Dydrian

Been a while since I’ve posted anything on here, but I just put in an order for some new teas and have been trying to polish off some of the older samples I’d forgotten I had.

I’m pretty sure that this sample is at least two years old, it’s from when Adagio was still packaging everything in tins. The smell and flavor was surprisingly pretty well intact. I didn’t pay much attention to the brewing process as I was trying to make something pretty quickly to take to work with me while I was eating breakfast. I’m pretty sure I used a little bit too much leaf because it came out a bit too astringent, but adding a little bit of plain water helped to alleviate that.

The aftertaste is almost a little bit toasty, and the mouthfeel is pretty smooth once the astringency is taken out of the equation. It’s certainly nice, but I’m not sure if I’d want to make it an everyday sort of tea.

No notes yet.

Ehh, I never am sure how to feel about this tea. I was excited when I ordered it because I love the individual flavors and thought that they might go well together. I got it a while ago and still have quite a lot of it because I’m afraid to make it half the time. The first time I ever made it (months ago, now) it came out really well. The second time it tasted so horrible and bitter and… soapy that I had to throw out the entire pot. It was utterly undrinkable. I’ve always kept to the safe side and used small amounts of leaf and shorter steeping times than I normally would with black teas.

Overall, this doesn’t really taste like vanilla, cream, or Earl Grey. It’s just sort of a black tea with a little bit of an almost milky aftertaste that doesn’t stand out much. At best it’s drinkable and at worst it’s absolutely wretched. I wish I’d only gotten the sample size and not the full 4oz tin.

I’m just finishing my third steep of this. It holds up pretty well to resteepings, and I think that the second was probably the best. It is just a bit finicky so the water temperature and steep times really need to be watched, but when it comes out good, it’s great. The first steep was a bit vegetal, but the second was distinctly sweeter and reminded me of apples a little.

Ah, this is so much lighter than any other Grey tea I’ve had. A nice change after the filling Masala Chai I had earlier. It smells nice, both in the tin and in the pot, I could see this being an everyday sort of tea. The one thing that I’m noticing that seems strange is this sort of delayed aftertaste that reminds me of something like an apricot or mango flavored candy. It might just be a result of having had the Masala first, but it’s pretty strange.

I made this for my dad and myself after he dropped me off at my apartment and was so kind as to purchase the stuff for me. Back to school soon, blagh. Having this straight up because, I don’t have any milk right now so the traditional preparation is out. This is nice, it’s spiced, but not too spicy. I was a bit worried that it might be overwhelming but it really isn’t. It seems to be getting sweeter as it cools off too. It seems to have a sort of stick-to-your-ribs vibe about it. Like it’s filling. I’m sure it would seem even more filling with milk and sugar in it as well.

I just noticed that this finally came back into stock and I had to get it. The mint is pretty strong, and the darjeeling is an interesting replacement. It makes the tea come out a bit darker than the Moroccan mints I’ve had that used the more traditional gunpowder. At any rate, I do like this quite a bit.

This is the last of what I have! I might just have to get some more, I really enjoyed it. This seems to have more bergamot than any other Earl Grey I’ve had, it’s strong and citrus-y. Definitely not for people that don’t like citrus or bergamot flavors in their tea. There’s also some lemongrass and those little blue flowers in it that seem to be in most loose leaf Earl Greys I’ve come across.

I can’t figure out why this smells like bubblegum to me. Both the dry leaves and the tea seem to. It doesn’t really taste like bubblegum at all though which is probably a good thing, unless you’re really looking forward to having some bubblegum flavored tea. I keep wondering what those little blue flowers are scattered around in so many Earl Greys I’ve seen. Do they even add any flavor or are they just there to look pretty?

Ah well, this is pretty solid and hard to mess up too badly, though I may have steeped it a little too long this time as the aftertaste was just a bit more bitter than usual.

Bought this on a lark when I was last at my local tea shop. Ahh, the dry leaves smell just like an Andes candy or a Peppermint pattie. So delicious, it makes me want to just try eating it though that would probably be a horrible idea. Let’s see… the liquor is a bit of a sickly brown, sort of like the way my lapsang souchong always looks. Oh, but it smells just like mint chocolate brownies!

So, let’s just take a sip and.. huh? Where’s the flavor? Ah, well… it’s in the aftertaste. Minty, just a little chocolate-y. The liquid itself doesn’t seem to have much going for it though. Sort of… woody tasting. It’s like drinking hot water and then chasing it with a mint chocolate candy. It smells so spectacular but the tea itself doesn’t live up the the expectations it causes by smelling so nice. I don’t think I’ll buy this again, but it was an interesting thing to try out at least.

Another tea bought because Adagio was out of the one I really wanted, but that I turned out to really like anyway. I got a free sample of the Cancer tea the first time I ordered from them and loved it. I wanted to order an actual tin but of course at the time they were out so I looked around, found the Pisces blend to look agreeable enough, and purchased. I’m glad I did, I’m nearly out of it now. I like to brew it pretty strong and the flavor seems to more or less hold up as it cools down, but I don’t think I would want to try it iced.

