Kupgup Send Message

This was one of several samples The Tea Merchant included with my order. Such a nice surprise!

I really enjoyed this one. It has a lovely, delicate, complex blend of scents and flavors. The bergamot is subtle—this tea is not trying to be an Earl Grey. It’s just enough to provide a hint of citrus. The teas themselves are a nice blend of sweet and vegetal, with subtly floral notes.

The vanilla flavor was definitely there, but not too strong. I appreciated that it was fairly balanced. I’ve tried a few other flavored black teas from Adagio, and I’ve tended to think they go to extremes.

I found the tea overall kind of boring, though. I think I’m not fond of the Ceylon they used as the base for this.

This seems to need a bigger dose of dry tea than what I used—and I’d thought I was being pretty generous. It ended up a bit weak after adding milk.

This is a pretty basic chai. It had more cinnamon and clove than I would prefer, but not enough to put me off. (That’s just personal taste; both spices were at a level I generally expect from a chai.)

The tea was a more prominent flavor than I expected—I could taste it clearly through the spices.

I’m not sure how this managed to be so watery-tasting. Based on Adagio’s brewing advice for other blood orange versions, I used a generous 2t of dry tea, boiling water, and gave it a good 10 min steep time.

I couldn’t discern any flavors besides teeth-punching hibiscus.

It was slightly better when it had cooled to warm-but-not-hot, so I thought I’d try pouring the rest over ice. Turns out it suits me no better cold. (Diluting with melted ice probably didn’t help when it was already weak. Though the hibiscus was still too much—so there is probably no balance that I’ll like.)