Adagio Teas

I threw away the bag, but I think it said to use 2 teaspoons for 3-5 minutes. Using one teaspoon isn’t that bad, but the flavor is a lot weaker. Left the leaves in my cup this time and it’s a bit irritating to drink (I couldn’t find the lid for the cup). The one thing I like about this tea is that it never gets bitter (or at least, I’ve never messed it up to where it has become bitter).

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mmmm first tea for today; taken with milk. I still think the best description of this is “blue.” I think this is the only way I can drink earl grey and really like it. I really love this tea!

A final note on this tea. (I still have some tea bags of it, though, so I might come back to it.) In the loose form, apparently the raspberry leaves settled or something, because the second to last cup of this tasted a bit sage-ish to me and wasn’t as good as I had come to expect. In fact, I threw out the last cup’s worth of leaves because I couldn’t bear to think about drinking it. Note to self: if I get this in loose form in the future, make sure the leaves don’t settle!

I love artichokes. They are my all time favorite salty food. Green tea with artichoke? Sounded promising… Must try it. Tonight, finally, I get around to this sample. It has been a very busy couple of weeks and I have managed to get carpel tunnel in my right hand from typing… So I believe my tasting notes will be a bit shorter than usual for a while. 

The dry tea smells vaguely fruity. It reminds me of a mild version of Adagio’s Guanabana tea. The leaves are bright green and inviting.

Once brewed it smells a bit like artichoke, but not enough. It is tasty, but not quite artichoke tasty. It has a pleasant sweet aftertaste, similar to the aftertaste of an artichoke. Still taste a bit of fruitiness.

I have to confess that I decided to add a dash of salt to see what happened. Turns out it was a bit more savory, but also reminded me a bit of drinking sea water…. So probably won’t be doing that again. I rather not feel like I am sipping watered down ocean… 

Adagio gets points for coming up with this amazing idea. It still needs some work before it is perfect, but I enjoyed it plenty. 

Enough typing for now. Time to rest my aching hand… Argh… Why did I work so hard!!! : (

I brewed and drank this tea out of my large gaiwan Chinese “glass brewing style”. This new style Pi Lo Chun is a lot more interesting in my opinion as it has a enjoyable sweet fruity taste to it which is neither too floral nor too grassy. While the tea does have some subtle smoke under notes to it, the smoke is light enough that it should not be a problem for anybody that likes fruity but not smoky greens.

I brewed and drank this tea out of my large gaiwan Chinese “glass brewing style”. In my opinion this tea can be summed up with the word balance. If one likes strong grassy or floral green teas this is not a tea for you but if you would like something in the middle between the two. On the surface level you have a naturally sweet tasting green tea with a nice middle between grassy and floral but if one gets extra critical they can likely pick up flavor notes from both sides of the spectrum and a little hint of bamboo.

The IDEA behind Adagio’s interpretation of this tea isn’t completely irrational.
Masala Chai is, afterall, generally made with very low quality tea, but then again – that’s the point. You don’t need to add sugar, spice and everything nice to GOOD tea. Masala Chai plays off its own unsophistication by making all the add-ins part of its personality. The tea is really just a base for the other ingredients to play out on your taste buds. It’s harsh and bitter enough that it gives even tea purists an excuse to throw in some milk (or, in my case, soymilk) and sugar (again, in my case, vegan sugar) so mellow it out, making it more of a fun treat than just a tea.
In that sense, making the tea with anything other than CTC Assam, promising a bold, straight forward flavor, is nothing but a novel experiment. Maybe I would be giving this tea a higher rating if I hadn’t had the following experience with it:

I wanted to make some Masala Chai for my girlfriend and her mom. They’ve both done a great deal of cooking for me over the months, and as I can’t make much more than a sandwich (and even then, not a good one) I wanted to repay the effort with something I CAN cook. My sister and I used to make MC in the kitchen almost every night, with a pan, a simple syrup, the tea, and some milk.
So I tried doing the same thing at my girlfriend’s place, with high expectations from all.
The first thing I noticed, as I neared what should have been the end of the process, was that the tea’s flavor was completely nonexistent amongst the soymilk and spices – what I didn’t know, was that the tea I was brewing was MUCH weaker than what should be used in a Masala Chai. So I brewed it longer, and eventually added more tea. I spent probably half an hour in the kitchen, trying my hardest to salvage something about of the mess. The end result, which I begrudgingly and with a great amount of chagrin served, was only drinkable because of the vast amounts of sugar I had to pour in. The ginger was absolutely overpowering, and the only flavor this “higher quality” product contributed was the unpleasantness of an over-stewed tea.

There’s definitely room in the world of tea to experiment, but when you undermine the driving concept behind a certain tea, maybe you should second-guess yourself. Maybe it’s my fault for not paying attention to the specifics of what I was buying, but when it goes to something like Masala Chai, the only variance I should be seeing is in the ratio of spices, not the tea itself.

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Water wasn’t as hot as I like to brew a good black tea (from the hot water machine at work) but I now have a cup of tea that has a chance of waking me up.

Dangit, I didn’t put enough of the little pearls in my cup this morning, so I got barely flavored water. Le sigh. And then it cooled because I went to a meeting. So unfortunately, I didn’t get a good cup this morning. Now I am coding, and I need a stiffer beverage, to keep me awake. Out it gets dumped.

