LENA

I received a free bag of this when I ordered The Republic of Tea’s catalog. I’m not a fan and I love rooibos. This tastes mostly of stale rooibos and a little pomegranate. I mostly SMELL the pomegranate, not taste it. The vanilla is barely there in the aftertaste.

Oh well, at least it was free. You just can’t beat free tea.

I’m in a no-frills mood today. My husband had knee surgery on Monday, so I’m pretty much running dead on my feet. I need the warmth, the simplicity, the CAFFEINE to make it through the work day today. Then, family starts to come in…

Then I swap from teas to Bloody Marys.

YUM! A perfect combo of rooibos and peppermint. The peppermint is pretty overwhelming, but in a good way (if you like peppermint, that is). The rooibos backs up the taste with its full body of earthy goodness. I’m finding ZERO unpleasantries. No sugar needed. This would be great iced…maybe then I’d add a little sweetener. Super fresh tasting and my mouth is all tingly with peppermint cleanness. Lovely fresh aftertaste as well. This would be great to drink after a heavy meal.
A great choice to start my Friday!

Ya’ll…..

There were 2 big, honkin’ hairs in my sample tin. My never been opened, until now sample tin. I know for a fact that those hairs were not mine. Should I tell Adagio? Is this common? Should I just pick them out and drink up?!?! Ideas?

ICK! One more time. ICK! Where’s the peach? The ginger is so overwhelming and artificial tasting. If the tea wasn’t labled “Ginger Peach” I would have sworn it was just a Ginger flavored black tea. Adagio offers a flavored ginger tea, so I can’t imagine how much stronger and intense that tea would be. Yikes! I love ginger but this is just too much. I found myself grimacing and scrunching up my nose trying to finish the cup. And one cup was enough for me. The taste is lingering…and it’s not the most pleasant.

This one is going into the drawer of misfit teas in hope to be swapped at a later date.

Oh Ceylon Sonata, I like you. I’m 4 for 4 in regards to liking all of my new teas from my last Adagio order. Of course, I haven’t opened my savory sampler yet.

Anyway, this tea is basic and simple in the best of ways. Strong and mellow with a nice aftertaste. Almost any flavor would blend well with this tea…which is why Adagio uses this tea as the base of all of their flavored teas. It’s a perfect no-frills everyday tea. It can meld with anyone’s drinking habits. Milk and sugar, straight up, with honey, etc. Ceylon Sonata can hold its own. In the summer I would love this iced with some of my peppermint blended in. YUM!

So, this is one of Adagio’s highest ranked teas. I didn’t end that sentence with a question mark…I’m still forming an opinion as I type this.

For my 1st cup I added milk and sugar. It was a highly enjoyable cup…much stronger than English Breakfast, by far. The second cup I tried plain, nothing added. It was a little too “AHHH” in your face, so I added sugar. It has a bold taste. Very malty, a tad smokey, maybe a bit earthy? The smell is not that great.
It seems to me that if you can drink this tea plain, or even with sugar only, that you would like plain rooibos. I know there are some rooibos haters out there. For some reason these two strike me as similar…minus the malty taste in Irish Breakfast. Where rooibos lacks “malty” it makes up in “earthy”. I don’t know…I’m rambling.

Ok, with milk and sugar, I can see why this tea would rank so high. I’m a fan. Off to make another cup.

Well hello White Peach! We are gonna be friends.

Refreshing is the key word. Light, clean and naturally peachy. The flavor is delicate and the peach taste is not artificial tasting at all. Maybe it’s just me, but I love flavored white teas iced more than hot. I’m positive that this white peach will be the bee’s knees when iced. Mmmm…can’t wait.

First off, I’m sorry for blowing up everyone’s dashboard page. Ya’ll drank a lot of tea this weekend!!! Just trying not to miss anything.

The latest order from Adagio is in…lots of new teas to try and post about. My Monday morning is starting off with a cup of Assam Melody. I’m very happy with the cup despite being unable to identify one of the smells/notes. The closest I can guess is an ever so slight pine taste? It hits my tongue right before the aftertaste kicks in. I like it. It’s probably not pine. Maybe it smells like clean tea. Like a fresh out of the shower tea? Anyone else have a guess?

I’m not blown away by this tea, but it is quite nice. A couple of seconds after swallowing (after the cup cooled down), my mouth is devoid of moisture. Is Assam known for giving a dry-mouth effect? I did not notice this when the cup was still very hot.

Saving the savory teas until I’ve tried all of my other tins…..

Ok, take two.

Smell of leaves dry…amazing.
Smell of leaves wet…still pretty fantastic.
The tea steeps up all nice and dark…still smellin’ fab.

The taste is just not there! I can taste the angel food cake and bavarian cream flavors just fine…but that’s it. NO STRAWBERRY! And I see big ole hunks of strawberry floating around! If this tea was labled as “White Angel Food Cake” it would be spot on and I would be fairly impressed. Also, this go round, I steeped the heck out of it. Like 10+ minutes while I walked around the office making sure everyone knew it was Friday. Which it is. Which means that I will have a box full of tea at the foot of my door when I get home from work. Which is SWEET!

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend full of tasty teas!

