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When I first opened the packaged I got the overwhelm craving for chocolate covered strawberries. This tea smells just like the big juicy ones my husband buys me for valentines day.

Overall I thought this was a really unique blend and probably something I wouldn’t have thought to order myself. It was a nice surprise finding it included with my order. I find that I don’t tend to like chocolate in my tea (I’m a real snob when it comes to the quality of chocolate) so this one surprised me with how much I enjoyed it. I really think the Indian black tea and Saffron are a great pairing, I really like the combination. Once steeped you can still taste the chocolate and saffron although the strawberry didn’t come through as much as I expected. I did notice it a lot more once this cooled to room temperature.

I don’t think this tea needs to be sweetened, I find that added any sort of sweetener (i tried several) tends to mask some of the more subtle flavors.

I didn’t order this the first time around because I don’t really care for pineapple all that much, but after reading so many great comments I broke down and ordered some with my second order. It tastes overwhelmingly like cake and went really good with the black raspberry chocolate chip gelato I had for dessert tonight. The pineapple doesn’t really come across, but that’s ok with me. Did I mention that this tastes just like cake? Warm, creamy, brown sugar filled goodness. Yum!

This smelled good enough steeping that my husband came in the other room to investigate. He thought I was baking again and wasn’t going to share which is how we ended up having gelato to go with the tea. Once I plant the idea of sweets in his head that craving must be met.

I try to avoid caffeine in the mornings, but some days you just need it to get going and today was just one of those days for me. I just got a sample of Utopia’s Irish Breakfast tea in the mail and knew that should do perfectly for me and lucky me it was just enough for my travel mug.

I can’t really remember the last time I had Irish Breakfast, it isn’t among my regular teas, but I knew it was a good strong blend and this didn’t disappoint. This was strong with a bit of a bite to it, yet not bitter at all. This is one of those teas that is perfect for a dreary morning like today and it is great with a splash of milk and honey. This also resteeps well, I iced my second steep down for later when it starts to warm up.

Tried this iced this morning and the rose comes through much better, but isn’t overwhelming.

After spending the last few hours at the coffee shop actually drinking coffee instead of tea I came home wired, this is a state I try to avoid at 10pm, or any time really. This was a perfect bridge between my coffee binge and my evening cup of chamomile.

I’m really starting to become a fan of honeybush, the last several that I’ve tried have been wonderful. This has a nutty taste to it that works really well with the honeybush base. I’m not sure if I’ve had anything hazelnut before tonight, but I’m sure a fan. I could see this going into my regular rotation of teas that I drink in the fall since that is when I usually drink the nutty/earthy types, something about them just scream fall to me.

So a fun note about this one, it is a huge hit with my toddler. He takes a huge drink then goes ahhhhh. It’s pretty funny to watch.

I don’t let him have juice so blends like this are a good alternative for him. I may keep the last bit of this sample for him to drink this summer.

I had a really hard time picking the rose out of this once it cooled off, it’s really subtle. If you aren’t a fan of overly floral rose teas then this might be a good one to try out. It tends to fall into the to weak category in my opinion, but it isn’t a bad tea. I seem to have that reaction to Adagio teas quite a bit so I think next time around I’ll use 1.5 teaspoons per 8 oz since I like my tea a bit stronger. One thing I was pleasantly surprised about what that it wasn’t really bitter at all and I’ve come across many rose teas that are. I attribute that to the 3 minute steep time even though this is a black tea. I think that with a longer steep this could easily become rather bitter.

I did resteep this and while it wasn’t bad, I didn’t taste the rose at all. Honestly, I didn’t really expect to, I noticed that after the initial steep the rose petals had gone completely white.

I love this! I had seen something similar at Teavana, but the pushy sales person there led me to look for other options. This is what I settled on and it is perfect and I don’t need to worry about my toddler getting ahold of it and breaking it. In the last week he’s managed to drop it several times on our tile floor and it bounces rather well.

The 16oz cup size is good for me and I like that there is also a 32oz option as well. I don’t have any serious complaints about it, but it doesn’t work with my 18oz stoneware mugs that I prefer to use for tea. Not a serious problem in my book, I’ve got a ton of other mugs that work just fine with it, they just don’t look as pretty.

It does drip a little on the counter after use, but I’ve solved this problem by setting the ingenuiTEA on top of a plastic lid from a 32oz gas station cup. It is the perfect size to fit down in the groves of the lid and it doesn’t depress the bottom and let tea go everywhere. I think I’m seriously channeling McGyver here :)

I love how easy clean up is and running a little vinegar water through it eliminates any lasting smell or taste from my stronger teas. I find that sometimes when I steep something with spices it tends to linger a bit and transfer to my next cup.