The chamomile is there but it’s the chair your dinner guest is sitting on. Not a second dinner guest.
And lavender in tea just reminds me of the color purple. Not the movie… but the actual color. There is some kind of spicy alertness to the herb which feels like red. But the after taste is soothing and floral which feels like blue… Then again one of my favorite flowers are blue bells so I maybe partial on that blue description but I’m sure you see where I’m going with this…

Eh… it’s an interesting flavor.

Taken without Milk and sugar this tea is just very strong and tart. It almost makes me think if the sour patch kid candies had a diabetic “replacement” (really what beats sour patch kids?) this would be it. Except there is no sweet finish cause well… you’re diabetic.

I am NOT a diabetic so I shoved 2 tsp of sugar in the pot (twice as much as I normally would dare) and shook till dissolved. Yes, I shook a tea pot. Fruit black teas bring out the anger in me cause I don’t understand why anyone would bother making these combinations. Tea is lovely. Juice might be the healthiest thing available… ever. Why would you skimp on either? Anyways, the tea is bearable with sugar.
Still slightly tart the raspberry and standing solidly against the black tea and holding its own. Likewise the black tea is sucker punching the raspberry back… but this is all happening in my mouth… which is minutely uncomfortable.

Then I added milk to subdue both sides of the epic tea vs. fruit battle and finally I find this drinkable. The flavors are still fighting in dominance … aka it’s not clear cut in the starting and finishing flavors they really just come in flavor waves until they blend into a sour tea aftertaste.

I can’t find anything “wrong” with this tea. The leaves look nice… aka TGFOP. It smells and tastes like real things. Not all artificially added and poopy.
But… I obviously dislike fruit teas… so consider that I drink at least 3 cups of this and wrote this to be positive.
For people who like fruit in their tea.

Taken with Milk and Sugar.
Nice well blended flavored black tea that really does taste like a dessert. Nice change from Plain black tea.

Taken with milk and sugar.
It smells like potato. The leaves before you brew them smell like potato and it still does after brewing. The tea even has a slightly starchy after taste…
This is a pleasant tea but it doesn’t remind me of sweet potato as much as just plain old potato.
It is definitely a pleasant savory (as advertised) tea… my hang up is what to eat it with. I think eating it with a starch would be too much. And the after taste is a strong enough flavor that it might interfere with actual food.
Maybe with a roasted Chicken instead of a potato… maybe this is a good diet tea for starch lovers?

Wonderful, mellow and sweet tea.

Taken with no additives.
Rich, well-balenced light oolong with well developed jasmine flavor.
Not over powering jasmine and as the tea cools the jasmine does not take on any unpleasantness.
Very nice.

I didn’t use anything in this tea.
If you drink your tea without letting it cool off I would highly recommend this tea. It has a nice flavor when served freshly and the scent is nice and strong. As it cools though it seems like the flavor becomes more and more over whelming.
I like it hot.
Cold, it is a little much.
I tried adding less tea for steeping which has made it better but it still hits a point in the cooling process where I consider the tea un-drinkable. It always starts off so nice…

I had this in the shop last weekend and was unimpressed.
The flavors muddled one another instead of being complimentary.
I’ll try it with honey next time…

With nothing added to it the flavor seemed plain and a little astringent. The vanilla blends into the background tea base and is unimpressive.
Add milk and sugar and the vanilla pops out along with a rounded flavor profile from the tea base.
This is a crave worthy but just O.K. tea.

Normal.
Tea.

Taken with milk and 1tsp Sugar.
Not the best but nice flavor.
I enjoy it. Coconut and Vanilla flavor are the most prominent.

I took this with one tsp sugar and milk…. and without anything.
Without anything it’s bland… a liptonesk plain black with the smell if anything of vanilla.
And then you put milk and sugar in it and the flavors do open up.
The tea itself is mild with little to any astringency and with milk and sugar it is rich, sweet and smooth.
AND PLAIN!
You know that tea that you go back to when you are just trying to enjoy watching a movie and it’s late so you want so caffeine but you don’t want to worry about mucking up you cup by missing a timer or anything silly?
This is mine.
*Yes… I like older Disney movies … so I may be a bit biased for the novelty.

I didn’t use anything in this tea.
The taste up front is a dark-astringent oolong which fades into a sweet finish that also fades quickly. Very weak mouth and no lasting impressions what so ever.
Meh.

I didn’t use anything with this tea.
This is a dark fermented oolong with a lot of toastiness but a very weak mouth. Paired with it being a fussy brew and the very hot taste being slightly astringent no matter what you do makes it not high up on my list.
The astringency goes away as the tea cools but none of the other negatives are mitigated by cooling.

No additives.
I will probably never give a tea a perfect rating. This tea took me by surprise; the leaves look plain and don’t smell special at all. They have the annoying characteristic of greens and whites in that they are harder to measure because of their size and shape.
The flavor of this tea is beyond excellent. Take the 3 major qualities of green tea (toast, sweet, vegital) and blend them together so that all of them are distinct and compliment each other simultaneously while maintaining a very full mouth.
Just try it. I can’t even explain properly.
Awesome

No sugar added but I played with milk.
I feel like the black tea has an after taste I’m not too fond of but the coconut flavor is good with the tea.
Nice change from a plain black but I don’t think I will crave this.