Received this in sample form from Adagio. Didn’t love it the first time I tried it – that was hot, steeped 9+ minutes because I forgot about it… This, I’ve iced with a bit of sugar and added a splash of seltzer for a little fizz. It’s good. Not something I want to buy – the hibiscus is a bit too overwhelming, and I’ve tried better teas which are similar – the Turkish Apple Vanilla from Fusion Tea Room comes to mind. But you know, it’s good. I’ll drink the tea, but I won’t order more.

Hum. I’m perplexed by this tea. I used to like Rooibos a lot, especially the Teavana blends, but now finding that I really don’t care for it. Still, I don’t know if it was all the fruit in the Teavana blends that made me like it, so I’m trying other blends – I don’t want to write off a whole category just yet. Anyway, I really like coconut, and mint, and I’ve never tried a chocolate tea before. This one is okay.

I smell the chocolate primarily, followed by the coconut. When I taste it, the chocolate rolls over my tongue and then there’s an aftertaste of mint. I don’t taste too much of the coconut, but there’s an oddly “clear” sort of taste as well that I’ve identified as rooibos. I really don’t know how to describe it, only that it’s cool and clean. I don’t think it’s the mint though, since it follows after the mint. I guess m main problem with this tea is that instead of tasting “Rooibos Cocomint,” I literally taste “Cocoa, Mint, Rooibos”

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Using up the last serving of this. The sampler tin is empty!

I am having this with my late breakfast of an English muffin and sausage patties, enjoying the last of the morning on my couch. Hopefully the sausage won’t affect my taste buds too much!

Brewed in my ingenuiTea. The tea brewed very dark while I fixed my brekky, so it probably went at least 5 minutes, i guess. After I decanted into my mug, I immediately added more water for a second brew, so it will steep awhile.

I’m not getting much taste out of it this morning, but like I said, the sausage might be overwhelming it a bit. Smells nice, not really a jump up and hit you scent. I might amend that after the allergy pill kicks in though.

Ok, breakfast is finished, and a few sips have been downed, and it hasn’t changed to the taste. It still seems like a fairly basic tea to me, nothing outstanding or unique. Not unpleasing, but not impressive either. I don’t think I’ll look to order more.

Okay, so the Sawadee stemed Darj was a fiasco, but there are other fishies in the sea. Here is one that came to me from Infusin_Susan and the amount of leaf was just right for a small non-sharing cup, although not for many short steeps, I don’t think.

This type has also been touch and go for me in the past. Either it’s tasted very floral and sort of cucumber/courgette-y or it has been slightly astringent with a strong note of nuts. I very much prefer the latter, really.

The aroma of this one is very much in the cucumber department with a few floral hints around it. At first sip, it’s very sweet, but then that cucumber-y notes start creeping up along the sides of the tongue and after just a few sips, I’ve got a strong aftertaste going on, reminding me a bit of the flavour you get if you take a sip of water just after having woken up. For some reason that just always taste a bit weird. The more I think about this one, the more I feel it has a metallic sort of tinge to it. Perhaps there is a smidge of nuts at the very, very top of the flavour, but not very much. Certainly not nearly enough to fit my idea of what I want it to taste like.

But on a positive side, it’s a decupboarding. We are drinking down the stash!

Now for the handful of other BMD samples I’ve got… I’ll finish this one off first though. It may not be anything particularly great, but it’s drinkable, which is more than I could say of the Sawadee.

OH! And I forgot to mention that yesterday’s expedition for bridal equipment was a success, and if anybody is interested in seeing a picture of the dress I chose, may add me on Livejournal or Dreamwidth (ask me for username) if they have an account there, and I’ll show you. Can’t do it here, because the boyfriend creature sometimes looks, and as far as he’s concerned, it’s a state secret. :D

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Adagio is an odd company—they’re so inconsistent! Some of their teas are great, some are downright icky, others are middle of the road. Usually companies are consistent in terms of the actual quality and I just have different opinions on the taste according to personal preference, but with Adagio it’s like a surprise in every bag. The second I opened this, though, I knew I was in tea-love.

Thai Chai is a winner for me for sure—I only got it in sample size and am already regretting that decision. I thought mixing H&S’s Bangkok and a base chai would yield similar results but this is definitely a different thing all together. I brewed this my usual chai way—extra strong and mixed with a ton of milk & sugar. It’s less fragrant than Bangkok for sure, and has a more earthy flavor as well as a less prominent lemongrass/coconut flavor and a more even amount of ginger. (disclaimer: Bangkok is my all-time favorite tea so I really do like the more prominent coconut/lemongrass flavors) But the spices are mixed very well here, with that signature “chai” taste in the background.

This is definitely a milder chai, not that spicy but still with the “spiced” flavor you’d want. I think it would be a great bedtime chai because of how creamy it is (even before milk—I’d assume that’s the coconut), though personally tea caffeine doesn’t make me that awake so it’s probably more of personal preference.

Sipping a cuppa while trying to work on Dropbox’s Dropquest. Stuck on Chapter 3, and I peek at their Facebook page to see someone referencing Chapter 22. It’s not worth my whole day for a gig of space! sheesh.

Anyway, a teaspoon of sugar, milk, and whipped a bit with my frother for a latte. That frother is the best Christmas present from my hubby EVAR.

I have hubby drinking tea now. I have never drank coffee at all, so with only one person drinking it, he kind of gave it up – it wasn’t worth brewing a pot full just for him, in his opinion. Started him on loose EG from Twinings, and then eased him over to this when I make a pot for me. I even have him liking Keemun Rhapsody. Converting him slowly! :D

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