Finishing up the last of my sample from Auggy. This one still doesn’t taste like an oolong to me but I’m a little sad to see it go. It brews up super dark for an oolong, but the taste is mellow and not bitter at all.

Anyone else in the US up for a tea swap? I have several greens and a few others that need a happy new home.

More #40, more #40! Start the wave!

I couldn’t drink anything else this morning. So much for this being my “special tea”. It’s too good to ration off. Two days in a row of #40 = a good thing.

This is such a good oolong. Really, it’s just Mmmm. I want all my oolongs like this. Simple, smooth, mellow, rich. Sooo good AND it holds up to multiple steeps very well. I believe one can only drink this tea hot…to ice it would cheapen it. (But it would probably still be delicious.) I’m raising my initial rating. Damn good.

Ending the work week on an almond-y note. I love this tea. It smells so good. This tea makes me want to bake goodies and fill my house with this smell. There are so many almond slivers in this tea that when it’s super hot, you can see little oil globules on the surface. Mmmm…globules.

Oh yeah, if anyone is interested in a tea swap, let me know. I have several greens that I’d like to give to a good home.

I have discovered something. This is my “frumpy” tea. I’ve noticed that when I drink this tea, it’s usually on a blah day. And yes, I’m wearing another hoodie. (Green Bay Packers if you want to know.) Drinking this tea hot = frumpy. Drinking this tea iced in the Summer = good times and fun outside. Pretty drastic difference, yet still enjoyable either way. I didn’t have any dried blueberries in this cup, so I’m not tempted with eating them this time.

Do you guys have a mood tea? I have days where the tea kind of decides my mood…and other days where my mood decides the tea. Yes, very prophetic, I know.

I like this oolong and I’m usually not a fan of hand rolled leaves. This tea is super sweet smelling. I caught myself thinking about cotton candy…but by the time I identified the smell, it faded out. My nose spent a lot of time in my cup. There are several fruity notes in this tea. It could almost be a flavored oolong. Tasty cup!

All of my chai samples are gone. It’s a very sad day. This was an above average chai, but I much prefer Adagio’s Thai Chai. The coconut and lemongrass in the Thai Chai really make a difference. I made up enough chai last night for several cups and a travel mug for this morning. I’ve gone 100% traditional when it comes to making chai, so I can only make it at home…not the office. holds arms in the air al a Fiddler on the Roof TRADITION!!!! It was pretty sweet to be able to drink this at work. It’s all special and whatnot.

I’m waiting to see if Adagio does any kind of November special and then I’ll reorder a big bag of Thai Chai for the hizzouse.

After trying several new teas, I had to go back to basics. Simple, mellow and tasty Wuyi Oolong…you’ve always been good to me. I haven’t forgotten about you. We’re cool, bro.

I’m loving the new grading system. Slide scales, cute little grading faces, oh my. More shiny things to keep me distracted from work. YAY!

Here’s another oolong that doesn’t taste oolong-y to me. I think it tastes just like a light to medium body black tea. I taste an earthy, rich and lightly smokey tea. I usually do not eat while I am drinking tea, but this one would pair well with several dishes. Kind of a basic black tea taste…but I like it.

I’m feeling a little sickly today, so I thought a touch of citrus might do me good. I can’t really taste the oolong due to the overpowering citrus, but I like it. Citron Oolong smells very clean and lemon-y. The taste is like a mild Fruit Loops/Fruity Pebbles kind of thing. Both wet and dry, the leaves and the flowers in the tea are very pretty to look at.
I’m a big oolong drinker, and I wish the oolong stood out a bit more…but this one is still a keeper.

This one is a bit dry, but very tasty in my opinion. You can taste the natural sweetness in the steam rising up from the cup. The color is deep golden…very pretty. It smells faintly of green tea but tastes nothing of it. I’m digging the slightly nutty flavor. I could drink this one all the time. I bet it would be tasty iced too. Yea Darjeeling!

I’m glad Auggy sent me a full sample tin!

A big “thank you” goes to Auggy for including this one in our tea swap. :)

The smell is so warm and inviting and the taste is equally as good. Very almond-y with a little cinnamon thrown in. I was worried that the cinnamon would overpower the tea (like quite a few others tend to do) but this was not the case. A very tasty cup for a rainy, funky day.
I want to dip homemade sugar cookies into this tea!!! Mmmm…

I received this tea as part of a swap. After smelling the tea, I was amazed. It smells sooo good. It smells better than real strawberry shortcake. Really, I swear! I have a thing about smelling everything (food, milk (even if it’s never been opened), feet, odd smells) I’m all over it. Don’t judge. Anyway, the tea smells awesome.

So, after steeping a cup, it STILL smells great. I take a sip expecting a taste to match the smell. Nope. Damn! It just tastes like a slightly sweet white tea. Blast! I’m thinking about using a huge heap of new leaves on top of my already steeped leaves for my next cup to try to capture the smell in the drink itself. Why oh why?

Not giving up yet!

This was a decent cup, but not something I would reorder. The oolong taste is very light and the coconut is present but still subtle. The re-steep was pretty nice…but nothing wowza.

Save your money for a better tea.