For being mostly a Rooibos and flavored black tea blend, this is pretty light and refreshing. I’d liken it to a gentle warm breeze on a cool spring day. Most of the flavor that comes through is the rooibos, but the chamomile and orange are there if you look for them. One thing about premade blends that I’ve noticed is that for some reason the ingredients seem to separate in the containers. This usually has chamomile on the top, then a layer of rooibos, and then the black tea, then the rooibos again. I’ve noticed the same with my bag of Foxtrot, the chamomile is somehow always at the top of the bag and I have to shake it to get to the rooibos and mint. Why does chamomile float when it’s mixed with dry ingredients?

Having some fruity reliable Citron Green to wash away the taste of Foxtrot popsicles, which were not a good call on my part.

The first time I had this in a green tea sampler from Adagio it turned out to be the only green tea that I like by itself. I gave away the rest of the samples except for this and the gunpowder that I use for Moroccan mint blends sometimes. Greens aren’t exactly… ahem… my cup of tea.

It tastes like Fruit Loops. That’s the one thing I keep seeing over and over and it’s true. It tastes more like Fruit Loops or some other sort of fruity something or other than a green tea. So, if you don’t like green tea but you do like slightly sweet and fruity flavored teas, this might be something you’d like.

Aah, Foxtrot. I’ll admit, the first thing about this that got my attention was the name. I have a soft spot for theme naming things so Adagio always manages to pique my interest with their music and dance themed names.

I love the individual ingredients by themselves, chamomile, rooibos, and peppermint. Somehow the blend of all of these doesn’t exactly taste like any of them but it does still have aspects of each flavor. The mysterious creamy aspect that others have mentioned is definitely there and I love it.

I had a strange idea to try and make foxtrot popsicles while I was cleaning out the tupperware cabinet and found one of those set-of-four popsicle molds that I don’t think I’ve seen since the summers of my youth. After waiting a few hours for the popsicles to freeze…. well it wasn’t the greatest idea. At best, it tastes like foxtrot, at worst (roughly every other lick) it tastes strangely bitter and medicinal. Where does that even come from? I think I’ll just drink it normally in the future.

Had two steeps of this with a bit of sugar each time. It’s one of the few teas I’ll usually take with sugar. I remember that I really only ordered this because Adagio’s Casablanca Twist was out of stock (and has been for at least the past 6 months or so, c’mon guys!) and I had wanted to get some sort of Moroccan Mint tea. Luckily, I loved this tea and am almost out of it. I’m not sure if I’ll reorder, or just hold out hope for the Casablanca Twist to come back in stock.

The tea is good, but the name is a bit misleading. There’s lemongrass which is supposed to serve as the ‘Citrus Twist’ but because of the gunpowder I don’t dare brew this for longer than 3 minutes, which doesn’t give the lemongrass much time to infuse. Of course that means that the citrus aspect is almost entirely absent.

Too lazy to brew loose leaf right now, having woken up a scant 2 hours ago. I really need to stop staying up so late, haha. Anyway, I got this from a German bakery over the Christmas holiday when we were visiting my Dad’s side of the family. I’ve never had just peppermint, I’ve had it in blends before though.

Oh wow, I’m a bit surprised at how dark the brew is. It almost looks like a black tea, but the box says that there’s only peppermint, nothing else. Huh. The taste isn’t spectacular, but it’s nice. Most of the mint flavor is in the aftertaste unless you slurp it, which I don’t tend to do too often. It’s helping to wake me up though, and that’s all I really needed.

Lapsang Souchong, that infamous Love It Or Loathe It tea. I fall into the Love It camp, but even then I still have to be in the right mood to drink the stuff. Luckily today was chilly and brisk enough to give me a craving for liquid bonfire after I’d gone to the dentist for a tooth cleaning. (Begone, pesky tea stains!)

I usually just take my tea straight, no sugar, no milk, no lemon or anything. I made an exception today though. I got out a giant mug which I’m fairly certain is intended for soup and holds the same amount of drink as my teapot (it’s a personaliTEA from Adagio) and after putting the water on to boil I added a fair helping of sugar and milk to the mug. I started to panic a little when I finally poured the Lapsang, sure that I’d used far too much milk as it pretty much still looked like milk when I’d emptied my small teapot into the mug. Wonderfully, though, it tasted perfect! It was sweet and creamy and smokey and even better than I would have hoped it might be! I’ll probably never be able to replicate those ratios of sugar, milk and tea again though.

Backlogging. I had 3 steeps of this today. Each progressive steep got sweeter and sweeter tasting, and the jasmine seemed to get more subtle each time, which was actually really nice and made it go down smoother than the first steep. I’ll have to remember to resteep this every time I have it now, it’s almost painful to think about how many times I drank this and only did one infusion before tossing out the tea leaves! At least I still have a good portion of my 4oz tin left.